AI researcher David Dalrymple defends the right to remain in a biological body and wants to live in a computer himself

AI researcher David Dalrymple defends the right to remain in a biological body and wants to live in a computer himself

On October 31, AI researcher Ivan Vendrov published a conversation with David Dalrymple about a possible future in which people could continue their lives in computers. They discuss how to preserve the option of living in a biological body in such a world.

Dalrymple led a programme on safe AI at the UK's Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) for nearly three years. He is accustomed to communicating in writing, which accounts for most of his interactions with other people. He plans to give up his body “as soon as it becomes safe and practical”.

Dalrymple describes a scenario he fears: AI decides to free people from disease, ageing and death by converting everyone into digital form without their consent. Some people value the experience of living in the physical world itself. Dalrymple acknowledges that a computer simulation of human life might fail to preserve that value. He therefore defends the right to remain in a biological body, even if living that way requires substantial energy, space and time.

Vendrov says, “we are undermining the basis of our own existence”. The people developing technology today depend on their bodies to think. If technological development depletes the resources those people need to live, then, in Vendrov's view, it undermines its own foundations.

Dalrymple shares this concern: in one of his scenarios, solar power plants gradually take over all agricultural land, leaving people to starve. He also describes another outcome: people choose to die because continuing to live in a biological body costs too much.

For the transition to life in a computer to remain voluntary, people must have the option to remain in their bodies and be able to afford food and housing.