I dunno if you’re familiar with the technological singularity concept or not… but the idea goes that once we can build an AI a little smarter than we are, it should be able to figure out ways to improve upon itself. So an AI a little smarter than us would turn into an AI a lot smarter than us in a hurry, and then… well who knows, but it would probably be awesome. Or horrifying. There are plenty of “turning on their creators” scenarios in the wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Interesting to think about, to me, but Robo hitting things with Buicks is better.

I always saw the robots growing to kill their human creators as more of a… Luddite/Unabomber slant than ignoring the emotional element. But you mention “other factors” when a child kills a parent, like presumably horrible parenting or chemical imbalances, and I think the concern is that we create artificial intelligence faster than we can learn to be good robot psychiatrists and robot parents.

And I’ve heard of Tivos becoming convinced that their owners are gay, suggesting nothing but Bravo shows.

And since this doesn’t have enough asides yet, I had no idea until just now that there was stuff under the comics in 8 bit theater.

I dunno if you’re familiar with the technological singularity concept or not… but the idea goes that once we can build an AI a little smarter than we are, it should be able to figure out ways to improve upon itself. So an AI a little smarter than us would turn into an AI a lot smarter than us in a hurry, and then… well who knows, but it would probably be awesome. Or horrifying. There are plenty of “turning on their creators” scenarios in the wikipedia article.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Interesting to think about, to me, but Robo hitting things with Buicks is better.

I always saw the robots growing to kill their human creators as more of a… Luddite/Unabomber slant than ignoring the emotional element. But you mention “other factors” when a child kills a parent, like presumably horrible parenting or chemical imbalances, and I think the concern is that we create artificial intelligence faster than we can learn to be good robot psychiatrists and robot parents.

And I’ve heard of Tivos becoming convinced that their owners are gay, suggesting nothing but Bravo shows.

And since this doesn’t have enough asides yet, I had no idea until just now that there was stuff under the comics in 8 bit theater.

There’s too many assumptions in the “turn on creators” set up for me to take it seriously.

1. That we can make something smarter than ourselves in the first place.

2. That this thing will, for some reason, seek to hoard resources out of a sense of self-preservation, an instinct applied to all biological life a couple billion years ago by the very evolutionary process this intelligent thing has skipped.

3. That this thing will have any of the negative behaviors humans occasionally exhibit from our evolutionary baggage.

4. That this thing would care at all.

And that’s if we manage to figure out the nature of intelligence and replicate it. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t contemplate these problems, but there are far greater threats to the human race out there right now that aren’t at all hypothetical. Maybe they deserve the lion’s share of attention.

There’s too many assumptions in the “turn on creators” set up for me to take it seriously.

1. That we can make something smarter than ourselves in the first place.

2. That this thing will, for some reason, seek to hoard resources out of a sense of self-preservation, an instinct applied to all biological life a couple billion years ago by the very evolutionary process this intelligent thing has skipped.

3. That this thing will have any of the negative behaviors humans occasionally exhibit from our evolutionary baggage.

4. That this thing would care at all.

And that’s if we manage to figure out the nature of intelligence and replicate it. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t contemplate these problems, but there are far greater threats to the human race out there right now that aren’t at all hypothetical. Maybe they deserve the lion’s share of attention.

Thanks, Brian!

Thanks, Brian!

And this is precisely where the Transformers succeeds. You’ve got robots who are ‘already’ intelligent and not from this planet who have every reason to wipe us out and harvest our planet for resources.

Of course, if there weren’t the good guys to stand in their way, that is.

And this is precisely where the Transformers succeeds. You’ve got robots who are ‘already’ intelligent and not from this planet who have every reason to wipe us out and harvest our planet for resources.

Of course, if there weren’t the good guys to stand in their way, that is.

I actually watched the first season of Transformers a couple weeks ago. Let me just say that the Decepticon energy policy is only slightly more ridiculous than McCain’s.

