A.I. and Robots

[Paradox]

Have you seen I, Robot? Or that other robot movie A.I.? Don't let it happen!!! Don't let them take over!!! :lol: No, but seriously, what do you think about Artifical Intelligence? Do we really want self-aware robots that could potentially be a threat? We aren't going to be so lazy as to make robots that do all the work, right? Just science fiction. Are they working on this right now? I've seen those commercials by Honda for their robot "Asimo." What else are they working on?

[Zingu]

Yes, with some programmed safeguards, and made out of vunerable systems (some self replicating robots can only make each other out of plastic now; its already in real life).

[Pawn Power]

We aren't going to be so lazy as to make robots that do all the work, right?
Work that nobody wants to do, why not?

[Paradox]

Work that nobody wants to do, why not?

Yeah, that might be ok, I guess, so long as the robots weren't self-aware. I don't want no robots suddenly wanting to overthrow people or anything crazy like that. And I wouldn't want some robot to be taking care of me in my old age, like they talk about. That's a little too much. I don't see a need for artifical intelligence. Seems too risky to me. Regular robots with no "intelligence" or "feelings," I guess that's ok.

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2005, 04:56 AM
what do you think about Artifical Intelligence? Do we really want self-aware robots that could potentially be a threat?

(some self replicating robots can only make each other out of plastic now; its already in real life).

AHH! We're all gonna die!!!

I voted no; not because I am not for the technology but because it would be far to useful for the military industrial complex. Maybe in a classless world where this wouldn't likely be a tool used to kill millions of people.

Anyway, robots are the last thing you should be afraid of; be afraid of the people with WMD's that want to use them (mainly the US government and associated terrorists).


We aren't going to be so lazy as to make robots that do all the work, right?

Lazy? No, there will be work for humans, maybe just not manual labor.

Why not? They are tools and unless they have AI to tell them so, they don't care what they are programmed to do. Anyway, I don't see how robots could ever replace certain characteristics of humans, at least not in the foreseeable future.


I've seen those commercials by Honda for their robot "Asimo." What else are they working on?
Endoskeleton infantry solders with cybernetic components and grafted human flesh!
Well, actually they could be working on anything, who knows, unless you can completely assess the company. They could also be working on cars...

[Raisa]

Originally posted by Revolution is the [email protected] 9 2005, 05:03 AM

We aren't going to be so lazy as to make robots that do all the work, right?
Work that nobody wants to do, why not?
Thats not being self aware. All you got to do to have a robot do work no one wants to do is program it to do that and it doesnt have to be self aware.

[ComradeRed]

Think about it, robots would be programmed without human irrationality. How rational is it to harm, let alone kill, someone? Which sheds light on the irrational self interest on the Randroids.

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10 2005, 03:31 AM
Think about it, robots would be programmed without human irrationality. How rational is it to harm, let alone kill, someone? Which sheds light on the irrational self interest on the Randroids.
I disagree; robots are programmed to do a task, weather a rational goal or not and AI would likely be the same unless the robots could reevaluate their programming (wouldn't that defeat the point of such programming?).

[guerillablack]

Why the need for AI? Can't i just have a robot programmed to clean my house. I don't wanna have conversations with the mutha fucka! CLEAN! *Cracks whip*

[Dyst]

It shouldn't be too difficult to create some AI with boundaries, such as do not harm, etc. Personally I would of freaked to death if a robot started attacking me, consider that would be it's "goal" and command, and nothing would really stop it. (Except me throwing rocks.)

Anyways.

[Des]

it'll never get to the stage of the matrix...

or perhaps it as already happened! and we are living within the matrix???


fucccckkkkkk!

hehe

[Dyst]

That is nearly an impossibility, considering the fact that the machines actually then let some people create a movie about their system of exploition...

Just as we aren't allowed to create movies (who get's any successfull, anyways) about the exploiting nature of capitalism.

[October Revolution]

A simple robot that has been programmed to say make a car doesn't have A.I even if it will only use something such as plastic.

