Super-robots Will Wipe Out Mankind!

Discussion in 'Science & Society' started by Ed Anger, Aug 12, 2002.

  1. Ed Anger Registered Member

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    SAN FRANCISCO -- A top computer-industry insider has issued an urgent public alarm, warning that if we remain on our present course, robots will take over the world within a few short years -- and will drive mankind into extinction!

    Bill Joy, chief scientist at Sun Microsystems, says advanced robots that are smarter, stronger and better than human beings in every way are just around the corner and that "we may not survive the encounter with the superior robot species."

    "We are on the cusp of perfection of extreme evil -- an evil whose possibility spreads well beyond weapons of mass destruction," Joy warned recently in Wired magazine.

    For years, science-fiction authors have cautioned us about the threat of a robot takeover. But now, for the first time, a scientist at one of the country's leading computer firms admits that it is on the horizon -- and the stark reality is far more grim than the worst nightmare of sci-fi writers.

    Artificial-intelligence programs are improving at a frightening rate, Joy notes. Already a supercomputer has delivered a humiliating defeat to the world's greatest chess champion Boris Kasparov and machines that are actually endowed with consciousness are a heartbeat away.

    Even more insidious is the ability of robots to build other robots and programs to write programs.

    "Once an intelligent robot exists, it is only a small step to a robot species -- to an intelligent robot that can make copies of itself," writes Joy.

    When robots are allowed to design themselves, self-replication may be "impossible to control," he warns -- and there's no guarantee that rules programmed in by people, such as "Never kill humans," will be passed down from one generation of robot to the next.

    The result could be a nightmare right out of Star Trek, says the scientist, with "run-amok robots like the Borg, replicating or mutating to escape from the ethical constraints imposed on them by their creators."

    One of the many computer-industry geniuses consulted by Joy is Hans Moravec, founder of the world's largest robotics research program, at Carnegie Mellon University. He believes evolution is on the side of robots, because it is nature's way for a superior species to supplant an inferior one.

    "Moravec's view is that the robots will eventually succeed us -- that humans clearly face extinction," reveals Joy.

    Moravec is not alone in that belief. Other industry experts who prefer to remain anonymous admit that it is only a matter of time before machines are able to do everything a human can, better, faster and more efficiently -- leading to a swift end to human dominion over Earth.

    Just as humans are believed to have wiped out inferior forerunners like the Australopithecus, our "replacement species" will hunt us down and eliminate us.

    "They will be superior to us intellectually, physically, perhaps even morally -- as far above us as we are above the chimpanzee," a computer-industry expert told Weekly World News. "We are creating our own replacement species, and they could take over our world by 2010.

    "Robots will consider us a nuisance -- inefficient, useless parasites like fleas on a dog. And the logical step would be a program of mass extermination. In the past, the fear was that computers would take our jobs -- now the fear is that they will take our lives."

    Industry experts foresee a world not unlike the future depicted in the chilling film The Terminator, in which machines conduct an all-out genocidal campaign to kill every man, woman and child on Earth and only a band of brave human freedom-fighters stand against them.

    But some experts call even that dark vision overly optimistic.

    "There probably aren't going to be any brave resistance fighters the way you see it in the movies," a sociologist told the NEWS. "We will be used to following the commands of computers and most people will go to the slaughter like docile sheep."

    On the side of the robots will be half-human, half-robot hybrids, former humans who have will- ingly merged with robots after being seduced by the promise of immortality, Joy predicts.

    "A dream of robotics is that we will gradually replace ourselves with our robotic technology, achieving near-immortality by downloading our consciousness," explained the scientist. "But if we are downloaded into our technology, what are the chances that we will thereafter be ourselves, or even human?"

    So, instead of siding with man, the soulless hybrids will help Earth's robot masters wipe us out!

    In the past, many science-fiction writers warned of a future in which the roles of humans and robots would be reversed, and we are reduced to slaves whose only function is to maintain the machines. But today's top experts also consider that view too optimistic.

    "The idea that we will be enslaved by machines who allow us to survive is naive," another industry insider told the NEWS. "They will create machines to maintain them better than we can. Unless we come to our senses and stop building these increasingly dangerous machines, man- made creatures will kill us all!"

    Joy sees one ray of hope -- a way man might prevent the total eradication of the human race. He suggests that before it's too late, we all agree to give up our pursuit of more and more high-tech, time- saving machinery -- even though this might cause us some minor inconveniences.

