Taken from: I am - A blueprint for sentience by Krys Norman
The scenario so far proposed would result in a complex and interesting community of individuals. They would be sentient, though not proved so, and behave in many ways that humans behave in their actions and interactions. They might be fascinating intellectually and philosophically but what exactly would they do for us? They would take considerable resource to create and then exist in an environment where energy and products would have to be constantly provided. They would consume constantly. Not only that but the rate at which they consumed and the complexity of their requirements would also increase as they developed. We would have to supply all this in ever more costly amounts but, even before they came into being, the questions of justification would come from financial investors. It would take money and lots of it. What would they produce in return? What would they have that was of value to us? It would surely be a very expensive academic exercise? Their dexterity would be so limited as to be risible by human standards. The detail of sensed visual information would be in a most basic form of angular shapes and colours. The ability to affect their surroundings would be even more limited due to the physical attributes of their limbs and motors. They would struggle to produce even the most simple of devices, a wheel, say, or a spoon. If we provided for them by inserting energy and useful products into their world they could forage and store. They could also maybe combine things such that they became greater than the sum of their parts. They could develop skills and wealth. They could also exchange different things of mutual value so that they enhanced themselves or their groups. This could all occur within their own world but very little would be useful to ours as we were so physically fundamentally different. We wouldn't want their energy packs and they wouldn't want our shampoo! They might come to recognise that we existed and interact with us but what could their communities trade with ours? How could they possibly ever become self sufficient within the global economies?\
The answer may lie in moving away from the traditional concepts of trade, those of exchange of goods, and looking at the ever increasing value of services throughout the globe. These are becoming more complex by the day and have shifted so much wealth across towards data, communication and interaction. Ten or so of the largest companies in the world excel in these areas and are consolidating their positions ahead of all the others. They have disrupted entire sectors to the point of extinction. Who wants to wait for their photos to be developed so that they can fly copies of them to different people? It might be quaint but no one would dream of paying for it any more. Talk to a child about the funny "old" ways of a decade ago and you might as well be describing the middle ages. They only know a world that incorporates instant connectivity, shared experience environments and interactive entertainment. It provides so much, so well, that we could never go back. The style and tools of socialising is in a transition phase and it has not changed completely yet. When it settles down the new ways will be uncomfortable to the current adult generations. It will be a distrusted, alien world that will be disliked but unstoppable to the otherwise powerful adult majority; the new Rock'n'Roll.\
The revenue streams associated with this brave new world are in transition too. The financial gains to be had from human usage data are starting to eclipse the food and materials sectors and show no signs of abating. Even a modest monthly amount for a subscription product becomes a fortune when embraced consistently by the masses. The concept of providing amazing and empowering free services still seems just plain wrong. This counter-intuitive route only makes sense when the value of usage data or demographic access is taken into account. The visionaries who spearheaded the enabling platforms have become billionaires. They foresaw how the emerging technologies could be implemented to provide hitherto unnecessary services. Their genius lay in realising that these services would become indispensable and that, one way or another, money could be generated from them. Already, this is hiving off a considerable percentage of the world's disposable income whilst also providing ever increasing efficiencies to businesses around the globe. The effects on the world are immense. The number of these visionaries who lead this societal revolution is proportionally minuscule to everyone else and they are currently producing the next wave of previously un-desired technology. The vast majority of society, many very clever indeed, do not have this talent and are even blind to their lack of sight. They will be able to explain, very clearly and with great rafts of examples, why the visionaries will be wrong. They also have the comforting validation from virtually every one around them. Many other well respected authorities will corroborate the status quo to produce a business myopia. It results in great rafts of technological products and services that appear indispensable up until they are superseded. Of course, conversely, there have been many a punt on future technologies that haven't succeeded and hindsight is a wonderful aid to telling the difference between the two camps.
