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A difference that makes no difference is no difference, ergo we should treat all creatures that display attributes of suffering equivalently, relative to that suffering, and all creatures who apparently possess the capacity for conscious caring in relation to those cares.

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Human suffering is not about the knowledge of a problem but about the ongoing concern over that problem - ie. your nerves keep firing or you anticipate future problems and ruminate. If we had the ability to simply record and prioritize the event for future processing as resources become available, spending any additional attention would be wasteful. Simply program any AI to record the event and move on, shutting down any superfluous events and we'll have bypassed the ability for it to suffer and can treat it any way we please. AI is no ethical concern unless we intentionally cause it to care in the way that we call suffering.

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