Claim · 1990 · publication · Stated in source · Supported

De Garis's paper published in 1990 asks whether it could be argued that humanity has a moral duty to initiate the next major phase in evolution, and that not doing so would be a crime on a cosmic scale.

One recorded claim. The claim panel gives its qualification, the source passages with their place in each source, and how it was checked.

What it connects

The 21st Century Artilect: Moral Dilemmas Concerning the Ultra Intelligent Machine → bears on → Succession by machines would be acceptable or desirable

Where it appears

Machine succession, scale and acceleration: propositions in located texts, 1979–2026 →

Claim and evidence

The 21st Century Artilect: Moral Dilemmas Concerning the Ultra Intelligent Machinebears on ↓Succession by machines would be acceptable or desirable

Machine-checkedStated in sourceSupported

Supporting evidence: primary · 1 source

Date: 1990 · publication Records dated 1990 →
Wording attested: 1999-03-20. Wording read in a print of the author's ATR web page whose footers are dated 20/03/99; the 1990 journal text (Revue Internationale de Philosophie) was not read.
Claimed date: 1989-05. The author's web page states 'written May 1989'.
Role: Context
Register (kind of text): Nonfiction
Missing element: Posed as a question; the passage does not assert that succession would be acceptable and does not state that humans would be replaced.

Scope and limitsA question the paper poses for discussion under an imagined moratorium; read in a 1999 print of the author's web page.

The evidence 01

primary sourceSupports the claim

The 21st. Century Artilect: Moral Dilemmas Concerning the Ultra Intelligent Machine

Print of the author's ATR web page (www.hip.atr.co.jp/~degaris/Artilect-phil.html), hosted as a PDF on a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth course site; the page states it appeared in Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 1990 · 1990

Cite the original source

Cite the original document, not Selekoa. Check these details against it.

Source excerpt

“Could one not argue that mankind has not only the power, but the moral duty to initiate the next major phase in evolution, and that it would be a "crime" on a universal or cosmic scale not to exercise that power?”

Location in source Section 3, copy p. 4 of 6

How it was read Retrieved directly from the publisher

Machine-checked · 2026-11-01

Source details and check notes

Authors: Hugo de Garis
Version: Retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31 (SHA-256 1486c018286f809370a18845327562ad7beb02e49df44f68bc7a7e314604cc8c). Browser print of the author's web page; each page footer reads 20/03/99 12:50; the page states 'written May 1989' and 'appeared in Revue Internationale de Philosophie, 1990'. The 1990 journal text was not read.
Canonical address: Open the canonical source ↗
Accessed: 2026-10-31
Language: English (en)
Attribution: Hugo de Garis, “The 21st. Century Artilect: Moral Dilemmas Concerning the Ultra Intelligent Machine”, 1990.
Reuse: No open redistribution licence asserted. Bibliographic metadata, editorial paraphrases and short attributed quotations (at most 50 words each). Recheck terms before wider redistribution.
Check notes: Candidate pack passage, machine succession, scale and acceleration (research/heterodox-thought). The quotation (41 words) matched the text retrieved for the candidate pack on 2026-10-31. Matching ignored differences of whitespace, case, quotation marks, dashes and Unicode compatibility forms, so the source’s typography can differ. No human editorial review.

Status and meaning

Editorial status. Machine-checked. Machines found this record and checked it against its sources; no person accepted it individually. Each evidence record above shows how it was checked.

Relation. A passage of the document bears on the proposition without meeting its criterion; the record names the missing element. It is not an articulation and implies no influence.

Date. Date of publication, as the source gives it.

Record ID ht-w02-degaris-1990-moral-dilemmas