The Rise of Robots!

Isn't it amazing (and also kinda worrying) how often robots are mentioned in news? If you visit the BBC News website there is a growing list of stories where a robot is the subject matter. Here are a few ...

In Technology ...

Google purpose-built robot cars tested on public roads
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32750810

Programmer able to control robot using his eyes
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-32611479

Others ...
Self-driving truck allowed on roads
Machine tries to beat poker players
The robots that can park a car
Drones help aid relief in Nepal
Star Wars fans launch X-wing flight
The robot that makes coffee

But not only in Technology ...

Calculated risks: Will algorithms make business boring?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-32690065

As I earn my living from computers I keep an eye on the development of robots but even I'm taken aback by how fast they are developing.

Watching TV documentaries about how businesses are run these days robots are more or less taking over, which is fine I suppose but the pace of it all is the frightening part.

I must admit I find it quite alarming.

Re: The Rise of Robots!

I was listening to an item on the radio the other day which had someone saying 'robots are going to be doing the arduous jobs giving people the opportunity to do more enjoyable jobs' but I am not sure where the latter are supposed to come from

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Doesn't make sense does it. Creating a robot that can totally mimic a human being is the goal of many brilliant minds. When you think about it a robot than can just do a part of what a human can do would be capable of carrying out most jobs.

The future, ultimately, for us (human beings), what I can see of it, will not be to carry out jobs of 'worth' but of self satisfaction (necessary to keep mind and body in good nick): jobs that robots could easily carry out but are not allowed to. This really is the only conclusion you can come to.

There could come a time when WE are just used to keep the robots going, as in carrying out the only jobs available. Wonder who your boss will be by that time - a robot I guess .

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I agree with Meg where are the jobs going to come from, we demonise unemployment already the only conclusion I can come to is we have too many people and replacing them with robots will add to the problem.

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What if intelligent robots rule us and we have to obey their orders ?

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Alarm bells are ringing for sure. When a robot becomes 'self aware' (and one will quite soon it seems) we might well be looked on as being very much the weak link. Why would a robot think we are good for anything when you think about it? After all the most instinctive drive any organism has is one of self preservation and another equally important one is self propagation. I fail to see where we would fit in with all our crazy vagaries and drives. We could though 'serve' them as we do have very dextrous hands and limbs.

When you think about it if a robot becomes 'aware' it is then I suppose considered 'human'. By inference we then are nothing more than robots, albeit inferior ones compared to mechanical robots surely, to their 'minds' that is (when they eventually get them ) .

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Can't remember were I read it , but they are asking the question if robots are used in wars , and who be resonible if the robot commit war crimes

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Funny thing a robot.

Characteristics:

1. When it is first switched on it suddenly "lives" having known nothing before

2. It's entire "knowledge" is only that which has been imparted to it by someone else. Thereafter it may teach itself more knowledge or be taught such

3. It has no idea how or why it came into being excepting that the creator reveal such information to it.

4. It can be programmed with good things or bad things and will thus act accordingly because its entire existence is based on a set of rules which govern how it behaves.

5. Whatever it needs or "desires" is only that which its creator has programmed that it needs. If it desires to kill, it is because it was created that way.

6. You can program the robot to kill animals for a food source or to gather vegetables for a food source (assuming it was given the ability to process food and turn it into energy). Its views on the morality of either choice would come down to the knowledge it was given/programmed with.

I could go on.

By now you will have realised where this is going.

The human being is simply a sophisticated (to us) robot. We do what we have been programmed to do, we learn and as we learn we respond according to the way we have been programmed/designed to respond. Unfortunately our creator has not appeared to explain all and tell us where we all came from. Hence we remain clueless and search for answers.

There is obviously more to us than the human being. We are more than the human body we inhabit. The body has been programmed and designed to act in specific ways. Much of it we have no control of and we didn't design it. Hence when the body is hurt, it heals itself without any effort on our part. Cut yourself and the body deploys substances, forms a scab and heals itself. We have absolutely no control over this process.

Just about every "living" thing on the planet is effectively a robot. Every living thing is built on a set of rules some simple some complex. One rule is common to all living things, the rule - replicate/multiply.

Who programmed the rules? And why? And surely the programming of the basic rule - replicate - was sure to end eventually in over population of living things to the point where much would die off due to lack of resources to support them all.


Temet Nosce

imo

Re: The Rise of Robots!

Very good Realist. Spot on in fact.

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Robots taking over jobs and leaving humans free to enjoy life can surely only happen if we abandon the concept of money in the way we view it now.

If people worked for the love of it or for personal satisfaction but wihtout monetary gain then it would leave a way for robots to be used to replace us at all levels on the workfloor (eventually).

I dont see this happening its more likely that slowly but surely the few will profit while the rest sink into poverty as the machines take the places of manual workers. There may be protests such as we saw in the industrial revolution when men smashed the mechanical looms to protect their jobs but nothing can stand in the way of profit...