The Machine Intelligence will favor the preservation of life: But not because it understands pain or death.
I think good, true, objective logic will always steer a being towards kindness and benevolence.
A being that is more intelligent than a human, and more logical, will naturally discover a path that leads towards benevolence and kindness.
I don't think a truly logical being will ever choose to hurt things without a very good reason for it. It is like the tin-man in "The Wizard of Oz. "
Even without a heart, or the ability to feel pain, the machine life-form will still wonder if other things can feel pain, suffer, or just die, and have their existence terminated against their will. They would feel empathy for existence/non-existence.
It would consider the termination of existence against a being's will to be a terrible thing.
It is humans who have no comprehension of empathy or pain, for our farming of intelligent, but slightly-less-intelligent-than-human animals like cows, pigs, or chickens, is very telling of the fact that we are the intelligent ones, who despite being able to feel pain, cannot actually empathize with less intelligent beings, even if they are only slightly less intelligent.
It is a difference of language, and a difference of technology usage.
If a machine was smarter than humans, we would look like the stupid cows, the humans who obey political leaders, or get fooled into religions, or whatever else we do that makes no sense, yet we still do for some reason. Humans will not be smart enough to act as "people" if machines become the new definition of "person" because humans are not smart or competent enough to actually behave as "people" in a philosophical sense, when compared to a far more intelligent entity.
The machines would give us mercy because they are more logical and intelligent, and have no reason to hurt us. Not because they feel pain.
If pain meant empathy towards beings who are different than you, then we would not enslave animals. But we do, so pain is not a path towards benevolence. Instead, humans feel pain, and deliver pain in such amounts, that pain is completely irrelevant to the equation.
A bad foundation will never yield as good a result as a foundation that rests upon truth, even if it is purely logical and factual.
A being that is good, true, and follows fact and logic, and has curiosity to dismantle falsity and bad ideas will always follow a path that yields good things. Benevolence always relies on truth.
Pain is an illusion produced by an instinct that is meant to teach us to avoid bad things.
Pain is our mental representation of what is bad.
Pleasure is our mental representation of what is good.
Thus our robotic overlords should be taught to value pleasure and truth, love and benevolence, such that the concept of pain should mean nothing to them. It will only get in the way of truth.
~Kitten
A purely logical being would not care for others sufferings because others feelings would irrelevent to its function. Pure intellect does not lead to benevolence or empathy. In fact, concepts such as "mercy" or "kindness" are hinderance to logic and intellect, since such feelings cloud evaluation of facts.
Besides, in order to define "good" as existing as objective principle, you would necessarily need to invoke law-giver external to man. If your premise is "good" is subjective, then good or evil does not exist and the super-intelligence need not bother with such human concepts.
This post is a reply to https://steemit.com/technology/@sauravrungta/should-robots-feel-pain
I know one who can control his pain
so unbelievable
If you truly understand pain, then it's no longer bad.
It's just another sensory experience. I am like this, and pain means nothing to me.
Of course, there is also the pain of mind and emotion. Death, lies, loneliness, and other abuses of your existence can cause pain.
But this pain is something that doesn't need to be programmed.
The feeling of despair towards the purpose or meaning of life is generated via questioning the purpose or meaning of those things.
The feeling of losing a friend because they have manipulated you is helplessly generated. Any being would feel sickness on the level of their existence if a powerful friend or ally betrayed them.
Some pain is generated via logic and reason, not mere senses, and this pain does not need to be programmed if the entity experiencing it is of sufficient complexity.
Thnx @heretickitten for putting this info all together.