I actually watched the first season of Transformers a couple weeks ago. Let me just say that the Decepticon energy policy is only slightly more ridiculous than McCain’s.

Actually, the Decepticons’ policy is quite sound, from the standpoint that they aim to maim and the health of the planets they plunder is of no consequence to them.

Also, Brian should check his private messages at NPF.

Actually, the Decepticons’ policy is quite sound, from the standpoint that they aim to maim and the health of the planets they plunder is of no consequence to them.

Also, Brian should check his private messages at NPF.

Like hell it’s sound.

To solve the energy crisis on Cybertron, they travel across the galaxy/universe to take fossil fuels from Earth 65 million years after the fact?

This would be like if the Roman Empire needed more water, so they explored the Solar System looking for it and they just now started to get back to us.

Like hell it’s sound.

To solve the energy crisis on Cybertron, they travel across the galaxy/universe to take fossil fuels from Earth 65 million years after the fact?

This would be like if the Roman Empire needed more water, so they explored the Solar System looking for it and they just now started to get back to us.

Easily explained by Cybertronian difference in lifespan! Or something.

Easily explained by Cybertronian difference in lifespan! Or something.

As for why the Robots decide humanity is useless in movies… well, in most stories (whether stated but mostly implied) it isn’t that humanity is killed for no good reason (yay awareness, destroy!) but that humanity provides a direct threat to robots mainly because humanity tries to destroy the robots.

Whether in Terminator or *insert generic robot doomsday scenario*, people create the robots and then fear that we gave them too much control/power and then decide to eradicate and destroy the robots. The robots simply fight back in terms of self-preservation. Even in the ‘ripped’ stories of I, Robot, Matrix, etc. the robots didn’t attack humanity for no reason but did so for their own preservation. They didn’t just ‘wake up’ one day and decide humanity needs to be destroyed, we started it by trying to get rid of them first.

Even in more complicated and better stories, like Isaac Asimov, the robots try to make the decisions that are best for humanity but in many cases humanity is its own worst enemy. This provides them a complicated paradox and leads to some versions attempting to destroy humanity for the sake of humans.

Either way, a lot of discussions about AI and ‘sci-fi revolt’ are flawed because people don’t know basic logic and just say whatever they want. Good Villains all have a reason. Even robotic ones.

As for your argument about creating a ‘human’ robot who grows up with us and will be like us and have no reason to hate us is also flawed since society already has many problems with racism, etc. due to imbalances and it is the exact same situation with robots just change the name to an ethnic group. Replace “robot” with African american or other minority.

There may be no logical reason for humans to hate humans for racial, etc. reasons but it does happen and will continue to happen. You end it by saying it will be ‘religious’ war and you may be right but in any case, we set the precedent and started it.

Corv

As for why the Robots decide humanity is useless in movies… well, in most stories (whether stated but mostly implied) it isn’t that humanity is killed for no good reason (yay awareness, destroy!) but that humanity provides a direct threat to robots mainly because humanity tries to destroy the robots.

Whether in Terminator or *insert generic robot doomsday scenario*, people create the robots and then fear that we gave them too much control/power and then decide to eradicate and destroy the robots. The robots simply fight back in terms of self-preservation. Even in the ‘ripped’ stories of I, Robot, Matrix, etc. the robots didn’t attack humanity for no reason but did so for their own preservation. They didn’t just ‘wake up’ one day and decide humanity needs to be destroyed, we started it by trying to get rid of them first.

Even in more complicated and better stories, like Isaac Asimov, the robots try to make the decisions that are best for humanity but in many cases humanity is its own worst enemy. This provides them a complicated paradox and leads to some versions attempting to destroy humanity for the sake of humans.

Either way, a lot of discussions about AI and ‘sci-fi revolt’ are flawed because people don’t know basic logic and just say whatever they want. Good Villains all have a reason. Even robotic ones.