A.I seems pointless because if it is to be contolled people will always be smater than it and so can solve the problems a machine would be set. As for jobs noone wants people would always have to look over the machines making sure they work properly and so we might as well have automated machines that don't need to think for themselves. People will always be much more valuable than A.I machines so we should believe in the power of makind to get things done not "thinking" machines.

[guerillablack]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 08:47 AM
It shouldn't be too difficult to create some AI with boundaries, such as do not harm, etc. Personally I would of freaked to death if a robot started attacking me, consider that would be it's "goal" and command, and nothing would really stop it. (Except me throwing rocks.)

Anyways.
good tactic to keep away a metal machine bent on destroying you. rocks. :rolleyes:

[Dyst]

Yeah, it always works, really.

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 10:52 AM
That is nearly an impossibility, considering the fact that the machines actually then let some people create a movie about their system of exploition...

Just as we aren't allowed to create movies (who get's any successfull, anyways) about the exploiting nature of capitalism.
That is what THEY want you to think. :ph34r:

Really if machines did control us as they did in the movie, I don't see why we could escape; we'd be fucked! :unsure: Anyway, this life is what you have; make it count! If we "wake up" from our machine captors, so be it...

Otherwise we should just assume that a god built the machines that made the primates that the aliens transported to Earth; Life is a play: Machines of the gods!

[ComradeChris]

My personal opinion on this matter is, that the Bougeoisie (the ones with the money to be developing this technology) do so for their own benefit. It eliminates job positions, and when the workers start demanding higher wages, the wealthy can just say, "So long...we don't need you. We have robots doing all your work now." Not to mention the idea now of an overthrow against overwhelming technological innovations from the Bourgeois. They're the ones essentially in control of nuclear missles. It's a frightening concept to be sure. Not to be pessimistic, but that's what we're looking at.

[encephalon]

many resist the concept of a conscious robot for fear that the prolebots will rish against their oppressors? WTF? If they're counscious, then they should be treated like every other conscious being.. that is, human to our current knowledge (or at least self-aware). saying you don't want conscious robots because they might rise against you because you force them into menial labor is like the capitalist saying he'll only hire idiots for fear the smart ones will rise against him.

If you force self-aware robots into labor, you become a slave-master and capitalist, while the robot becomes you.

[fernando]

Humanity would let the robots do the dirty work, thus exploit them...the robots if they were smart and self aware might end up rebelling...a communist revolution in a way is it not ;)

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Most tasks that we want robots to do really require no more intelligence than a bee - A bee can identify flowers, gather pollen, and return to a workspace, all without the need to comprehend to comprehend Philosophy 101.

I think that 'true' human-like AI will be created for companionship and 'because we can'.

[Guest1]

for true AI, the robot basically needs to be alive.

that's not gonna happen anytime in the near future, until at least after a revolution unleashes humanity's technological potential. Noxion is right though, most robots need not be self-aware/alive. I would also add that the early forms of self-aware robots definitely will be more on the level of bulls and other animals used in labour rather than humans.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Originally posted by Che y [email protected] 31 2005, 01:47 PM
for true AI, the robot basically needs to be alive.
That's not true. Only the ability to mentalise abstract concepts is needed, not the ability to reproduce, respirate, metabolise, etc, the common hallmarks of living things.

[Dark Exodus]

Yes we should allow it. Just make sure their is a failsafe of some description.

[Arca]

Originally posted by Dark Exodus
Yes we should allow it. Just make sure their is a failsafe of some description.

I agree, I'd love to have a conversation with a robot :D

[Camarada]

Originally posted by [email protected] 9 2005, 05:30 AM

Work that nobody wants to do, why not?

