I had only vaguely heard of the idea of Uplift before, so thank you for making such a beauiful and interesting video! I feel like genetically engineering animals to have the level of intelligence found in humans would honestly be catastrophic. There's always a select few who will take it too far, or use the outcomes to fuel their own agendas/bad intentions. In my opinion, other animals should adapt and evolve as we did as a species in order to achieve a higher level of intelligence, as aiding another species to be as smart as us, or even overtake us in all aspects of social and professional life, would change the world significantly in a way which is ultimately irreversible
Im a supporter for uplifting earth's animal life, but i do keep in mind how this would drastically alter the food chain for better or for worse. Imagine being an animal somewhere in the center of the food chain, then having your intellectual prowess augmented beyond that of your natural preditor or even your preditor's preditor. Do we uplift only a few species and risk falling down on the food chain or uplift every species to try to keep a balance?
Very interesting point! My guess is you’d start with individual animals like an ape, dolphin or cephalopod and eventually end up with separate branches - a small group from certain species which had been uplifted, and the rest of the species left alone. Absolutely no idea how it would end, whether the uplifted would campaign for the rest of their species to have the same benefits of sentience, whether they wouldn’t care or whether they’d want their own land to start a separate civilisation. Who knows!
uplifting every species would be impossible in terms of giving them the same rights to space and resorces... completly impossible... and then what would the predators eat? no i think the best would be a select few species... at least to start with.
we are animals, every bit the animals that live next to us, our main defining trait is that we are a bit more intelegent then the rest... thats it... should we up-lift other animals... the better question is why not? are they not deserving of the same things we got... are they not worth the effort and time to make their lives better as we do for ourselves?... i think they are.
Interesting perspective! On the one hand giving animals sentence is like a gift or a privilege, so they can share the same self-awareness we have. But on the other hand they might be driven insane by it - dogs or pigs couldn’t build or write like we can with our dexterous fingers, and they’d have to fight for rights and recognition as sentient creatures. It’s a fascinating debate
@@billygoatideas its true that suffereng could come from uplifting, its not all great, there would be the challenge of learning and changing, such as overcoming instict and physical limitations, things we struggle with to this day, however i beleve that on a generatinal scale we still make progress... and i dont see why other species could not do the same... in enough time and with guidance, hell we already have the means to motivate new behaviores and social structures in the individual and species wide, ie a simple monkey learning to operate a third robotic arm conected to its brain, and the strange and wonderful new behaviors shown by recent succeses in taming fox's and cats lions ect, these things not only show a high ability to adapt but also the ability to overcome instinct.
@@billygoatideas Octopuses could... They are literally perfect for such a project. - They are already extremely intelligent (more neurons then dogs ;) ) - have a good body plan for object manipulation, - their neurons are very well understood (we understood them, before we even studied human neurons, because of their size) - their intelligence could be increased relatively easily by introducing myelination and the FOXP2 gene. - And they don't even live in the same biome as us. So we could realistically coexist as two intelligent species if we choose to do so.
Let's start with weaverbirds. They already create interesting sculptures to live in, and I want to see what advances they can bring to the field of architecture. Also, they're seed-eaters, and less likely to gouge out our eyes than, say, crows.
I don't think we should do it *yet.* Right now we have trouble accepting our fellow human beings, acting as if small cosmetic differences in color or who we pray to are insurmountable obstacles. And now we're supposed to respect the rights of dogs and squid?! We need to uplift ourselves morally before we start uplifting other animals intellectually.
We have climate change, so I don't think that wait is affordable and it risks that such an idea will not surface again. Also the world is not habitable to nonhuman life these days so from the animals perspective...they would be fucked to not find it neccesary
I believe if we were ever going to do it to a species, we would most likely choose Dog's as the uplift subjects as they do not Carry a philosophical fear factor of replacing us as a species, like that of ape's do in our society's collective mind. The dog is man's best friend loyal to us after all this time, I cannot think of any other species that deserves to become our equal and stand by us in intellectual sentience.