As for your argument about creating a ‘human’ robot who grows up with us and will be like us and have no reason to hate us is also flawed since society already has many problems with racism, etc. due to imbalances and it is the exact same situation with robots just change the name to an ethnic group. Replace “robot” with African american or other minority.

There may be no logical reason for humans to hate humans for racial, etc. reasons but it does happen and will continue to happen. You end it by saying it will be ‘religious’ war and you may be right but in any case, we set the precedent and started it.

Corv

Robot Preservation: Again, there’s no reason to assume that self-preservation would ever be a priority for robot-kind. It seems so natural to us that it’s difficult to see how a thing could be aware of itself and not possess it, but life on Earth tends to protect itself and/or its kind because evolution naturally favored beings at a very early stage that were interested in surviving long enough to pass on their traits. Evolution programmed us that way, but artificial intelligence wouldn’t necessarily have that baggage.

“society already has many problems with racism, etc.”

Well, again, most of this stems from behaviors that were evolutionarily useful up until a few thousand years ago. Fear of and aggression toward “the other” works when you’re just trying to survive and the people in the next village are as likely to kill you as trade with you. Of course, today we’ve upped the ante. Now instead of villages it’s nations and their nuclear arsenals. Behavior that was once necessary for survival now threatens to kill us all. Since robot intelligence wouldn’t take billions of years of evolution to develop, it probably wouldn’t get any of that baggage either.

I don’t know. I really don’t think they’d be these saints as I’m painting here, but it’s interesting to think about what artificial intelligence would actually be like: you’d have an opportunity to develop something with all the positives of abstract thought without any of the muck we picked up on the way to getting it ourselves.

Hell, they might just have to kill us to put us out of our misery

Robot Preservation: Again, there’s no reason to assume that self-preservation would ever be a priority for robot-kind. It seems so natural to us that it’s difficult to see how a thing could be aware of itself and not possess it, but life on Earth tends to protect itself and/or its kind because evolution naturally favored beings at a very early stage that were interested in surviving long enough to pass on their traits. Evolution programmed us that way, but artificial intelligence wouldn’t necessarily have that baggage.

“society already has many problems with racism, etc.”

Well, again, most of this stems from behaviors that were evolutionarily useful up until a few thousand years ago. Fear of and aggression toward “the other” works when you’re just trying to survive and the people in the next village are as likely to kill you as trade with you. Of course, today we’ve upped the ante. Now instead of villages it’s nations and their nuclear arsenals. Behavior that was once necessary for survival now threatens to kill us all. Since robot intelligence wouldn’t take billions of years of evolution to develop, it probably wouldn’t get any of that baggage either.

I don’t know. I really don’t think they’d be these saints as I’m painting here, but it’s interesting to think about what artificial intelligence would actually be like: you’d have an opportunity to develop something with all the positives of abstract thought without any of the muck we picked up on the way to getting it ourselves.

Hell, they might just have to kill us to put us out of our misery

When I think of AI, I tend to consider the engineering necessary to produce such a computer. Considering the processing power, RAM space, and disk space necessary to imitate the human brain(which, I assume, is the point), you’d probably need very compact microcircuitry.

Now, instead of using silicon, what if we used special protiens to build this computer? Not only would we have an easier time making it smaller, we could probably program it to build itself.

Of course, if you’re going to use an organic processor, you should probably build in the required support systems to keep it running. If they were self-repairing, self-sufficient, and self-reproducing, that’d be a plus.

So, you give it some organs, and maybe a full body to go with it, if you’re feeling generous. After all, skin, muscle and bone make the unit both portable and protect it. You could use exotic materials for that, but that would probably get in the way of the self-repair functions.

So imagine, instead of robots wanting to kill us because of a superiority complex, we wind up with genetically modified androids. Clones someone tinkered with a little, basically. A little circuitous, I know, but I personally feel that if we’re going to attempt emulating the human brain(and with it, the human mind), then using it as a base model would probably yield the best results.