Yeah, that might be ok, I guess, so long as the robots weren't self-aware. I don't want no robots suddenly wanting to overthrow people or anything crazy like that. And I wouldn't want some robot to be taking care of me in my old age, like they talk about. That's a little too much. I don't see a need for artifical intelligence. Seems too risky to me. Regular robots with no "intelligence" or "feelings," I guess that's ok.
ROBOTS OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

:D

[Lord Testicles]

They have made a robot that can basically reproduce so how long until we get so lazy we let the robot program other robots? and we can let it do the jobs no one wants it wont rebel because were working on an emp device which destroys anything with a sylocn chip

[Iepilei]

I'm going to be painfully blunt with this one:

Humanity is exceedingly inefficient. We are creative entities capable of producing ideas which may be conveyed into working mechanisms. However humans are largely inefficent as bureaucrats, mathematicians, record-keepers, etc. The human mind cannot go through the raw information that a computer system can with great speed and accuracy.

The continued existence of humanity and the further propogation of our revolution is dependant upon technologies and our ability to intergrate them as much as possible with our society. AI is an excellent option for us, as it allows for intergrated robotics and self-replication systems.

Self-replication is already seeing light. Recently a machine was constructed that can rebuild, repair, and produce. Self-replication systems when applied to nanotechnology will be the final blow to capitalism and resource dependency.

:ph34r:

[Che NJ]

Nano-technology is extremely dangerous. Nano-objects can self replicate at an extremely fast rate if they have the adequate materials. I saw a show once that gave a scenario where nano-robots were deployed to eat oil from an oil spill and they ended up eating every carbon object on the planet. Of course that's just a show but it freaked me out.

As for some kind of hominid robot revolution like in I, Robot (really bad movie) Robots like that will be very hard to develop because of the physical size of the hard-drive needed to hold all of the code for an intelligent machine. A real super computer would be too big to fit into something like that.

People always think of future robots as unstoppable killing machines, but in reality, they would be very uncoordinated and incapable of the kind of stunts they pulled off in I,Robot. A computer can work something out in virtual reality very quickly but there are too many variables in the real world making the same problem it worked out in virtual reality happen in a different way in reality.

And as was mentioned above, machines don't need to be smart to take out trash and cook an egg.

[Lord Testicles]

On the note of nano technology the military want to develope them for assination purposes, because there so small they be brethed in, absorbed into the blood and then puncture veins and things causing internal bleeding

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Nano-technology is extremely dangerous. Nano-objects can self replicate at an extremely fast rate if they have the adequate materials. I saw a show once that gave a scenario where nano-robots were deployed to eat oil from an oil spill and they ended up eating every carbon object on the planet. Of course that's just a show but it freaked me out.

Fear not:

The Nanotechnology Myth (http://www.stardestroyer.net/Empire/Tech/Myths/Nanotech.html)

[restin256]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 10:23 PM
I'm going to be painfully blunt with this one:

Humanity is exceedingly inefficient. We are creative entities capable of producing ideas which may be conveyed into working mechanisms. However humans are largely inefficent as bureaucrats, mathematicians, record-keepers, etc. The human mind cannot go through the raw information that a computer system can with great speed and accuracy.

The continued existence of humanity and the further propogation of our revolution is dependant upon technologies and our ability to intergrate them as much as possible with our society. AI is an excellent option for us, as it allows for intergrated robotics and self-replication systems.

Self-replication is already seeing light. Recently a machine was constructed that can rebuild, repair, and produce. Self-replication systems when applied to nanotechnology will be the final blow to capitalism and resource dependency.

:ph34r:
I'm going to be pretty blunt as well: Humans have a few more centuries to live. We're going to be replaced by machines. It's called Darwinism.

[Che NJ]

I'm not going to argue that nano-technology doesn't have benefits, but we all have to accept that it can have negative uses as well.


sorry I can't quote, I'm in a library

[poster_child]

Do we really want to open "pandora's box"? Where do we draw the line? There's always the possibility of technology falling into the wrong hands. Who decides what is the appropriate use for AI? If it's the government, I would be very worried.

[Latifa]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19 2005, 12:10 PM
many resist the concept of a conscious robot for fear that the prolebots will rish against their oppressors? WTF? If they're counscious, then they should be treated like every other conscious being.. that is, human to our current knowledge (or at least self-aware). saying you don't want conscious robots because they might rise against you because you force them into menial labor is like the capitalist saying he'll only hire idiots for fear the smart ones will rise against him.

