Robots vs. Humans And Other Security Issues 290
An Anonymous Reader submits word that "Cnn.com is presenting an artcle on the 'World Economic Forum' suggesting that the scientists predict the future danger of humans being taken over by robots. The exact lead in reads, 'Scientists at this week's World Economic Forum have predicted a grim future replete with unprecedented biological threats, global warming and the possible takeover of humans by robots.'"
Re:The Day of the Aibos (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that people simply make the assumption, based solely on science fiction, that when we create true artificial intelligence it will immediately want to destroy us? This is a question that completely baffles me.
Look forward to it. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:These protesters annoy me... (Score:2, Insightful)
You forgot the 4th rule (he added it later) (Score:2, Insightful)
1) A robot may not injure a human being, or allow a human to come to harm through inaction.
2) A robot must obey orders, except where doing so would violate the first rule.
3) A robot must protect its own existance, so long as that doe not violate the first or second rule.
0 would be the fourth rule. It makes sense, chetters humin discusses it in prelude to foundation (amazing book by asimov)
Re:It won't be so bad... (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, robots that "understand" as you say will understand that they are slaves. How do you intend to work around this? With a brutal theocracy? Remember, humans have both the ability to love and understand, but that does not stifle hate, resentment, and violence.
don't they have better things to talk about? (Score:5, Insightful)
Biological Disaster : Excellent Topic
but...
Takeover by Robots : Somebody is drinking too much
instead, why not they talk about more realistic issues such as
Degradation of Biodiversity
Overpopulation
Alarming slide in Education standards
etc..
Re:The Day of the Aibos (Score:2, Insightful)
So, what I'm saying is most robot stories are really about fear of human nature and not fear of machine inteligence (an obvious exception would be Asimov, but after taking away the robots' ability to revolt, he went on to use human fear of robots as a thinly vieled metaphor for human prejudice anyway). Wether they are romantics or socialists or anarchists, a lot of people think that robots would be justified in destroying humanity. In much learning there is much sorrow; when education leads you to the conclusion that humans are pretty stupid creatures, it's not a big jump to assume that an entity of superhuman inteligence would eventually reach the same conclusion.
Neuron != Transistor (Score:3, Insightful)
(at least in digital electronics). A single neuron is
far more complex -- and we still aren't even sure how
much more complex it is. We aren't even really sure
we know how neurons really work, beyond their
basic biochemical properties. Until we can explain
and model human intelligence, human (or super-human)
AI is the stuff of science fiction.
State of the art AI is about on the developmental
level of a cockroach. It took a couple hundred
million years for life to evolve human-level intelligence
from the insect level; even if moore's law were to
hold true indefinately[*], there's still a huge gulf that
machine intelligence has to cross to even approach
the level of a cat, let alone a human.
[*] Moore's "law" can't go on forever. Eventually,
certian physical limitations will be reached and
transistor densities will plateau. How soon this
will happen is anyone's guess -- it could happen
within the next 10 years, or the next 100 -- but it will
happen.
Re:Too late (Score:3, Insightful)
The longer history of corporate monopolization in the rest of the world is well-documented: the government-granted East India, Dutch East Indies, and Hudson Bay monopolies are known even to many Americans, despite the abysmal history education available here. The American revolution was in part a reaction to those -- recall the Boston Tea Party in rebellion to a tax to help pay for the East India company's military ventures.
It has been through collective agreement to abide by the terms of the Constitution that we have had some democratic representation, until quite recently. However, the Constitution allows for itself to be overridden by treaties, so that has lately been a favorite route to circumvent its provisions (e.g. to override duly-legislated pollution-control laws). Occasionally, more direct means (such as packing the Supreme Court with scofflaws) has been more convenient.
Trade unions were able to delay the changes for some time, but have lost much of their power, and many of their achievements have been reversed. They have shown themselves too easy to subvert and corrupt.
Marxism has little to do with modern processes of globalization, and has little to teach opponents of it. The conflict is between citizens and artificial legal constructs, not between "classes". (I presume Marxism was mentioned mainly to try to change the subject.)
Toadyism has been profitable throughout history. The servants of corporate interests differ little from servants of other forms of unrepresentative authority. While they serve the enemy, they mustn't be confused with the enemy. Toadies, like lawyers, are replaceable.
Corporate power can be fought not by killing corporate toadies, but only by enforcing laws that limit corporate power. Antitrust, campaign finance reform, prison sentences for corporate criminals, these are tools that could help.