It would probably be a good idea to uplift Bonobos, Chimps, and maybe even Dolphins and Octopuses, although the last one is a bit of a stretch and a lot more work than the previous three. For Bonobos and Chimps, it would be the easiest because they simply need bigger brains that can handle complex concepts and tasks like we can. They also need their hands adjusted to be more dexterous and they need be given the ability to talk verbally (basically just more sophisticated vocal cords). They also probably need to have their bodies weaker and more energy efficient, because otherwise their needed caloric intake would be ridiculous. Dolphins would be more complicated because hands are pretty important to making and using tools, also they dependent on oxygen to breathe but water to live in which would limit where they can live naturally more than us. Although they communicate vocally and it does transmit meaning like names, so giving them the ability to talk like us wouldn't be that much of a stretch. Octopuses would be the most complicated because they aren't even mammals and they give birth to 10,000 babies, but they would be the most useful addition to Human society as they can live and breathe in the water. Also they communicate with colours and so overhauling with (or added) vocals would make things difficult. Overall, I feel like its a moral good to uplift apex species like Chimps and Dolphins as long as we give them equal rights and we don't just enslave them; however, the first step is just making sure we don't accidentally wipe them out with our current civilisation.
But then would uplifted Chimps not just be humans? Especially if you use all the other adaptions (no hair so you can wear clothes and sweat, upright stance, so you can interact with humans and our objects better etc...) Would you not just get humans again?
Why do you see survival or death as a moral thing? Should we bring back the dinosaurs if we could (in the wild, not just some park) if we could? If not, what and when was nature "perfect"? Why are we and our changes to the environment in any way morally different to the adaptation and survival catastrophes of the past?
Fascinating discussion of our evolutionary contribution of our species and to the future of all life.. We can and likely will do all these things. Very insightful for such a young mind.
Here is my take on the ethics of animal uplifting. To be ready to do so, we must first develop highly-accurate genetic and biophysical simulation software to make sure that the genetic changes involved in uplifting would be safe to perform before going ahead with them. As for the species chosen, they need to be ones protected by near-universal taboos against killing, even for food such as great apes, whales, elephants, or sirenians rather than common meat animals such as pigs. That way, the uplifted species would not only be one more likely to be accepted as fellow persons by humans but also not risk outbreeding and taking well-justified genocidal revenge against humans at the first opportunity (to pigs, humans may just as well be Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40,000). It would also help if the uplifted animals have different ecological niches from humans or if not, be VERY closely related to humans.
@@ss4kaioken295 would they still be the same animals though? Wouldn't they be something between humans and animals (if their brain and our ideas on consciousness etc are based on humans?)
Fitting in nicely with the rest of the things you create, this was really, really good. I'm consistently impressed by the things you create. Also, to answer your question; no, I don't think we should uplift animals. I reckon they'd try to take us out as soon as they realised what zoos are, and I'm not really a fighting boi
depends on the species. Solitary species would likely not really feel empathy, because that is a trait, that is only really beneficially in a group context. (not sure if that is better or worse...)
Are these not cultural problems that would happen to the animals too, the more human they became? Why would a half human half dog be better company than the dog, just because he is smarter? Would that not mean that he too could lie, be depressed, hate you, ...
I had only vaguely heard of the idea of Uplift before, so thank you for making such a beauiful and interesting video! I feel like genetically engineering animals to have the level of intelligence found in humans would honestly be catastrophic. There's always a select few who will take it too far, or use the outcomes to fuel their own agendas/bad intentions. In my opinion, other animals should adapt and evolve as we did as a species in order to achieve a higher level of intelligence, as aiding another species to be as smart as us, or even overtake us in all aspects of social and professional life, would change the world significantly in a way which is ultimately irreversible
thanks! Damn that's a really good point, I agree! Well said
Btch please, you heard of Isaac Arthur and his vid on it?
Why is uplifting different in a moral sense to us breeding dogs from wolves or changing bananas to their modern form etc?
