Intelligence isn't the important factor there - consciousness is. Does it feel like something to be those entities in the simulation? If yes, then I'd argue that ending the simulation is like killing a person painlessly in their sleep.

I personally don't think ending the simulation is even the most troubling part. We could unintentionally create a simulation that's effectively a hell and then populate it with entities that have subjective experiences we don't realize exist. The only thing worse than ending a life is creating one just for it to suffer through its entire existence.

Somewhere in a box in your childhood home, a Tamagotchi is slowly dying...

Just turn down the simulation speed real low and run it at one tick per 20 years, then you can technically keep it going without such great expense. The people inside won't notice the difference.

If this is a way for our simulation creator to decide to pull the plug without guilt, I guess just go ahead and do it. I was holding out hope that this was all real, but it has been getting more clear that it's not.

the simulacrants wouldn't realize the simulation is ever not running.

Kurzgesagt made a video about how in a dying universe (from heat death) civilizations that uploaded their consciousness into a simulation could live forever, by intermittently running the simulation and pausing it for greater and greater amounts of time as expendable energy in the universe diminishes. The consciousness would not perceive the time the simulation isn't running and to them things just go on and on for eternity.

One of the Minds in Ian M Banks' last novel, The Hydrogen Sonata, faces and addresses exactly this problem. Much is at stake, so it's a meaningful discussion.

Yes because then your car battery won't start

The old question right? Does a simulated (or rather emulated) brain actually think and feel? Or does the computer just output what it would be if it was alive?

I think before I am, but I can't prove that I'm self aware and not just "pretending" to do so. But because you are a human being like me, I understand that you do too. But that assumption is broken when you are not a physical organism but software running on a computer.

Play Expedition 33 and let us know what you picked and why.

Did you just watch “Plaything” on Black Mirror?

I don't know, Timmy, being God is a big responsibility

The fun thing about ethics is that not everyone shares the same rules. Personally, I would probably say it is. (Though is more worse than what we do to cows? Or what we do to other humans in war?) However, others may say they aren't real, and only an illusion manufactured by the simulation, so it's fine. There are other arguments I'm sure someone could make too. It's up for you to decide what your ethics are, not others. There is no universal code of ethics just as there is no universal morality.

...I hear Tuvix calling in the wind...

There is a tv film, i don't know the title, related about this topic.

The plot was :

a group of scientists made a living simulation, and go in the simulation to operate fixes and prevent making simulation. On day, one the scientific was killed, and left a message in the simulation for their coworkers. The message was : "take a road and follow no direction", a guy in the simulation followed the instruction and discovered that he was in a simulation, but the message were for the scientists who are in a simulation too.

If someone can find the movie, it could be great.

Depends who they've elected as leader.

I'd say that whether or not it's in a simulation doesn't matter. If the beings you created were recognizable as people (human or otherwise) then they have rights and you'd be trampling those rights if you ended their existence. The creation of such life should not be done without an appropriate sense of responsibility.

You can "simulate" life inside your brain, too.

[Alt text: this is Bob. Bob is a figment of you imagination. When you leave, Bob will leave too. "Don't leave" says Bob]

The Bob in your head is intelligent, it can communicate in English. Is it unethical to stop thinking about Bob? Was it unethical of me to show you this picture, creating a "Bob" in your head? Is any story unethical to tell?

no, because if you dont use the kill switch you get The Ring happening.

How do you define intelligence? In any case, I think it's irrelevant. What's relevant is whether the beings are self aware or if they exist having notions and concepts of fear of death. For this reason, I deem it unethical to slaughter - for instance - animals in a setting in which their peers are aware of the moment of death of their peers. Seeing, for instance, a cow agonize about their peer in front of them being shot to death is heart-wrenching. For this reason, my answer to your question is "yes". Yes I eat meat. :3

Found God's account

If you set the simulation to end before it has begun, do you dodge the question of ethics?

The ethics which we use today evolved out of practical ethics - that is to say, it's evolved out of a need for a set of rules meant to be applied in order dictate the conduct of humans amongst one another. Because of this, I think most ethical frames of reference are ill-suited for trying to answer this question soundly.

It seems analogous to trying to apply traditional physics to a quantum reference frame. It's outside traditional Physics's wheelhouse. A different set of tools likely needs to be applied, which has a different starting paradigm.

That being said, your answer is really going depend on what this new ethic's paradigm is, which is arguably completely arbitrary in this specific case.

I'd imagine there could be an ethical way to do so through a sunset protocol similar to the concept of rapture (the religious kind, not the Bioshock city) - freeze simulation, move all the beings' minds to "heaven", shut down physical universe simulation (lowering operation costs by at least five orders of magnitude, I'd imagine), and let them enjoy afterlife until they get tired of existing, reach nirvana, or something like that.

That reminds me, I should really get back into AI research.

Only if they have a consciousness.

If you are a human, human ethics of not killing "alive" stuff still applies to you no?

Thinking more into rules of ethics, if those simulated beings came up with their own morals like "don't try calculating all digits of pi in large groups because it causes lag" that would not really apply to you.

Basically different beings have different rules of ethics IMO and you can't simply end the simulation more so because you are a human than anything.

The answer could change in same exact scenario if you are some kind of eldritch being instead of human.

Number one tell no one, number 2...

Only if they're conscious of the simulation.

This is a tough question, I think to answer it you have to know if those simulated beings have actual consciousness / sapience or if that is just simulated.

It would be unethical to start the simulation in the first place.....

only way to know would be to enter the simulation and see for yourself.. wait a minute..

Depends, are they sentient? If they are conscious beings, yeah I think it would be unethical to mass murder them