# Deep-Time Future Generations **Domain:** Deep Time / Intergenerational Governance / Future Persons **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Canonical router ## Definition **Deep-Time Future Generations** is the branch connecting continuity to law and institutions that already recognize non-existent future people as legitimate objects of present responsibility. ## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity The concept demonstrates that a beneficiary need not yet exist for present institutions to owe duties concerning future welfare. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence The UN Declaration on Future Generations, Wales's statutory framework, nuclear waste regulation, and future-exposure standards all instantiate forms of prospective responsibility. ## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis Continuity law may eventually extend from future generations to future continuants whose source person already exists. ## Evidentiary Boundary Future-generations law does not currently recognize uploaded persons. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/UN Declaration on Future Generations|UN Declaration on Future Generations]] · [[wiki/Future Generations Commissioner|Future Generations Commissioner]] · [[wiki/Deep-Time Beneficiary|Deep-Time Beneficiary]] · [[wiki/Future Person Standard|Future Person Standard]] · [[wiki/Million-Year Regulatory Person|Million-Year Regulatory Person]] <!-- BEGIN DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING --> ## Canonical Branch [[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]] <!-- END DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING --> ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "The future would be one of ever richer intermingling of human and machine capabilities." > **— Christopher J. Anderson**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Human and Machine Capabilities Will Intermingle by Christopher J. Anderson|Human and Machine Capabilities Will Intermingle by Christopher J. Anderson]] > "If our future is to be long and prosperous, then we need to develop artificial intelligence systems, in the hope to transcend the planetary lifecycles in some sort of hybrid form of biology and machine." > **— Dimitar D. Sasselov**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Space Survival/Hybrid Intelligence Could Outlive Planetary Lifecycles by Dimitar D. Sasselov|Hybrid Intelligence Could Outlive Planetary Lifecycles by Dimitar D. Sasselov]] > "Silicon-based information processing requires interpretation by humans to become meaningful, and will for the foreseeable future." > **— W. Tecumseh Fitch**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Silicon Information Requires Human Interpretation by W. Tecumseh Fitch|Silicon Information Requires Human Interpretation by W. Tecumseh Fitch]] > "I do not believe that machines that think exist, or that they are likely to exist in the foreseeable future." > **— Freeman Dyson**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Machine Succession/Thinking Machines May Not Arrive Soon by Freeman Dyson|Thinking Machines May Not Arrive Soon by Freeman Dyson]] > "Typicality implies our likely demise in the next million years. But it tells us nothing about whether this will come at the hands (or other appendages) of an artificial intelligence; after all, there is no shortage of doomsday scenarios." > **— Raphael Bousso**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/Typicality Predicts Humanity’s Demise Within a Million Years by Raphael Bousso|Typicality Predicts Humanity’s Demise Within a Million Years by Raphael Bousso]]