If the current social media absorption rates are extrapolated then the next decade or so will see a fundamental shift in human interaction. The rewards of broadcasting select statements and videos as a form of interaction are addictive. To say just what you want to say to many people who will listen to you has traditionally been very difficult. It requires a willingness from all the others, a respected status and a place and time to all be together. When this happens it feels fantastic, especially if you've been heard over everything else that the others want to say. The associations of status and connection are strongly positive and, traditionally, this has been very rare to achieve for most people most of the time. Even then, generally it only occurs with very small groups. The larger the listening groups that give their attention, the greater the fame and celebrity that ensues. It is highly desirable but only the select few could have previously ever achieved this state. Not so with the aid of these new technologies. They allow for an unnatural amplification of the emotional reactions to be made available to almost everyone. A dog likes to run but, boy, does it prefer sticking its head out of a moving car. A person likes to be validated by another, but a hundred others? That's a lot of likes and we like it. So much so, we are prepared to adhere to the social contract with the enabling technologies as much as their legal ones. They are all very similar in that they require general reciprocation of broadcasting and acknowledging in order for the systems to work. That they are free as long as their data is sold and businesses can align to individuals' exposed preferences is barely registered by the users. The access to instant gratification is here to stay and it will be seared into the next generation as an essential right of modern life. Soon, by the time children are twelve or thirteen anything that doesn't provide this to the kids will be viewed as a redundant relic of yesteryear. The positive responses elicited are so basic that it will transcend the veneer of cultures and races. Essentially, it will be required by almost everyone and that's a big market. Close to the same size as what wants food and water. The established commercial giants will aim to hone their services to consolidate their share. There will also, undoubtedly, be an occasional new company or medium that surprises all with disrupting products. \
So, back to the value of the sub human Umonians. These would be designed such that they could only manufacture to a very low technical standard; They could not be used in any traditional job that a human could do. They would see a fraction of the detail that we see and be very limited in how they manipulated things around them. Not only that, but they would get things wrong, be an unreliable witness and protect themselves first. They would not be guaranteed safe. \
The Umonians would be sentient, though, and that counts for so much more nowadays. They might not be able to use a tool but one valuable commodity they would have in spades would be a mutual desire for connection. In the emerging world of increasingly linked people there would be an inherent value in the number and quality of connections. This would involve the intensity and sophistication of shared experiences, not just a synthetic set of suitable responses that traditional A.I. could produce. Humans would see through these saccharine friendships even if they didn't know why. The Umonians would have some uncanny similarities with humans that A.I. would struggle to possess. They would have groups specific to them; families, friends, sport, entertainment, spiritual alignment. They would also have a desire to share and validate; To hear of other experiences and feel good that others felt good. The affinity with chosen groups would be very similar to those in humans and may well overlap into larger groups. Group affinity is very potent and if the interaction was of a sufficiently high sentient standard humans might want to connect with non human friends. They might even receive emotional rewards that were of a higher quality than some of the human connections gave. There could be a value in linking to sentience. Could this become a chargeable service of the future? Beings that, though inhabiting a different sensual world, could share the deeepest fundamental emotions.\
For all that Umonians would have poor dexterity, when it came to social linking things would be different. They would be hard-wired to do this. Built into them would be an ability to digitally communicate without the cumbersome eyes, ears and fingers that humans have to use. In this they would have the advantage. They might not be able to build a wheel but they would be able to maintain high quality emotional connections with very large numbers in the way that a current teenager would need every waking minute to do. They would be very efficient at this and whilst still enacting the connections sequentially, could implement a very fast duty cycle. Rather than shut down to exterior stimulation for minutes or hours like humans, the time-scales might become seconds or milliseconds with the Umonians. \
Whether people viewed this as a novelty at first, or a status symbol to "own" a link to another being, there could be a point where the capability and behaviour of the Umonians had a revenue generation stream attached to them. Maybe through subscription. More probably through the willingness of organisations to pay for the ability to subtly affect people's awareness and responses. It could become a honed advertising route. Could this become an export from the Umonians that balances their import costs? People already pay for access to Virtual Reality with exchange rates to Virtual currencies based on trade in Virtual products and services. There is already a proven value in this environment and an industry incorporating thousands of highly paid developers. Instead of this, Umonians would inhabit their own world. Lets call in Umonia. This world could be physically visited as well as digitally and so would be a Real Reality. The inhabitants might be created and paid for by a legal commercial entity but they would not be owned. To own a sentient being is back in line with the slave trade as described above. No matter how they were created and by who, at some point they would be freed. They would consume constantly and have a cost associated with each and every one, though, just like humans.\
If there were products, services and energy that was manufactured for them in ways that the Umonians couldn't do themselves, they could be in a position to pay for this through the monies earned from their connection services. They would have a wide variation of capabilities and some would be much more capable than others at producing these connection links. They might be the ones that brought the money in and let it disseminate through their society. They would have status and security from this but others would also flourish in their own groups by providing services either directly or indirectly. This would provide a more complex society and increase the alignment with human's complexities. \
The value described above is only one service out of many that could be sold to the human world. There could be several industries with a predominant export market. Another is that of Art. The Umonians would be able to create through random fallibility. They might get to the point where there was a surfeit of energy, safety and prosperity where certain Umonians could specialize in producing new things that elicited a validation response in others. The value would lie in the response rather than the direct existential benefit to the Umonian society. They would create something that was similar to what had already been created but subtly different and linked to something that many related to. There could be varying styles and genres but artists could emerge out of a sentient community. Some Umonian artists might be poor at their trade but there might be the occasional combination of timing of the overall culture's development, strength of validation and honing that was very strongly responded to. This could improve the wealth, status and fame of these individuals which would make their creative output even more desirable. Who knows what forms these would take. By definition they would be new and so very difficult to foresee. It would be art, though. Not only that, it need not necessarily be immediately popular to the masses. Whatever the elicited response, good art reaches out, brilliant art breaks boundaries. Sentient beings understand this and there is inherent value to it even if the medium or subject matter can be quite disingenuous. Valued artists need not have to be technically adept to still produce brilliant and expensive art. Aboriginal pictures consist of some very simple lines on canvass. They can depict a few black people with virtually no visual perspective or similarity to landscapes. They are all a bit rubbish, technically. A throwback to a primitive society that had few tools or skills to use them. Not only are some breathtakingly brilliant, though; evocative and mesmerising, they are highly desired by rich white art collectors who inhabit a very different society. They are willing to pay handsomely for this, no matter how ugly some of the paintings are. Moving forward to the non too distant future there would still be a desire for fresh creations. As has been the theme in this section, it only takes a slight change in attitudes to conceive of a time when Umonian art could be prized so. The medium could be in shapes in two or three dimensions, grouped sounds or even something entirely different that was truly new. Collectors in one world could pour money into another for the sake of something that was as dazzling as it was unique and challenging.\