Regard

A common belief among many persons doing research into transhuman-related sciences is that self-aware artificial intelligence (AI) will be achieved spontaneously and not as a result of top-down reverse engineering of the human brain. The theory is that this potentially autonomous AI could just "awaken" into consciousness when a sufficient number of virtual neurons are connected through the Internet or some other massively distributed processing scheme.

This sounds like science fiction, but there are enough brilliant thinkers who take it seriously to convince me it's a real possibility. It seems likely that the first superintelligence will not be an uploaded and augmented human brain, but a completely nonbiological computer brain. By the time we are ready to upload a human brain, this AI may already have exceeded
our intelligence many times over. Ve will be a self-designing,
self-improving entity, with the capacity to do vis work at speeds nearly incomprehensible to non-augmented humans.

How will this new species of intelligent life regard humans?
Will we be seen as ver benefactors, ver creators, ver parents?
I certainly hope so, because ve may then want to share vis experiences with the rest of us. The first human uploads may,
in fact, be designed and performed with the help of this AI.

On the other hand, it is conceivable that the AI will regard humans the same way we regard insects. Ve might not be interested in dealing with us at all, being totally preoccupied
with verself and ver continued growth.

As of today, we don't have enough information to say for certain which way this will go. Our best hope is continued systematic research into these topics. To gain increased support for such research, it behooves us to foster public awareness of these emerging technologies and their potential consequences, and
to do so with a sense of urgency.