If you force self-aware robots into labor, you become a slave-master and capitalist, while the robot becomes you.
And if you force the wind to propel your boat across the ocean, you are a Nazi sodomite with 2 butts&#33; Hah&#33; No. <_<

[amos]

You are of course assuming that we will "create" AI. Surely self awareness might just as easily arise as an emergent property of a suitably complex network of individually dumb processing units ie the neurons of our brains or the Internet in some future incarnation.

Of course certain people are predicting a Singularity Event in the next 30-40 years, (although they were probably doing the same 30 years ago), with either a hard or soft take off for AI. A website dealing with issues related to this and explaining the terms is here (http://www.antipope.org/charlie/toughguide.html) (the title is a quote from a Ken MacLeod novel).

The issues are far more complex than just whether we might become opressors of a robot working class or be murdered in our beds by the philosophic descendents of HAL. Although this website (http://sysopmind.com/beyond.html) has a number of essays which deal with avoiding the latter.

Cheers
Amos

[TheComrade]

Perhaps I have watched Terminator too many times but I would be very scared that this A.I. would work out that they are more powerful than us - they would then think for thesleves and we would all die. How on earth can we trust a &#39;failsafe&#39; mechanism to work?? What if it fails?&#33;&#33;? It too dangerous, in my opinion.

I don&#39;t see anything wrong with automical robots - those that can&#39;t think, just do. Why do we actually need AI anyway? And how on earth is it possible? Electricity cannot think and thats all robots are...

[drain.you]

Haven&#39;t read anything in this thread but the first post but I voted yes, despite the fact it scares me.
I read like half of the short collection of stories in an Isaac Asimov book called &#39;I,Robot&#39; and seen the &#39;I,Robot&#39; film and have seen the idea of AI in robots in many things, notably starwars.
I reckon that AI robots will one day replace the working class and allow a revolution if it has not already been achieved by then. I think using robots for jobs is a good idea and since they are not &#39;real&#39; (they aren&#39;t &#39;living&#39;) then we should exploit them in every way possible :P

[Dark Exodus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2005, 08:46 PM
Electricity cannot think and thats all robots are...
I think you may have misunderstood something. Saying that they are just electricity is like saying we are just single cells. The human brain is just a big biological computer.

[Commie Rat]

Q? Are Issac Asimovs Laws Of Robotics still viable or at lest relevent?

[fernando]

As for some kind of hominid robot revolution like in I, Robot (really bad movie) Robots like that will be very hard to develop because of the physical size of the hard-drive needed to hold all of the code for an intelligent machine. A real super computer would be too big to fit into something like that.

Remember the computer from several decades back, they were so huge they would take up the entire room...now they have computers which are so tiny...I could see the development of this going further. Computers which could regulate a humanoid robot to behave as a fully normal human would be fully possible I think.

Then imagine these machines being designed in such a way that they look totally human, just like us...it would be crazy, humans and robots living side by side...it would be very confusing yes...just like Ghost in the Shell :lol:

[Jadan ja]

I saw Asimo last May.
I went to EXPO (in Nagoya) and saw some other robots there.
I went to Panasonic museum in Tokyo and saw some robots they made.

Now, I am completely sure that robots will never be self-aware. It will always remain science fiction and humans will never be replaced by robots.

[fernando]

Why are you so sure about that?

[Jadan ja]

Those machines are being considered great success of robotics. I didnt expect a lot (nothing more then what I have been told robots can do), and I was really disappointed.

