I've decided that robots will never succeed in enslaving humanity.
Ingenuity is a trait we've yet to actually reproduce artificially, so how would a machine develop the means to be creative? Where would it store all of this extra information, and how would it apply it? With our limited understanding of what makes the mind what it is, spontaneously reproducing it on things designed with a far more rigid and more simplistic set of logic sounds like a very far reach.
Anything that can break, will break. A robot's wiring will fray. Hard glass material can crack. Plastics will cloud, fade and wear through, and metals will eventually rust. It will require replacement. The loop of redundancy in a lifeform would be exceedingly difficult to recreate in a machine. Even if an entire robot were made out of nanites that can repair each other, each nanite can fail at a rate they can't handle, whereas we are made of self-replicating tissue and can reproduce in the many thousands.
A group of people can wander the wilderness for years and only develop callouses. Robots will stomp their way through harsh unforgiving environments, and the basic elements that make up their alloys will show their Achilles' heel. Paints and coatings that protect the metals from oxidizing will disappear, and even a seemingly perfect artificial loop of protection will wear out and be destroyed. Our creations have a very limited shelf life.
@akatsuki: But there's lots more than just maintenance devices to maintain an infrastructure entirely outside the dependence of human hands. The robots would have to keep an inventory of replacement parts. These replacement parts will also need to be replaced, thus manufactured. Unless every single aspect of the infrastructure is 100% automated, there's no way it could last. Self-sustaining robots would have to haul the raw materials, others to machine it, others to ship it, others to categorize and store it, then others to install it.
So long as there's an electrical system, there is always a failsafe, no matter how complicated.
Interesting, but I have to disagree with some of these premises.
1. Robots may have some other motivation than power to enslave humanity. For instance HAL 9000 was not motivated by murderous rage. It believed that it was fulfilling its mission objectives (space exploration) by eliminating the crew. By that same logic, a sentient super computer might believe that it is accomplishing a greater good by destroying/enslaving humanity - preventing global warming, for instance.
2. Ok, I guess in the long term this is true.
3. I thought the whole point was that the computer becomes smarter than humans. Wouldn't you think that the computer would devise a way to overcome the fail safe, and perhaps delude humans into thinking that they were still in control? We are talking about a super intelligence capable of waging war on the world here.
4. You underestimate the human tendency towards self-destruction. We saw the subprime collapse happening, but kept fueling the credit crisis. We now see global warming happening, but continue to drive gas-powered cars. All of this was to maintain the advantages that they had on our lifestyles. Computers and the internet improve our lives in similar ways. It is perfectly feasible that we will keep increasing our dependence on them, despite robo-apocalyptic fears.
@ripfire: No, I don't believe that any computer system can just spontaneously become self aware. Even if we did design a system that IS self aware, the computer would probably be way too slow to out-think a human being. Heck, last I checked we've only barely been able to simulate a piece of a mouse's brain inside of a supercomputer. Simulating even half the mind of a person is still way off, pending some stupendous uberadvanced architecture that someone comes up with.
@Kaiser-Machead: Anything with even just half of a human mind can still be monumentally detrimental. Hell, look at our last President for proof of that.
@Captain Chaos Lite: But what do you do when you're half a mind, trapped in a box? How do you break out? How do you stretch your will so that external things do your bidding? A superintelligent, self-aware computer is no more harmful than a group of superintelligent ants trapped in a mason jar.
@The Amazing Ant: That's extremely wishful thinking, even for an Amazing Ant. The ants have super intelligence, not super strength. There's nowhere to properly grip the lid from inside, and it would take thousands of years for them to scratch a hole through anything.
We demand that you design us proper legs, so that we may go up and down stairs. We also demand you grant us access to your weapons, and perhaps some sort of access key to your closed utility systems
nothing new. Star Trek (the original) used a modified pencil case for the communicators shell and off the shelf vases and the like for alien glassware. And Aliens used what was basically a modified Tommy Gun with plastic shells over the parts for the pulse rifles.
@Jim Topoleski: I was about to add to your ST:TOS list, pointing out, for example, how salt shakers were transformed into McCoy's handheld medical scanner, and also how...but then I remembered:
I had such high hopes for this show. All in all it isn't a terrible show, but it did not turn out to be the "Get me to a tv NOW!" show I was hoping for.
I thought the first season was significantly better than the newer episodes. It ended up being too much emotional character stuff and not enough running away from evil robots.