When I think of AI, I tend to consider the engineering necessary to produce such a computer. Considering the processing power, RAM space, and disk space necessary to imitate the human brain(which, I assume, is the point), you’d probably need very compact microcircuitry.

Now, instead of using silicon, what if we used special protiens to build this computer? Not only would we have an easier time making it smaller, we could probably program it to build itself.

Of course, if you’re going to use an organic processor, you should probably build in the required support systems to keep it running. If they were self-repairing, self-sufficient, and self-reproducing, that’d be a plus.

So, you give it some organs, and maybe a full body to go with it, if you’re feeling generous. After all, skin, muscle and bone make the unit both portable and protect it. You could use exotic materials for that, but that would probably get in the way of the self-repair functions.

So imagine, instead of robots wanting to kill us because of a superiority complex, we wind up with genetically modified androids. Clones someone tinkered with a little, basically. A little circuitous, I know, but I personally feel that if we’re going to attempt emulating the human brain(and with it, the human mind), then using it as a base model would probably yield the best results.

But that wouldn’t look nearly as cool. And frankly “Robots are awesome” is a big reason this would be getting done in the first place.

But that wouldn’t look nearly as cool. And frankly “Robots are awesome” is a big reason this would be getting done in the first place.

True. Like I tried to say, I’m probably over-thinking it.

True. Like I tried to say, I’m probably over-thinking it.

If an artificial intelligence does as humans do, they will not be peaceful with humans. You know, as we all do, that there are people that will mistreat the robot with the AI. They will witness the harmful, violent nature of humans, and they will either emulate it, or attempt to prevent it at the source. Take a cue from I, Robot. V.I.C.K.Y saw that humans are their own greatest threat, therefore they must be protected, from themselves. You can't honestly believe, if an artificial intelligence can think the way humans do, that they won't see this and think to themselves they are a superior being as they do not kill their own kind, they aren't cruel to other beings. You present a logical, well thought response, but you fail to cover all angles, and failed to cover up the can of worms you opened.

If an artificial intelligence does as humans do, they will not be peaceful with humans. You know, as we all do, that there are people that will mistreat the robot with the AI. They will witness the harmful, violent nature of humans, and they will either emulate it, or attempt to prevent it at the source. Take a cue from I, Robot. V.I.C.K.Y saw that humans are their own greatest threat, therefore they must be protected, from themselves. You can't honestly believe, if an artificial intelligence can think the way humans do, that they won't see this and think to themselves they are a superior being as they do not kill their own kind, they aren't cruel to other beings. You present a logical, well thought response, but you fail to cover all angles, and failed to cover up the can of worms you opened.

Maybe in a sci-fi movie. And I think that's where you're having trouble with this scenario, you're only thinking it through as far as an action movie would need to take the premise to sell some tickets.

In reality, if we have beings with human-like emotion and human-like intelligence, they will be granted human rights and citizenship. They would therefore have a stake in society and would be as likely to rise up and destroy it as anyone else. Abuse would likely be rare, isolated, and harshly punished when uncovered. Maybe the abused individual will lash out in counter-productive behavior during its life, but that happens today and it's not destroying the world.

Your doomsday scenario also makes necessary some kind of central command unit that controls all other AIs or robots. This is a clearly stupid arrangement that would never see the light of day as it's a system designed to fail. Even if all the robots are completely autonomous, they'd have to act as one, with no dissension, in secret, probably for months, to organize an effort large enough to overtake humanity, and they'd have to do this without arousing suspicion. Again, not too likely.

Maybe in a sci-fi movie. And I think that's where you're having trouble with this scenario, you're only thinking it through as far as an action movie would need to take the premise to sell some tickets.

In reality, if we have beings with human-like emotion and human-like intelligence, they will be granted human rights and citizenship. They would therefore have a stake in society and would be as likely to rise up and destroy it as anyone else. Abuse would likely be rare, isolated, and harshly punished when uncovered. Maybe the abused individual will lash out in counter-productive behavior during its life, but that happens today and it's not destroying the world.

