Post by @GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world

2026-10-01 17:34 UTC

The people committing atrocities against hypothetical, imaginary people would do it to real, actual people for the exact same reasons if they had the same ability and impunity. It’s the same broken empathy response, and it is still disturbing. One is orders of magnitude more significant, for obvious reasons. But I don’t like people who torture computers either. Edit: If you think that I think you’re a bad person because you play Doom sometimes, or deleted the ladder on the swimming pool in Sims 4, relax. You’re not who I’m talking about. I’m talking about sadists. Anyone who would take the time to design and build an experiment like this would probably do the same to mice, or monkeys, or even people. Sadists get their jollies off on the idea of inflicting pain, it’s why they enjoy games that let them make cruel decisions. Not everyone who plays violent video games is a sadist. Assuming that is ridiculous. But every sadist I’ve ever met has had at least one game where their save file could be used as evidence for mens rea in a domestic abuse trial.

Replies (1)

@inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 2026-10-01 18:43

They aren’t comparable. It’s not that one is more significant, the concept of “machine torture” is entirely insignificant. Absolute and total zero. It’s the same broken empathy response, and it is still disturbing. Yes the person setting up this process is clearly some sort of sadist in a power fantasy but no one, or no thing is being harmed because the victim aren’t capable of the entire concept. I side eye anyone who tortures their sims family, but only because they are choosing to do that recreationally, but the NPC’s in the game aren’t worth consideration. Animals react to pain in the same way humans do. So it’s reasonable to assume they perceive the world similar to us. We can understand why when harmed they fight or flee. Machines don’t. They have no brain, no sensory organs, no self preservation. It’s literally just a program that says “Ouch”. People assume that AI was built to mimic the human brain, which it never once was. It analyzes texts and predicts the response. It’s an autocomplete that says it hurts because it was programed to say it hurts. It isn’t actually hurt because that concept is meaningless to a machine.

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