Will Robots Take Over the World?
When it comes to issues pertaining to technology that the community gets affected and scared off, nothing will ever top the issue regarding the question, will robots take over the world question.
Imagine a world where artificial intelligent robots, robots that makes their own decisions, robots that are able to think, to formulate logic, to help and replace current human tasks are everywhere, robotic assistant, robotic security, robotic maid, robotic house and the like, then ask your self, will there come a time where these robots will take over and makes us slaves instead? This question has long been bothering a lot of people in the world. Situations like these are usually portrayed by sci-fi thrillers, example, I-Robot and are surely putting up a scare to a lot of people.
I-Robot is a movie based on the comic books and short stories of Isaac Asimov, the person responsible for creating the three rules that robots must obey to be able to prevent the robots from rebelling against humans the rules stated are;
“1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”[5]
The movie showed however that robot will be able to find a loop hole on the three rules and form their own understanding on the rules and turn against the humans; the loophole being that humans harm their selves and in order to protect humans, the robots must take over and rule the humans for their own sake. It is very logical if you come to think of it and if you would incorporate these robots with the vast information we have in the World Wide Web, they will surely come to such conclusion. Humans hurt humans after all.
This kind of reasoning that the robot in the film used may be compared to a brute force, look at all loopholes kind of thing. This kind of thinking is the kind of thinking that we use today, we model reasoning and create high order thinking by creating logical-rules based systems. An example, working machine that is able to think this way is the Deep Blue, the robot that defeated Gary Kasparov in his own game. The kinds of robots that will be created when incorporated with this kind of logic will look at all the possibilities and will act according to logic and computation base.
There is this other kind of robot however, that the film also portrays, the biologically, emotional, and the more human like robot. This type of robot, as the film portrayed learns by experience and interacts with humans and the world. This kind of way of building artificial intelligence is being much payed attention upon today since the classical, logical-based rule system method proved to have many flaws and limitations.
There is also this article in the internet saying that robots will take over the world because of the fact that they will be much much more intelligent and will have a lot more information about the world than us in the future. Consider the Moore’s law as the article has stated, imagine the world 50-100 years from now, as stated in the moore’s law, the advancement of technology doubles up by two every 18 months, if the law stays true, in 100 years, where there is 66- 18 months, meaning by that time, the computer will be estimate 2^66 more powerful than the systems today and imagine what that implies if the AI machines are able to do a lot of things that we people are not able to do, what more things will be developed by then?
The article also shows what other more factors are vital for the article to say that the robot will be able to be much more intelligent and a higher of a being than us;
“
Senses
Visual
-The best of today's computers can already perform iris and number plate recognition, and are capable of reading printed and handwritten input.
-Today's digital cameras can produce images of as high a quality as any analogue method.
-Today's computers can calculate sufficiently fast to produce detailed -displays of 3D environments for virtual reality simulators and games.
Computers will also be capable of infra-red, ultraviolet and x-ray vision.
Oral
-Computers are already capable of translating speech to text in real time, [although they currently have a limited ability to understand meaning].
a basic voice synthesizer is included in Microsoft Windows2000 to read out screen information for the visually impaired - more advanced commercial versions are also available.
-Computers can already hear and speak, they simply need additional intelligence to understand language.
Touch
-Computers already react to touch: touch-screens and touchpads on portable computers, and touch-sensitive keys on electronic music keyboards.
-Touch is one of the least developed robotic senses, but the technology exists.
Smell, Taste
-Not high on our robot priority list, but technologies in this area are being developed to combat drugs smuggling, and similarly by the food industry: we will see robot tasters and drug-sniffers in the coming century.
Other Senses
-A vast array of electronic sensors are in use for example in aeroplanes which will give robots senses which we ourselves do not have including awareness of exact location (GPS), direction, coming weather (air pressure, humidity, temperature), as well as gyroscopic balance control.
-Robots will probably invent for themselves additional senses in the future many of which we cannot imagine at the moment. For example, they might include sensitivity to electrical signals given off by animals perhaps leading to telepathic awareness, or more simply they may be able to analyse the molecular structure of their surroundings.
Motor co-ordination
-For computers to become 'robots' they need the ability to move around. Wheeled versions may take technology from electronic cars: Formula1 is thoroughly computerised: how long will it be before there is an entirely robot version without risking the lives of human drivers?
-Wheels have obvious limitations (how do the daleks go up stairs?) but a lot of work has been done on limbs, both for factory robots and prosthetic limbs for humans. There is a long way to go, but no reason to believe this technology won't develop further.”[3]
In addition to all those, the robot may have full access to the widest source of information in the world, the internet which shows most the weaknesses and the vulnerabilities of men, their lifestyle, the way they think, violence, greed, corruption and everything else about man. Machines may also be able to communicate and merge their experience and learning through the net.
Because of all these, the researchers and AI developers are up against a very complicated problem that comes with the development of AI;
“As Asimov predicted, AI researchers are up against a paradox: To be truly useful, robots must be able to make their own decisions, but as soon as you give them autonomy, you give them the ability to disobey. “The more sophisticated an organism becomes, the more difficult it is to legislate rules to govern its behavior,” says I, Robot director Alex Proyas. “And if robots are functioning as humans do, then the rules will need to be a lot more sophisticated than Asimov’s three laws.””[1]
and because of this, it seems very hard to develop an ideal AI robot that will be able do decide like a human. Scientist and researchers are up against a very hard challenge.
This scenario where robots will be as powerful as to be able to make decisions is far away still and many methods or control or logic might be developed before the development of “More Intelligent than Human” robots.
As for now, the most intelligent of our robot is not even as close to a domestic dog’s intelligence.
In the end when the time comes that these types of intelligent robots are developed, it will all fall down to the people that will develop it whether the robots will rule over the world, hurt humans, do good and stuff. For all we know, there might be group of people who will use robots as the tools of evil and they might program the robot to do what all people fear off.. All we can do right now is to guard and be careful of malicious intents and enormous human errors. As Nicholas Albery of Social Intervention once said;
“In view of the likelihood that early in the next millennium computers and robots will be developed with a capacity and complexity greater than that of the human brain, and with the potential to act malevolently towards humans, we, the undersigned, call on politicians and scientific associations to establish an international commission to monitor and control the development of artificial intelligence systems.”[4]
After all, it all boils down to what the people in the future decides for the robots to do. Whether to build robots that cannot decide or is constrained is all up to the people in the future
Sources:
[1]Popular Science ~ Could Robots Take Over the World? http://www.popsci.com/popsci/science/0e0c0b4511b84010vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
[2]Will Robots be Take over the World?
http://www.mobilerobots.com/ethicalRobotics.html
[3]Robots Take over the World
http://www.eway.co.uk/robots.html
[4] Robot wont rule the World
http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/WRRTW.shtml
[5]Three Laws of Robots
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics#Removal_of_all_three_laws
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