Those who should be worried are the futurologists who believe in the so-called singularity, when robots take over and themselves create even more sophisticated progeny. And another worry is that we are increasingly dependent on computer networks, and that these could behave like a single brain with a mind of its own, and with goals that may be contrary to human welfare. I think we should ensure that robots remain as no more than idiot savants - lacking the capacity to outwit us, even though they may greatly surpass us in the ability to calculate and process information. I question the idea of objective human intelligence. There are just cultural measures about what intelligence is and therefore machines could outstrip human intelligence. When that happens will depend on what we decide is the measure of intelligence. Each generation makes a new definition of what it means to be human and what is uniquely a human quality, then a machine comes along and meets it and so many people despair that humanity is on the brink of its own annihilation. This fear of machines is not something inherent in them, it is a consequences of the modes of mimesis (copying and representation) used in the making of robots. This could be seen as a modern form of animism. Animism is a term to describe the personification of nature, but I believe we can apply it to machines. Read more at: phys.org/news/2013-07-robots-world.html#jCp
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 20:31:27 +0000
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