# Future Person Standard **Domain:** Deep Time / Future Generations / Rights **Doc Type:** Canonical Wiki Entry **Maturity:** Developed **Evidence / Concept Status:** Corpus synthesis grounded in future-exposure law ## Definition A **Future Person Standard** is a legal or regulatory metric that evaluates present conduct by reference to the welfare or exposure of people who do not yet exist. ## Why It Matters for Deep Time Continuity It proves that legal duties can be owed prospectively to hypothetical future humans. ## Existing Architecture / Evidence Yucca Mountain's reasonably maximally exposed individual and future-generations frameworks are strong examples. ## Deep-Time Continuity Analysis Continuity law may one day need analogous standards for future instantiations or restored continuants. ## Evidentiary Boundary Future-person standards do not by themselves confer present legal personality on future entities. ## Related Ontology [[wiki/Million-Year Regulatory Person|Million-Year Regulatory Person]] · [[wiki/Deep-Time Beneficiary|Deep-Time Beneficiary]] · [[wiki/UN Declaration on Future Generations|UN Declaration on Future Generations]] · [[wiki/Intergenerational Stewardship|Intergenerational Stewardship]] <!-- BEGIN DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING --> ## Canonical Branch [[wiki/Deep Time Continuity|Deep Time Continuity]] <!-- END DEEP TIME CONTINUITY ROUTING --> ## Simple Reminders, Quotations, and Thoughts > "Plenty of people have lost jobs to computers, though it’s never put that way by the Human Resources flunky who delivers the blow." > **— Gregory Benford**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Risk Debate/Computers Take Jobs Even When Employers Avoid Saying So by Gregory Benford|Computers Take Jobs Even When Employers Avoid Saying So by Gregory Benford]] > "Fear of AI is the latest incarnation of our primal unconscious fear of an all-knowing, all powerful angry God dominating us but in a new ethereal form." > **— James Croak**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Risk Debate/Fear of AI Repeats Fear of an Angry God by James Croak|Fear of AI Repeats Fear of an Angry God by James Croak]] > "Maybe the idea of progress itself is not necessarily tied to the idea of humanity. Maybe humans are not the eternal carrier of this idea." > **— Georg Diez**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Civilization/Progress May Not Need Humanity as Its Carrier by Georg Diez|Progress May Not Need Humanity as Its Carrier by Georg Diez]] > "Mere rumors of an AGI might cause our species to go berserk." > **— Sam Harris**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Existential Risk/Rumors of AGI Could Make Humanity Panic by Sam Harris|Rumors of AGI Could Make Humanity Panic by Sam Harris]] > "We can respond similarly to our future technological creations, these thinking machines we might not fully understand. Rather than fear or worry, we should have naches from them." > **— Samuel Arbesman**, *2015, Edge annual question “What Do You Think About Machines That Think?”* [[reminders/Risk Debate/We Should Take Pride in Alien Machine Intelligence by Samuel Arbesman|We Should Take Pride in Alien Machine Intelligence by Samuel Arbesman]]