Creating 'human level' intelligence in animals (Uplift)

Inspired by this thead:

Screw the limitations. Using anything within our ability and given enough time…could we ‘uplift’ (using Brin’s words) certain animals to human/near human intelligence levels?

So, what you’re asking is that if we ignore anything that would stop us from doing something, could we do it? I’ll take a WAG and say “yes”.

More seriously, I think we don’t really know. We don’t yet fully understand what it is about humans that gives us our intelligence, beyond a vague perception that it has to do with the complexity of our brain structure. Without a better understanding of our target, it’s hard to design a program to hit the target.

I know enough about genetics to say that I wouldn’t attempt it via direct genetic engineering, if I were given the task. Again - far too much we don’t understand yet. I think our best bet would be to go with selective breeding and wait for the mutations to arise naturally. Given unlimited resources, I’d have vast numbers of breeding stock exposed to mutagens to speed up the process.

Why is it that we would want to do this? What benfit will we get in exchange for our vast commitment of time and resources?

Not being alone in the universe?

Also, furry-sex.

Because when the Galactics show up, we can point to our Uplift program as proof that we should be treated as Patrons, rather than being force-adopted as the client of some horrible species like the Jophur.

You can convince a normal dog to lick your naughty bits with just a smear of butter. I suspect an uplifted dog would be less easily persuaded. Thus, I submit that we cannot automatically expect to reap furry-sex as the fruit of our labors.

If it became feasible to “Uplift” almost any species with a brain and a central nervous system, think about everything we can learn from them. About their instincts, their mating habits, their… their um… oh fuck it, who am I trying to kid? We’d enslave them and have them do our laundry.

Didn’t someone make a movie about this? Something do with damned dirty apes, and I recall a scene with the Statue of Liberty at the end. . .

… yeh, but they blew it all up.

The screw the limitations were like the self imposed no-genetic-engineering from the inspiring, linked thread.

Well…YEAH! If it wasn’t for our uplifted dolphins and chimps…we’d be really screwed.

Taking the first part of your post as the serious part… If you uplifted their intelligence, you’d probably not preserve their un-uplifted instincts.

I believe that the point of life is to make more life, and the point of intelligence is to create more intelligence.

We like to have other people to talk to. Who cares if the other people are people we made, and who don’t look like us?

I mean, if we shouldn’t uplift animals, doesn’t that mean we shouldn’t try to create machine AI?

Have you exhausted the conversational possibilities with every human on Urth yet?

Workin’ on it. That’s what the internet’s for.

Yes, it was “Escape from New York”, right?

“Planet of the Apes”

I’d say yes. Adding intelligence in general is a good thing, in my opinion. But it should only be done with other changes, like extending lifespan, granting the ability to speak, and either giving them good hands or machines that can substitute for them. Just giving a dog human intelligence would just result in what would amount to a severely disabled person by human standards; no hands, can’t talk, and he or she won’t live very long. And they’d be smart enough to actualy realize how screwed they are.

I don’t see why not; humans have instincts after all.

I didn’t mean to imply that the uploaded animal wouldn’t have instincts, only that they would probably be different from the ones they had pre-upload. Not to mention you’re probably better off learning about an animal’s instincts by studying that animal objectively, not by asking it what its instincts are.

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