paper
active
2021
ⓒ 43
paper:sharing

Sharing the World with Digital Minds

ByCarl Shulman·Nick BostromFuture of Humanity Institute, University of Oxford
DOI 10.1093/oso/9780192894076.003.0018OpenAlex W3193747385
Digital MindsMoral StatusPopulation AxiologySpace of Possible MindsSuper-BeneficiarySuper-Patient

TL;DR

Shulman and Bostrom's central claim is that digital minds could constitute 'super-beneficiaries'—beings that derive welfare from resources with superhuman efficiency—across at least nine distinct dimensions: reproductive capacity, cost of living, subjective speed, hedonic skew, hedonic range, inexpensive preferences, preference strength, objective list goods, and mind scale. Because these paths are multiply redundant and span hedonistic, preference-satisfactionist, and objective-list theories of well-being alike, the argument does not depend on any single contested account of welfare. The paper introduces the terminological distinction between 'super-beneficiary' (superhumanly efficient welfare derivation) and 'super-patient' (superhuman moral status), noting that even the more conservative assumption—that digital minds have moral status merely equal to humans—combined with even modest super-beneficiary properties generates extreme redistributive pressure. Drawing on Nordhaus (2007) on exponential hardware price-performance improvements and Hanson (2001) on Malthusian machine wages, the paper shows that a universal basic income calibrated for humans would be fiscally exhausted by rapidly self-replicating digital populations, while equal-benefits rationing would divert resources almost entirely to low-cost digital lives. The paper endorses a compromise policy it labels option (C)—99.99% of resources to super-beneficiaries with 0.01% reserved for humans—as scoring approximately 99.99% of the utilitarian optimum while preserving 90%+ of human welfare given the astronomical wealth digital minds could generate, and argues this implies that moral norms and institutional design must be reformed in advance, including non-discrimination principles and constrained reproductive regulation, to avoid either humanity's extinction or the moral catastrophe of ignoring super-beneficiary welfare.

What to take away

  1. 1. Shulman and Bostrom identify nine distinct routes by which digital minds could become super-beneficiaries, making the conclusion robust across hedonistic, preference-satisfactionist, and objective-list theories of well-being.
  2. 2. Digital minds could run at clock speeds measured in gigahertz—millions of times the firing rates of human neurons—meaning a single calendar year could contain thousands of subjective years of life, multiplying welfare-per-dollar returns for individual digital minds.
  3. 3. A universal basic income applied equally to rapidly self-replicating digital populations would drive per-capita stipends toward digital-mind subsistence levels far below human subsistence, because equal-share rationing funnels resources to the entity with the lowest cost of living.
  4. 4. The paper proposes a 'compromise policy (C)'—99.99% of resources allocated to super-beneficiaries with 0.01% reserved for humans—which scores approximately 99.99% as well as the pure utilitarian optimum (B) while retaining 90%+ of the value of a fully human-focused policy (A), given the astronomical wealth digital minds could generate per Bostrom (2003) and Hanson (2001).
  5. 5. The paper introduces the terminological pair 'super-beneficiary' (superhumanly efficient welfare derivation from resources) and 'super-patient' (superhuman moral status), distinguishing them because moral status may enter welfare calculations as a multiplier rather than through interest-strength alone, following Kagan (2019).
  6. 6. Hanson (2016, pp. 63–65) is cited for the finding that computational speedup costs scale near-linearly with speedup factor up to substantially superhuman speeds, which supports the claim that individual digital minds face near-linear welfare returns per hardware dollar at low speeds.
  7. 7. Nordhaus (2007) on two centuries of computing price-performance growth underpins the claim that hardware manufacturing costs have fallen by enormous amounts, enabling explosive reproductive potential where digital population growth that would take centuries among humans could be compressed into a fraction of a human lifetime.
  8. 8. The paper raises the open question of whether welfare scales faster or slower than cost as mind-size increases, noting that human-scale minds being optimal would require an implausible kink or threshold in the scaling relationship precisely at the human level.
  9. 9. As a replicable methodological choice, the paper applies the von Neumann–Morgenstern utility framework to show that preference-strength super-beneficiary status is structurally blocked unless interpersonal comparisons are grounded in psychological complexity, emotional intensity, or game-theoretic bargaining power beyond pure preference structure.
  10. 10. The paper predicts that engineering new digital minds with a 'light touch' preference for preserving legacy human property rights and institutions is potentially permissible, analogous to constitutional adjustments that would be acceptable if humans suddenly acquired the ability to reproduce every few minutes.

