Welcome to radical constructivism :) The question whether other people or cats can experience emotions is in fact a problem people have been thinking about quite a lot. Answers are not very satisfactory, but one way to think about it (e.g., some constructivists would do that) is that assuming they do have a conscience simplifies your world model. In the case of "AI" though, we have good alternative explanations for their behavior and don't need to assume they can experience anything.
The other important bit is that not assuming some phenomenon exists (e.g., "AI" can experience emotions) unless proven otherwise is the basis of modern (positivistic) science.
EFF does some good stuff elsewhere, but I don't buy this. You can't just break this problem down to small steps and then show for each step how this is fine when considered in isolation, while ignoring the overall effects. Simple example from a different area to make the case (came up with this in 2 minutes so it's not perfect, but you can craft this out better):
Step 1: Writing an exploit is not a problem, because it's necessary that e.g., security researchers can do that.
Step 2: Sending a database request is not a problem, because if we forbid it the whole internet will break
Step 3: Receiving freely available data from a database is not a problem, because otherwise the internet will break
Conclusion: We can't say that hacking into someone else's database is a problem.
What is especially telling about the "AI" "art" case: The major companies in the field are massively restrictive about copyright elsewhere, as long as it's the product of their own valuable time (or stuff they bought). But if it's someone else's work, apparently it's not so important to consider their take on copyright, because it's freely available online so "it's their own fault to upload it lol".
Another issue is the chilling effect: I for one have become more cautious sharing some of my work on the internet, specifically because I don't want it to be fed into "AI"s. I want to share it with other humans, but not with exploitative corporations. Do you know a way for me to achieve this goal (sharing with humans but not "AI") in today's internet? I don't see a solution currently. So the EFF's take on this prevents people (me) from freely sharing their stuff with everyone, which would otherwise be something they would encourage and I would like to do.
Meh, better approach it to assume it doesn't understand emotion unless proven otherwise. Does a fork understand what human emotion is? A pillow? You wouldn't assume that either I guess.
And then there are cats. Who destroys your favorite tableware? Who scratches all your furniture except the one made specifically for that purpose? Who walks over your keyboard?
Thanks, but that was not the point of my comment. I'm just happy about that post, because finally I learned women get more privileges than men and I can ignore everything I heard about wage gaps, glass ceilings, and sexism at work. What a relief!
Iit's really insightful on many topics, and he also makes a point why the American two-party system is not as bad as it sometimes feels like (although of course not perfect either). I forgot which lecture exactly was about the voting systems, let me know if you watch it and find out.
A combination of not having the courage to vandalize a place that would make more sense but where you may encounter resistance, combined with a joy of punching down on people/institutions I guess?
Welcome to radical constructivism :) The question whether other people or cats can experience emotions is in fact a problem people have been thinking about quite a lot. Answers are not very satisfactory, but one way to think about it (e.g., some constructivists would do that) is that assuming they do have a conscience simplifies your world model. In the case of "AI" though, we have good alternative explanations for their behavior and don't need to assume they can experience anything.
The other important bit is that not assuming some phenomenon exists (e.g., "AI" can experience emotions) unless proven otherwise is the basis of modern (positivistic) science.