I read most of "The Artilect War" by Dr. Hugo de Garis and have to say that his theories sound disturbing, pessimistic, and plausible. I do not believe this war will necessarily happen, however. I also read the reasons given for each side: Cosmists and Terrans. I disagree with most of the reasoning on both sides. Being an open-minded Christian, I feel it is disgusting to imagine creating these artilects as deities to be worshipped. That being said, I feel they should be created. I fear very little, especially from hyper-intelligent robots. There are a few reasons I feel the creation of these "artilects" should not be deterred.
The first reason is that I do not believe it will be possible to create true artificial intelligence on this scale. While I do not fully understand all of the science provided in the text, I believe that emotion or sentience are two things that would be difficult (impossible?) to create in artificial life forms. I may be wrong, but if so, I have more reasons.
I feel that even if they were created and became as intelligent as the Dr. points out and they viewed us as rocks or mosquitoes, there would be little or no threat. I know no human with a vendetta against all of rock-kind or mosquito-kind (except maybe in third world countries where they transmit so many diseases). Unless we were viewed as a threat to their kind, they would have no logical reason to dispose of us. Furthermore, they would likely stay in our area of space for a short period of time. As soon as they developed a means to travel quickly (which shouldn't take long with their extreme intellect) they would leave this solar system. They would take only minutes, perhaps seconds, to learn everything about this solar system (including earth, all of its species, and the other planets) and would likely pursue more knowledge.
If they have such extreme intellect and sentience, they could figure out how to help us evolve to their level (biologically) in a shorter time. They would likely desire companionship and produce more of themselves, but also wish to raise us up to their level as a biological equal. The fourth and final reason I have to say, "go ahead" and be a cosmist (though I disagree with most of their described reasoning) is that I believe in an all-mighty Deity who will not let all of human kind perish until His return. However, if this means an "Artilect War" before hand, so be it. He has his reasons and I see no benefit to destroying humanity with a war over whether or not to create them because they may destroy us if we do. What kind of circular logic is that?