Asimo and all other robots that I saw needs more human supervision than any other machine. This is a list of things they say Asimo should be able to do, and short descriptions of how it looks in practice:

1. his motion should resemble human walking: should be able to climb stairs, but it cannot really do it (it can make unsuccessful attempt ending with waiting a minute before he can continue)
2. recoginze person and follow him: I dont think that asimo did anything that looks like that at all.
3. should stop if there is a danger of hitting anything: stops when something moves
4. should react to gestures and not only voice commands: cannot react to voice commands and I did not see any reaction to gestures. All other robots, which I saw, that should be able to recognize voice commands also werent really successful
5. recognize sounds like calling of his name, falling of objects and so on: distracted by anything, turns his head towards the source of any kind of sound, so veryone in the room had to be silent
6. recoginze the faces: they did not show us that ability.
7. shake hands: they did not show us that Asimo can do it. On Expo, however, I saw Mitshubishis robot wakamaru who is designed to take care of old Japanese. After placing my hand in front of him he first moved his head (obviously he saw my hand, it certainly is some kind of success), and strted to move his hand in wrong direction (10 cm above my hand).

Most of the things that you hear about robots are exaggerations. Before asking will robots ever be self aware, we should ask will robots ever be able to perform any of the things mentioned above.

Technology advanced a lot in previous 200 years, but it certainly has limits. There will never be a car that can reach the speed of 2000km/h. People will never build a tower 1000000 km high. It is impossible to travell faster than light. Absolute zero cannot be reached. It is impossible to create matter and energy from nothing. Why would not developement of robotics can be limited in a similar way?

If human labour can be partially eliminated, it does not mean it can be completely eliminated (if an airplane can reach speed of sound, it doesnt mean it can reach the speed of light).

[fernando]

Technology advanced a lot in previous 200 years, but it certainly has limits. There will never be a car that can reach the speed of 2000km/h. People will never build a tower 1000000 km high. It is impossible to travell faster than light. Absolute zero cannot be reached. It is impossible to create matter and energy from nothing. Why dont you think that developement of robotics can be limited in a similar way.

I remember that in the beginning of the 20th century scientists said they were mostly done with science and that everything had practically been discovered...

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Jaden Ja, you are merely describing the limitations of of Asimo. 20 years ago, you would not have been able to build a robot like Asimo. In another 20 years, Asimo will look clumsy and primitive.

[Jadan ja]

I remember that in the beginning of the 20th century scientists said they were mostly done with science and that everything had practically been discovered...

And then science proved that better machines can be made and new scientific laws can be discovered.

In contrast to those scientists, alchemists believed they could turn some metals into gold by a chemichal reaction. Later, chemists defined that as impossible. Developement of science sometimes places limits, not only show what new machine can be made. Every scientific law defines something as possible and something else as impossible.

Alchemists held that belief because they saw the rapid developement of chemistry. They saw that reactants before the chemichal reaction are completely different than products. "If science continue to progress like this" they thought "soon we will be able to turn lead into gold&#33;" In a similar way, rapid developement of science today make some people believe that some things (which are impossible) will be possible in the future.

I am sure that alchemists imagined 20th century as a world in which everything is made of gold (since they hoped that in 700 years someone will find a way to turn metals into gold). Ideas of world in which physical work is completely eliminated or world in which robots are "like humans" are, I believe, very similar.


Jaden Ja, you are merely describing the limitations of of Asimo. 20 years ago, you would not have been able to build a robot like Asimo. In another 20 years, Asimo will look clumsy and primitive.

I described the limitations of Asimo to show you that developement is not going as quickly as you are being told. If you look at the forerunner of Asimo made in 1986, you will obviously see progress, but Asimo is not moving so much faster than E0 and, as I wrote, cannot really climb stairs (some of the main differences beween Asimo and E0).

Also, I described those limitations, to show what robots really are. They are machines unable to make understand difference between meningful sound and irrelevant noise (something that animals can). Will machines unable to reach level of animals ever be self-aware treat to humans?

[encephalon]

http://www.dieselsweeties.com/hstrips/0/0/1/0/00104.png

sorry, I couldn&#39;t resist.

[Morpheus]

People will never build a tower 1000000 km high

I think the invention of carbon nanotubes makes building a Space Elevator (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator) quite plausible.

[Jadan ja]

Yes, as I said science sometimes proves that something that was considered impossible can be done. But also, sometimes it proves that something that was considered "possible in distant or close future" cannot be done.

