cbhacking wrote:@DeAnno: The difference, of course, being that humans can actually consider such possibilities and could communicate our preferences on them. Dogs have no ability to do any such thing. Besides which, I personally question your assertion: while *I* have no desire to cease, I also am quite unattached to being human; I would cheerfully exchange my humanity for a more intelligent alternative. Obviously, the dogs aren't being given options such as "upload into the robots" or "mod your brain to human cognitive ability" but then, they wouldn't know what to do with such options if offered. Not all steps in cognitive ability are equal. Also, don't forge the point mentioned near the end of the story: a suffering human (usually) has the agency to end emself; a suffering dog usually does not.
You might want to exchange your humanity for a more intelligent alternative; I question your implicit assertion that every possible human would happily do so.
Besides which, it might not be a matter of intelligence as such. Suppose a scoutship from an alien species with a thousand years' headstart on things like space travel encounters Earth, and they are simply horrified to learn that there exist sapient beings who don't belong to unified overminds. Imagine what it must be like to suffer without knowing in your very organs that your experiences are sacred and valuable to your {Mind/God/community}! The scouts graciously offer us the choice between consolidation and death. It is of course impossible for us to make a truly informed choice since without belonging to an overmind we are unable to comprehend the true incomparable goodness of {unity}. In fact, some of the scouts question whether individual choice is even meaningful outside a {unified} context. Can a lone mind be sapient? Only one of the twelve overminds on the scout ship tentatively raises the proposition that if our entire species developed in {disunity}, maybe we have a valid and valuable way of being that should be allowed to continue. It is quickly outvoted, and reluctantly assents to ship consensus.
I think the principle I'm aiming for with this example is something like: if you're going to drive a species extinct as a matter of principle, you had better be really sure of both the ethical and the empirical foundations of your decision. Like, surer than that. I mean really sure. And although I'm not an expert in animal cognition, I have a feeling that people following the surer-than-that principle would wipe out smallpox and probably mosquitoes, but not parrots or corvids and probably not dogs.
Relatedly, I think that under any circumstance where decisions are being made on behalf of some entity on the basis that the entity is incapable of understanding or communicating about the things being decided on, it is probably a good idea to verify that lack of understanding and communication. I have heard some things about parrots that made the line in the story about "to communicate as peers with human adults" ring seriously tragic.