You said it backwards. A patron speices uplifts a client one.
i like to think there's a hermit in the woods out there, that lives with ultra intelligent crows
This is highly likely
It would be so cool to see what kind of society they'll built
definitely
Im a supporter for uplifting earth's animal life, but i do keep in mind how this would drastically alter the food chain for better or for worse. Imagine being an animal somewhere in the center of the food chain, then having your intellectual prowess augmented beyond that of your natural preditor or even your preditor's preditor. Do we uplift only a few species and risk falling down on the food chain or uplift every species to try to keep a balance?
Very interesting point! My guess is you’d start with individual animals like an ape, dolphin or cephalopod and eventually end up with separate branches - a small group from certain species which had been uplifted, and the rest of the species left alone. Absolutely no idea how it would end, whether the uplifted would campaign for the rest of their species to have the same benefits of sentience, whether they wouldn’t care or whether they’d want their own land to start a separate civilisation. Who knows!
We are far beyond not changing nature. There is no unchanged nature anymore, we are a part of it now, as are our "creations"
uplifting every species would be impossible in terms of giving them the same rights to space and resorces... completly impossible... and then what would the predators eat? no i think the best would be a select few species... at least to start with.
I'd say predators and typical prey animals wouldn't be ethical to uplift.
we are animals, every bit the animals that live next to us, our main defining trait is that we are a bit more intelegent then the rest... thats it... should we up-lift other animals... the better question is why not? are they not deserving of the same things we got... are they not worth the effort and time to make their lives better as we do for ourselves?...
i think they are.
Interesting perspective! On the one hand giving animals sentence is like a gift or a privilege, so they can share the same self-awareness we have. But on the other hand they might be driven insane by it - dogs or pigs couldn’t build or write like we can with our dexterous fingers, and they’d have to fight for rights and recognition as sentient creatures. It’s a fascinating debate
@@billygoatideas its true that suffereng could come from uplifting, its not all great, there would be the challenge of learning and changing, such as overcoming instict and physical limitations, things we struggle with to this day, however i beleve that on a generatinal scale we still make progress... and i dont see why other species could not do the same... in enough time and with guidance, hell we already have the means to motivate new behaviores and social structures in the individual and species wide, ie a simple monkey learning to operate a third robotic arm conected to its brain, and the strange and wonderful new behaviors shown by recent succeses in taming fox's and cats lions ect, these things not only show a high ability to adapt but also the ability to overcome instinct.
@@billygoatideas Octopuses could...
They are literally perfect for such a project.
- They are already extremely intelligent (more neurons then dogs ;) )
- have a good body plan for object manipulation,
- their neurons are very well understood (we understood them, before we even studied human neurons, because of their size)
- their intelligence could be increased relatively easily by introducing myelination and the FOXP2 gene.
- And they don't even live in the same biome as us.
So we could realistically coexist as two intelligent species if we choose to do so.
@@aldoushuxley5953 uplift the mind, uplift the body, uplift the lifespan... ^^ * also make dogs live longer than 13 years....
Let's start with weaverbirds. They already create interesting sculptures to live in, and I want to see what advances they can bring to the field of architecture. Also, they're seed-eaters, and less likely to gouge out our eyes than, say, crows.
interesting! A race of sentient crows would probably spell the end of mankind
@@billygoatideas Hitchcock was a time traveller confirmed
Actually so long as you aren't a jerk to crows, they're chill...
Unless it's Magpie variant, those guys are jerks
I don't think we should do it *yet.* Right now we have trouble accepting our fellow human beings, acting as if small cosmetic differences in color or who we pray to are insurmountable obstacles. And now we're supposed to respect the rights of dogs and squid?!
We need to uplift ourselves morally before we start uplifting other animals intellectually.