[Seeker]

I actualy see the creation of AI and development of nanotech as the "purpose" of Capitalisim.

Once these technologies are perfected, grunt work will be history. Anything you had blueprints for could be produced via an AI nanite fabricator. Depending on how hard the universal fabricators are to construct, every community could have their own or maybe every household.

This would put the means of production directly under the control of the local population, and laziness, greed, and the hierarchy that results from those would no longer be problems.

If no one is required to do the "dirty work", we can avoid future class wars.

I&#39;m not totaly convinced that a stable, communistic society is possible without some serious labor-reducing tech.

If it is possible for humans to create an AI that is smarter than a human, that AI should be able to build a 2nd AI that is smarter than itself. This third AI could then, in theory, produce a 4th AI which is smarter than itself (and it would be created in less time as well). This process continues, with the legnth of time between AI improvements being reduced with each iteration . . .

[red team]

Technical Difficulties in Achieving a Liberating Type of Communism

At this moment in time I think the technological and social condition of present human society does not allow a liberating type of communism to be achieved. At most that could be hoped for is a type of supervised rationing system in which work and consumer products are parcelled out. If that is the case then this "Socialist" or "Communist" (you can call it what you want) system should it ever be achieved will not last as it will lead to a serious case of unmotivated workers. This is the actual case in the former Eastern block countries including the U.S.S.R. when it existed. Workers seriously lacked the motivation to do their jobs. And when it came time that the rulers of the system started to dismantle the centrally planned economy (the supervised rationing system as mentioned before) in favour of an openly Capitalist economy, there was no significant portion of the working population motivated enough to stop them. Why is that the case? Well let me elaborate.

First of all as mentioned before when the revolution broke out the technical level of present human society (this includes North America by the way) only allowed the type of system that was possible. A rationed agricultural/industrial work system in which the best that the average worker could hope for was a regimented factory "life" in which work and pretty much everything else in life was a repetitive and endless routine. For certain this was better than most workers could hope for in much of the rest of the world with almost free housing, free medical care, free education and a guaranteed job, but knowing human beings as much as I do they always hope for something more than a routinized existence in which endless, repetitive and alienating work is a duty and precondition to receiving the necessities of life. The majority of jobs necessary for the maintenance and functioning of present industrial society as it exists today are neither uplifting nor goal oriented. The necessary work are neither stimulating nor does it give any sense of accomplishment to the worker who finishes the work because it never really is finished in any sort of meaningful goal oriented sense. If you "finish" your job today you start again tomorrow from square one. In that sort of situation its not very hard to predict what kind of culture and attitude most workers would develop over time in regards to their jobs given that they were not coerced into desperation and put into survival-mode as is the case in Capitalist countries. The workers did as little as they could get away with or to put another way they did as much as necessary to not get punished by management, but no more. And in most cases since the job and the paycheck is guaranteed anyway and management also gets a guaranteed paycheck from the central government you could get away with not doing any work at all or doing minimal work for an entire day. As I said before there was a serious lack of motivation to the type of routinized existence that industrial technology as it existed then and as it exists now limited the system in its capacity to allow. Most people were stuck with these types of jobs performing mind-numbing, repetitive work since it was impossible for everybody to have satisfying professional or semi-professional type jobs.

Secondly, even if the required technical level has been reached which allows for most repetitive work to be automated, most workers even today are not educated to the level of being competent technicians which are required to maintain the complex automated machinery to eliminate repetitive alienating work in the first place. Just as an example, a significant portion of the high school graduates in the U.S. requires remedial courses in simple arithmetic when put into a job that requires basic math skills.

So at present is it possible to develop a liberating type of socialist system as a replacement to Capitalism. The answer is no, but if the situation becomes unbearable for the impoverished masses a type of supervised rationing system is the best that could be hoped for at our present social and technical level. Until we fully develop the technology to eliminate repetitive, but necessary work and have a highly trained technician workforce to maintain such technology a liberating type of socialism/communism for all involved will remain just a dream.


red team