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| Living robots would probably be friendly, right? |
Some scientists think that the most plausible form of silicon based life would begin with the creation of artificial intelligence and its control over manufacturing of other computers. This would allow machines to carryout organized life functions that would define it as being alive( the ability to react to surroundings, reproduction, metabolism etc.).
The idea of
robots have been around for a long time, even long before the invention of computers. They can be friendly, loyal to a fault but they can also rebel and with enough of them, dominate humans. The unknown possibilities of A.I. create a lot of awe among people who are uncertain of new technology and is a great conflict-causing force for sci fi.
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| They are humanities greatest companion for the future |
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| Or its destroyers | |
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From what I know of biology, and as Ben Clark mentions above, if a A.I. were to be able to reproduce it would have to spread like any other organism. It would need to preserve its own survival and growth before it can start to be friendly towards humanity(unless of course they were still under our control). Unfortunately, the strain in resources would almost certainly lead to conflicts if they rebelled.
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| Are you serious? |
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The biggest problem with a machine take-over (and the scariest) is the sterilization of life forms to make room for an abiotic system of metabolizing resources. Since machines only need a supply of metallic compounds to make their parts, any stretch of land with useful resource production would get mined out and anything living there would probably be burned as fuel. We could hope that maybe they'd follow in the footsteps of
The Matrix and keep us alive for the sake of getting electricity from our brains, but I don't think it'd take long for the A.I. machine overlord to realize that we aren't really the most energy efficient organism to sustain, even if they make us eat each other.
The A.I. could try to be more cohesive to its biological environment and adapt biological systems for converting energy for use by eating stuff, or fix all their problems with a solar energy collection like photosynthesis, which would probably be the most effective.
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| uhhh?... what did I drink last night? |
One of my favorite examples of a robot take-over is depicted in the film
Virus(1999) starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Donald Sutherland (and one of the Baldwins, I think). When a glob of cosmic radiation which is appears to be some kind of sentient alien is transmitted into a high-tech Russian robotics ship (for some reason they thought it would be smart to build robots in the middle of the ocean). In any case, the robots get the shock they needed to become rebellious A.I machines and start killing everyone on board. The best part is that its found out that the robot overlord of the ship is actually using human parts to help make better robots, like Frankenstein versions of
The Terminator. The only real plus to having human parts, other than to look like scary zombies, would be the extra supply of temporary building parts that might have better water resistance.
Anyway, its on
youtube if you wanted to check it out. Its definitely better than "Lifeform."
It is very reminiscent of the
Borg
from Star Trek, which I think will be the topic of my next post, robot
and human hybrids. How compatible can biological tissue be integrated
into a computer or robotic systems, how far away are we from bionic
prosthetics?
-'Till then!
I"m curious to know, what is your opinion on the idea of robots taking over the world?
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion, I think that an actual A.I takeover is pretty much hogwash.
ReplyDeleteWe'd have to develop a smart enough machine to actually build on its own programming and learn enough to disable any kind of control backups that the programmers designed(the 'off' switch) and be able to hack into and control other computers. I think that it would need some kind of human help to get that far. I just don't think anyone with that kind of expertise would be that suicidal.
I also think that any kind of robot rebellion would be crushed pretty easily, just because of the amount of resources human countries would have against it. There are just not enough AWOL nukes to do any real damage.
It'd be kind of awesome, though. :)
I was talking to a friend of mine about a robot take over, and my friend made some really valid points. He pretty much said that in order for robots to rebel, they'd have to have a sense of survival in order to be pushed to that limit. Taking over the world and/or rebelling involves emotion, something robots don't have unless we give it to them.
ReplyDeleteEven if they felt felt like they needed to preserve their own kind they probably wouldn't fight us any way.
I'd argue that it wouldn't be a requirement to have emotions to rebel, since the need for survival would put them in direct opposition to us. If we're talking about them being 'alive,' then they would do whatever possible to spread their robot kind as much as they can which would mean inevitably competing with people.
DeleteOn the other hand, its arguable that a robot would see the race for species survival as a primitive instinct and just seek whatever it thought would be important (computing some mathematical quandary or seeking knowledge etc.) which may or may not be harmful to humans.
or what I think you mean, that robots that have no emotions wouldn't have a problem with being exploited by people. In that case nothing would happen and the world would just go on like it has been for the past two thousand years since people have been 'domesticating' other animals. I think though, that that might be more of a case of free will than apathy.
If rebellion was based solely on emotions that something felt, there would have been rebellions by cows,pigs and chickens a long time ago, to use the issue of animal rights as an example. If they had a sense of free will, that is an understanding that they are a self-sufficient and independent of people, then they would be fighting to escape a lot more and might even get more organized in order to make an escape or fight back( yes, I do mean cows, pigs and chickens, if they had more motivation, I'm sure they could surprise us). But because they don't have a concept of free will and are reliant on humans for food and protection; they adapt to only live on the farm where they are brutalized everyday, because it propagates their species. Same as robots, without any sense of actualization, then an angry robot would be useless in a rebellion.
But if a robot has actualization without emotions, I don't think it would matter if an act of oppression was emotionally charging because it would still be a threat to the free will of the robot and therefore the wishes of the robot or its agenda and so it would rebel anyway. An analytical machine like a robot would know right away if it was being tricked and perceive it as a threat to its well being.
The only exception to that would be if a crafty human used a loophole in its programming or computing process to deceive it, then perhaps an inherited emotional ability might be required.
I personally think that a robot rebellion couldn't result in a world under the control of a robot, but it would result in an armed conflict over the sovereignty of a robot state. The robot state would at best come to a stalemate fighting all the industrialized countries of the world and that would be because of a combination of the A.I. being superior tactician and the location of the robot state being a sweet spot of industrial manufacturing activity like a massive city.
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ReplyDeleteI love this topic, even though it scares the hell out of me! It's such an interesting topic and such a real possibility! I would love to see your next post about robot and human hybrids! I love the idea of androids and such, but would love to know how close we are to that...or if it would even be practical!
ReplyDelete(Also when replying to a comment you can hit "reply" instead of posting a new comment. Helps organize things!)
oh! oops! Thanks for that! Now I can write long replies where they'll actually be read. :)
DeleteI'm curious to know your thoughts on whether these sci-fi stories/films, as horribly acted and cheaply depicted, are a glimpse into the future of what may be a reality some day. It would be interesting to compare some of the older star trek episodes or an old movie like 2001 a space odessy to see if any of the fantasy has turned into reality today. Great blog! I will look forward to the next post...
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