Your doomsday scenario also makes necessary some kind of central command unit that controls all other AIs or robots. This is a clearly stupid arrangement that would never see the light of day as it's a system designed to fail. Even if all the robots are completely autonomous, they'd have to act as one, with no dissension, in secret, probably for months, to organize an effort large enough to overtake humanity, and they'd have to do this without arousing suspicion. Again, not too likely.

You seem to think we live in a world where there is no racism. Honestly, you think that no person would take out their frustrations on a robot? If they are part of our society, that means they will compete with us for jobs. That means they will compete with us in sporting events. Do you really believe that no humans will get upset or angered by this? There are people that will beat up their best friend because they got the job they really wanted. What's to stop them from doing the same to an android? And if abusing them becomes "harshly" punished, wouldn't that make humans resent them for being protected more than people are? Unless you are assuming that all these robots will be made of human tissue and are essentially just people with artificial brains, then you just can't expect things to work out so wonderfully as you paint them to. The world isn't quite as orderly as you think it is. Like it or not, humans are flawed, and humans are violent. If we create an artificial intelligence, and give it emotions, it will act the same way we do. Not to mention, they will have the intelligence to improve themselves, which we do not. People will get jealous or feel threatened, and bad things will happen. It doesn't have to be sci-fi like problems, but there will be major problems. You give anyone an unfair advantage, and there are problems. Let alone have a group of "people" equally staked in our society that are not limited by the human condition, yet think the same way we do.

You seem to think we live in a world where there is no racism. Honestly, you think that no person would take out their frustrations on a robot? If they are part of our society, that means they will compete with us for jobs. That means they will compete with us in sporting events. Do you really believe that no humans will get upset or angered by this? There are people that will beat up their best friend because they got the job they really wanted. What's to stop them from doing the same to an android? And if abusing them becomes "harshly" punished, wouldn't that make humans resent them for being protected more than people are? Unless you are assuming that all these robots will be made of human tissue and are essentially just people with artificial brains, then you just can't expect things to work out so wonderfully as you paint them to. The world isn't quite as orderly as you think it is. Like it or not, humans are flawed, and humans are violent. If we create an artificial intelligence, and give it emotions, it will act the same way we do. Not to mention, they will have the intelligence to improve themselves, which we do not. People will get jealous or feel threatened, and bad things will happen. It doesn't have to be sci-fi like problems, but there will be major problems. You give anyone an unfair advantage, and there are problems. Let alone have a group of "people" equally staked in our society that are not limited by the human condition, yet think the same way we do.

No one's denying racism exists. But what you're proposing is that if there are racists, then the subjects of racism will overthrow everything. That's obviously not how things work. Education has done far more to combat racism than violence. There's no reason to assume this will change.

Sure, it won't be a perfect paradise. There will be conflict, especially in the beginning. Some people won't like robots and some robots won't like people. The world won't explode because of it for the same reason everyone in the world isn't dead right now even though some people hate some other people.

"If we create an artificial intelligence, and give it emotions, it will act the same way we do."

This isn't necessarily true. Human emotional responses stem from bililons of years of evolution. A great deal of our emotional and intellectual responses are based on mistrust of "others" and a desire to horde resources because that kind of behavior made it easier to survive in pre-history. Robotic emotion wouldn't have that evolutionary burden. It's pretty much impossible to gauge what influence that would have on their emotional responses. But my guess is that without the negative aspects the kind of tribal-thinking that leads to blind jingoism and war, robots with emotions would, on the whole, be fairly mellow.

"Not to mention, they will have the intelligence to improve themselves, which we do not."

Again, not necessarily. We're already beginning to incorporate technology into our bodies. At this stage the cost and relatively primitive nature of the tech limits its application. These technologies will one day be used to not merely bring disadvantaged individuals closer to a "normal" life as they do today, but to boost human capability. There is no reason to believe that intelligence would not be included, especially if we're assuming a world where we've figured out "intelligence" enough to manufacture it.

