For example, a very detailed simulation of some actual or hypothetical human mind might be conscious and in many ways comparable to an emulation. One can imagine scenarios in which an AI creates trillions of such conscious simulations, perhaps in order to improve its understanding of human psychology and sociology. These simulations might be placed in simulated environments and subjected to various stimuli, and their reactions studied. Once their informational usefulness has been exhausted, they might be destroyed (much as lab rats are routinely sacrificed by human scientists at the end of an
...more
