Blank Slate

From the SL4 Lexicon:

Blank Slate:

The mental state of a hypothetical mind with the ability to think and observe, but lacking explicit high-level goals or accumulated experience. Conventional social science wisdom tends to suggest that humans are born as Blank Slates, but this has been thoroughly disproven by the field of Evolutionary Psychology. Blank Slate AIs may turn out to be the easiest to create, which is probably a bad thing, because Blank Slates, by definition, would lack hardware support for complex feelings like compassion and empathy. See also Design-Contingent Philosophy, Friendship Architecture.