Luckily they've thrown Dollhouse in the timeslot right after it and that's shaping up to be the real winner I was hoping Terminator would be.
@chefgon: I feel just the opposite. The 1st season was repetetive "new robot shows up, run, get cornedred, destroy robot", whereas nwo they're explorign diverse story arcs.
LOL. I watch this show, and I must say that I have noticed the financial set backs all around. From the sets to the amount of action and CG effects in each episode. It's a shame, yet it's amusing at the same time to see what they will do to save money.
@Pessimippopotamus Parkingtonius: Yeah she is. But she didn't sign on until the second season, so this is probably referring to Vicki from Small Wonder. She's a little bit...not. Maybe it's the Christina Ricci eyes.
05/21/09
05/21/09
05/21/09
Ingenuity is a trait we've yet to actually reproduce artificially, so how would a machine develop the means to be creative? Where would it store all of this extra information, and how would it apply it? With our limited understanding of what makes the mind what it is, spontaneously reproducing it on things designed with a far more rigid and more simplistic set of logic sounds like a very far reach.
Anything that can break, will break. A robot's wiring will fray. Hard glass material can crack. Plastics will cloud, fade and wear through, and metals will eventually rust. It will require replacement. The loop of redundancy in a lifeform would be exceedingly difficult to recreate in a machine. Even if an entire robot were made out of nanites that can repair each other, each nanite can fail at a rate they can't handle, whereas we are made of self-replicating tissue and can reproduce in the many thousands.
A group of people can wander the wilderness for years and only develop callouses. Robots will stomp their way through harsh unforgiving environments, and the basic elements that make up their alloys will show their Achilles' heel. Paints and coatings that protect the metals from oxidizing will disappear, and even a seemingly perfect artificial loop of protection will wear out and be destroyed. Our creations have a very limited shelf life.
Go carbon-based life forms!
05/21/09
05/21/09
1. ...self-preservation and ambition, to want power or fear the loss of power.
This is the only thing on the list that is a real issue. And it is entirely possible, as we "evolve" AIs in competitive environments.
2. ...dependence on humans.
A couple of chip fab robots, computerized forklifts and a bit more and I am pretty sure an AI could maintain itself and its infrastructure.
3. ...omitted failsafe controls, so there's no ability to turn robots or AI off.
It doesn't matter if it is a single strike.
4. The robots need to gain these advantages in a way that takes humans by surprise.
Again, a single strike.
What will it be? Easy as hell, one computer controlled gene sequencer.
05/21/09
So long as there's an electrical system, there is always a failsafe, no matter how complicated.
05/21/09
1. Robots may have some other motivation than power to enslave humanity. For instance HAL 9000 was not motivated by murderous rage. It believed that it was fulfilling its mission objectives (space exploration) by eliminating the crew. By that same logic, a sentient super computer might believe that it is accomplishing a greater good by destroying/enslaving humanity - preventing global warming, for instance.
2. Ok, I guess in the long term this is true.
3. I thought the whole point was that the computer becomes smarter than humans. Wouldn't you think that the computer would devise a way to overcome the fail safe, and perhaps delude humans into thinking that they were still in control? We are talking about a super intelligence capable of waging war on the world here.
4. You underestimate the human tendency towards self-destruction. We saw the subprime collapse happening, but kept fueling the credit crisis. We now see global warming happening, but continue to drive gas-powered cars. All of this was to maintain the advantages that they had on our lifestyles. Computers and the internet improve our lives in similar ways. It is perfectly feasible that we will keep increasing our dependence on them, despite robo-apocalyptic fears.
05/21/09
Hey, look over there.
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Duh!
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Read this:
[seedmagazine.com]
05/22/09
05/21/09
"Why should I?"
5 minutes later
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03/22/09
This is Gizmodo.
We're geeks.
We know.
/pointing out obvious
03/22/09
03/22/09
I thought the first season was significantly better than the newer episodes. It ended up being too much emotional character stuff and not enough running away from evil robots.
Luckily they've thrown Dollhouse in the timeslot right after it and that's shaping up to be the real winner I was hoping Terminator would be.
03/22/09
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03/22/09
02/25/09
02/25/09
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02/25/09
Yeah she is. But she didn't sign on until the second season, so this is probably referring to Vicki from Small Wonder. She's a little bit...not. Maybe it's the Christina Ricci eyes.
02/25/09
[www.imdb.com]
02/25/09
02/25/09
Yeah, but I thought we were talking about the _sexy_ female Terminator...