    That way, just as we warded off nuclear annihilation in the 20th century, we can ward off robot-caused annihilation in the 21st.

    "The only realistic alternative I see is . . . to limit development of the technologies that are too dangerous," Joy says.
     
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  3. Pine_net Chaos Product Registered Senior Member

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    I guess I need to make sure I'm one of these super robots then huh...

    Seriously though... It's all in the programing isn't it. The Geni is out and the bottle is broken. My friend William Joy has a very narrow view of technology I believe.

    His faith in mankinds willingness to destroy itself is not in error though. Although he does seem to forget one simple thing. We are currently bound to this rock by the high cost of space payloads. This will come down and people will strike out on there own.

    I believe different species of human will arise in due time. It may have already happend a long time ago as far as we know. Quite possibly we are an experiment in human behaviour systems. This whole universe being simulated on a super quantum crushing conciousness.

    excuse all the nasty spelling
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2002
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  5. Bebelina kospla.com Valued Senior Member

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    Well, isn't it about time?
     
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  7. Adam §Þ@ç€ MØnk€¥ Registered Senior Member

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  8. Firefly Registered Senior Member

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    Exactly. What logical motives would they have to wipe out their creators? If they have human emotions, then one might argue they could also have compassion, innocence. Even if we are a threat to their survival: would/are they programmed with self-preservation techniques? And instead of taking the "human" was out - killing any threats

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    maybe they'll try to negotiate it? Or they might be happy to move, and create some kind of space shuttle to go where they know we can never go, for example, somwhere without any oxygen.

    Or am I just being vastly overoptimistic and naive?

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  9. Pine_net Chaos Product Registered Senior Member

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    So what are your thoughts Ed Anger? Welcome to sciforums by the way!
     
  10. kmguru Staff Member

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    Run for the hills....may be the robots wont get you....

    (Did not we have the same paranoia when nuclear technology was developed? I mean those radioactive ants etc...)
     
  11. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    Too bad Mr. William Joy hasn't read Asimov, where robots can be intelligent, and hilarious.

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    Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics:

    A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

    A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

    A robot must protect its own existence, except where such protection would conflict with the First or Second Law.

    +The Zeroth Law (for the more sophisticated robots)
    A robot may not injure humanity or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
     
  12. Popcorn8636 Registered Senior Member

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    No...

    Robot's wont drive us to extinction because if they aren't programmed to do so, how can they? Besides, we're eventually gunna wipe ourselves off the planet from pollution, disease, overpopulating, lack of resorces, holes in the ozone layer, war, extreme heat waves... Well, you can figure it out for yourselves.
     
  13. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    A.I.'s could be able- because they would be able to think for themselves. They might just create a ZERO law , that is abowe all esle. They could just wipe out the laws.

    If a beying thinks, then no preprogrammed action could hold it forever



    but your wouldn't have to worry much
    Artificial Intelligence is no match for human stupidity!

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  14. Firefly Registered Senior Member

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    But would they want to actually attack? Or just defend? If it's unnecesary to kill someone, would they? For personal gain? (I'm thinking Borg, here

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    )
     
  15. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    how can I know how a artificial intelligence thinks

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  16. Pine_net Chaos Product Registered Senior Member

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    You program it to tell you what it is thinking.
     
  17. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    hahaa- nice one

    the only thing I don't like about A.I.'s is that they can potentially destroy us or govern us (which may not be so bad- after playing Deus - Ex)
     
  18. Thor "Pfft, Rebel scum!" Valued Senior Member

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    Evil robots

    As the French say, We Surrender
     
  19. Unregistered The Original Conservative Registered Senior Member

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    ...Sounds dangerous. I saw we offer them Homer Simpson as sacrifice.
     
  20. Firefly Registered Senior Member

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    Damnit, the other day, thought of something else that will wipe us out first, but can't for the life of me remember what it was.

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    If that makes any sense.

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  21. %BlueSoulRobot% Copyright! Copyright!! Registered Senior Member

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    No, not Homer!

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    Firefly, is it a plague? giant asteroid? tornado? tsunami? nuclear war? virus? earthquake? collison course with Mars? aliens from the planet Uranus? water contamination?

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  22. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    In one of the Southpark series- I'm quite sure it was 6-04
    Chef tinkered with his new super ultra modern plasma tv and somehow through options made it a walking killing machine- just like the evil robot in robocop


    I love Southpark + I keep up-to-date and learn much about American "culture" and society

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  23. Firefly Registered Senior Member

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    ...I think it might have been an asteroid.

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