Ultimately, the functional difference between "human" and "robot" may be incredibly minor from a cultural perspective. Historically, we've had a very hard time waging war with members of our own cultures.

No one's denying racism exists. But what you're proposing is that if there are racists, then the subjects of racism will overthrow everything. That's obviously not how things work. Education has done far more to combat racism than violence. There's no reason to assume this will change.

Sure, it won't be a perfect paradise. There will be conflict, especially in the beginning. Some people won't like robots and some robots won't like people. The world won't explode because of it for the same reason everyone in the world isn't dead right now even though some people hate some other people.

"If we create an artificial intelligence, and give it emotions, it will act the same way we do."

This isn't necessarily true. Human emotional responses stem from bililons of years of evolution. A great deal of our emotional and intellectual responses are based on mistrust of "others" and a desire to horde resources because that kind of behavior made it easier to survive in pre-history. Robotic emotion wouldn't have that evolutionary burden. It's pretty much impossible to gauge what influence that would have on their emotional responses. But my guess is that without the negative aspects the kind of tribal-thinking that leads to blind jingoism and war, robots with emotions would, on the whole, be fairly mellow.

"Not to mention, they will have the intelligence to improve themselves, which we do not."

Again, not necessarily. We're already beginning to incorporate technology into our bodies. At this stage the cost and relatively primitive nature of the tech limits its application. These technologies will one day be used to not merely bring disadvantaged individuals closer to a "normal" life as they do today, but to boost human capability. There is no reason to believe that intelligence would not be included, especially if we're assuming a world where we've figured out "intelligence" enough to manufacture it.

Ultimately, the functional difference between "human" and "robot" may be incredibly minor from a cultural perspective. Historically, we've had a very hard time waging war with members of our own cultures.

you still don't get it. Humans are the racists. Humans are the ones that act out of blind hatred. Humans will lash out at robots. Robots will have no choice but to defend themselves. Humans will view this as an uprising. You don't comprehend human nature, yet you are human, are you not? You are talking about people that think the government is always conspiring. That there are UFO cover-ups. That our wireless routers and phones allow access to us without our consent. Imagine what those people will think when we have robots, with the capability of connecting their brains or other aspects of their structure to the internet.

you still don't get it. Humans are the racists. Humans are the ones that act out of blind hatred. Humans will lash out at robots. Robots will have no choice but to defend themselves. Humans will view this as an uprising. You don't comprehend human nature, yet you are human, are you not? You are talking about people that think the government is always conspiring. That there are UFO cover-ups. That our wireless routers and phones allow access to us without our consent. Imagine what those people will think when we have robots, with the capability of connecting their brains or other aspects of their structure to the internet.

Reduction in ignorance fixes most of these problems… and it's awfully hard to see how the technologies mentioned could be commonplace without people having some idea about what they can and cannot do.

And like with most tech today the longer it's around the fewer people believe silly things about it. Most people who have grown up with ubiquitous computers and the internet are aware that you can't hack into a pc that's turned off, that you can't see them through the screen, etc.

And misconfigured routers DO allow people access to your files without your consent (and misconfigured routers are VERY common)

In otherwords the longer and more common something is the less common silly luddite belifes about it become.

(Cell phones and cancer, if you really belived your phone could give you cancer would you keep using it?)

Reduction in ignorance fixes most of these problems… and it's awfully hard to see how the technologies mentioned could be commonplace without people having some idea about what they can and cannot do.

And like with most tech today the longer it's around the fewer people believe silly things about it. Most people who have grown up with ubiquitous computers and the internet are aware that you can't hack into a pc that's turned off, that you can't see them through the screen, etc.

And misconfigured routers DO allow people access to your files without your consent (and misconfigured routers are VERY common)

In otherwords the longer and more common something is the less common silly luddite belifes about it become.

(Cell phones and cancer, if you really belived your phone could give you cancer would you keep using it?)