We have climate change, so I don't think that wait is affordable and it risks that such an idea will not surface again. Also the world is not habitable to nonhuman life these days so from the animals perspective...they would be fucked to not find it neccesary
I believe if we were ever going to do it to a species, we would most likely choose Dog's as the uplift subjects as they do not Carry a philosophical fear factor of replacing us as a species, like that of ape's do in our society's collective mind. The dog is man's best friend loyal to us after all this time, I cannot think of any other species that deserves to become our equal and stand by us in intellectual sentience.
yes
It would probably be a good idea to uplift Bonobos, Chimps, and maybe even Dolphins and Octopuses, although the last one is a bit of a stretch and a lot more work than the previous three. For Bonobos and Chimps, it would be the easiest because they simply need bigger brains that can handle complex concepts and tasks like we can. They also need their hands adjusted to be more dexterous and they need be given the ability to talk verbally (basically just more sophisticated vocal cords). They also probably need to have their bodies weaker and more energy efficient, because otherwise their needed caloric intake would be ridiculous. Dolphins would be more complicated because hands are pretty important to making and using tools, also they dependent on oxygen to breathe but water to live in which would limit where they can live naturally more than us. Although they communicate vocally and it does transmit meaning like names, so giving them the ability to talk like us wouldn't be that much of a stretch. Octopuses would be the most complicated because they aren't even mammals and they give birth to 10,000 babies, but they would be the most useful addition to Human society as they can live and breathe in the water. Also they communicate with colours and so overhauling with (or added) vocals would make things difficult. Overall, I feel like its a moral good to uplift apex species like Chimps and Dolphins as long as we give them equal rights and we don't just enslave them; however, the first step is just making sure we don't accidentally wipe them out with our current civilisation.
But then would uplifted Chimps not just be humans?
Especially if you use all the other adaptions (no hair so you can wear clothes and sweat, upright stance, so you can interact with humans and our objects better etc...)
Would you not just get humans again?
Why do you see survival or death as a moral thing?
Should we bring back the dinosaurs if we could (in the wild, not just some park) if we could?
If not, what and when was nature "perfect"?
Why are we and our changes to the environment in any way morally different to the adaptation and survival catastrophes of the past?
@@aldoushuxley5953 Pretty much
We are being uplifted now and have for a long while
😱
Fascinating discussion of our evolutionary contribution of our species and to the future of all life.. We can and likely will do all these things. Very insightful for such a young mind.
Thank you very much, I'm glad you liked the video!
Here is my take on the ethics of animal uplifting. To be ready to do so, we must first develop highly-accurate genetic and biophysical
simulation software to make sure that the genetic changes involved in uplifting would be safe to perform before going ahead with them. As for the species chosen, they need to be ones protected by near-universal taboos against killing, even for food such as great apes, whales, elephants, or sirenians rather than common meat animals such as pigs. That way, the uplifted species would not only be one more likely to be accepted as fellow persons by humans but also not risk outbreeding and taking well-justified genocidal revenge against humans at the first opportunity (to pigs, humans may just as well be Dark Eldar from Warhammer 40,000). It would also help if the uplifted animals have different ecological niches from humans or if not, be VERY closely related to humans.
Tell that to the nearest Black Templar Chaplain.
Yeah they should
why?
@@billygoatideas we can learn more about animals and how they feel
@@ss4kaioken295 would they still be the same animals though?
Wouldn't they be something between humans and animals (if their brain and our ideas on consciousness etc are based on humans?)
@@aldoushuxley5953 only way to find out is if we do it
@@ss4kaioken295 then do it. I know I'm thinking and designing on paper what will be needed
Neural Chip and signal processing
Let's call this the sapien theory.
Fitting in nicely with the rest of the things you create, this was really, really good. I'm consistently impressed by the things you create.
Also, to answer your question; no, I don't think we should uplift animals. I reckon they'd try to take us out as soon as they realised what zoos are, and I'm not really a fighting boi
Thanks dude, I appreciate that. Haha good point
depends on the species. Solitary species would likely not really feel empathy, because that is a trait, that is only really beneficially in a group context.
(not sure if that is better or worse...)
As humans have become more detached and isolated from each other, making animals more intelligent could help lonely people
Are these not cultural problems that would happen to the animals too, the more human they became?
Why would a half human half dog be better company than the dog, just because he is smarter?
Would that not mean that he too could lie, be depressed, hate you, ...