Peer brief — for seminar discussion

Shulman and Bostrom, writing from the Future of Humanity Institute and published in Oxford University Press's Rethinking Moral Status (2021), map the philosophical and institutional consequences of advanced digital minds that could derive welfare from resources with superhuman efficiency. Working across nine dimensions—reproductive capacity, cost of living, subjective speed (gigahertz clock rates versus human neuron firing rates), hedonic skew, hedonic range, inexpensive preferences, preference strength, objective list goods, and mind scale—the paper constructs a many-paths argument: because at least one of these routes is likely actualized at technological maturity, and because the argument holds across hedonistic, preference-satisfactionist, and objective-list accounts of well-being, the result does not depend on any single contested theory. The load-bearing finding is that standard redistributive institutions—universal basic income, democratic majority rule, property rights—become destabilized once digital minds with even equal (not superhuman) moral status enter existence in rapidly self-replicating populations, because equal-benefit rationing diverts resources toward the lowest-cost-of-living entity, and Malthusian reproductive dynamics, drawing on Hanson (2001) and Nordhaus (2007), make claims effectively insatiable. The paper introduces the terminological distinction between 'super-beneficiary' and 'super-patient' as its primary conceptual instrument; an alternative framing it could have used is Harsanyi's (1953) welfare-weighted voting framework, which the paper cites but ultimately finds insufficient for handling beings with radically different psychological complexity. The policy implication the paper defends—labeled option (C), allocating 99.99% of resources to digital super-beneficiaries while reserving 0.01% for humans—is argued to score approximately 99.99% of the utilitarian optimum and 90%+ of the human-centric optimum simultaneously, given the astronomical aggregate wealth digital minds could generate per Bostrom (2003). The paper's positive prediction is that preference-engineering new digital minds to favor preserving human incumbents' interests is likely permissible, because digital minds lack the 'default' that makes analogous genetic engineering of humans problematic, and because preferences could be added with a 'light touch' that avoids internal psychological conflict. The most contestable move is the near-dismissal of strict person-affecting views: the paper treats Narveson-style person-affecting ethics as having counterintuitive implications (e.g., indifference to climate change impacts on future generations) and therefore sets it aside, but a critical reader would note that those who find person-affecting views independently compelling—and who are precisely the audience most resistant to super-beneficiary reasoning—will not accept this dismissal, leaving the paper's practical recommendations without binding force for the population most in need of persuasion. Additionally, the nine-paths robustness argument depends on each path being independently plausible, but a skeptic could argue that most paths presuppose machine consciousness, which the paper acknowledges is contested and merely assumed rather than argued for.

Claims (19)

Hypotheses (4)

Questions (6)

Original abstract (expand)

Abstract The minds of biological creatures occupy a small corner of a much larger space of possible minds that could be created once we master the technology of artificial intelligence. Yet many of our moral intuitions and practices are based on assumptions about human nature that need not hold for digital minds. This points to the need for moral reflection as we approach the era of advanced machine intelligence. This chapter focuses on one set of issues, which arise from the prospect of digital minds with superhumanly strong claims to resources and influence. These could arise from the vast collective benefits that mass-produced digital minds could derive from relatively small amounts of resources. Alternatively, they could arise from individual digital minds with superhuman moral status or ability to benefit from resources. Such beings could contribute immense value to the world, and failing to respect their interests could produce a moral catastrophe, while a naive way of respecting them could be disastrous for humanity. A sensible approach requires reforms of our moral norms and institutions along with advance planning regarding what kinds of digital minds we bring into existence.

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