robotOk, maybe its just me, and the fact I have watched to many movies and TV shows where creating a robot, in some way or another, ends in our destruction.

I came across this post on Reddit Yesterday which links to an article on Wired entitled “This 6-Foot, 330-Pound Robot May One Day Save Your Life“. My brain automatically started referring to BattleStar Galactica, mainly for the fact I am only now watching the series (10 years too late, I know).  Then the though of movies like Terminator, i Robot, and The Matrix (Thx to robotsongs for bringing up it up as I forgot to mention it). The basic plot line of these movies, and pretty much every robot in movies is portrayed, is this:  Man builds robot, man gives robot artificial intelligence, robot misinterprets / ignores / over writes / twists the 3 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 to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
  • A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

At which point the robots rebel against their creators, either enslaving them in some way or totally annihilating them.

Now as we know, a lot of what we have today, it mimicry of Sci-Fi movies from the past. I mean our flip phones (if anyone still uses them) look a lot like a an original Star Trek Communicator.  We’ve all seen the Star Trek Predictions meme floating around the net (of which I am sure you noticed the type in the first one… I think they meant 93… as in 73 that tech still wasn’t around…), so is my fear of these new robots possibly becoming a threat really that irrational?

“In December, seven teams of scientists from top institutions, including MIT and Virginia Tech, will compete to code the bot for action. Each team will send its own Atlas into Darpa’s trials—eight tasks that will test his ability to navigate degraded terrain, drive a utility vehicle, and enter buildings.“

Seven teams, seven of the smartest Robotic’s teams all competing to create the robots brain… HELLO! If I am not mistaken, this is pretty much how almost every destructive “thing” on earth have been created…

Now they say this robot, Atlas, is designed to save lives in disaster zones… a very admirable notion, however I am sure behind the scenes, the military is looking at it massaging their chins, pondering what other uses such a robot could be used for. I am sure it wouldn’t be long before the robots get do more than rescue missions. I mean, the military ALSO has to navigate degraded terrain (i have yet to see a war zone that was not degraded), drive vehicles, and enter buildings….

Ok, I will admit, my thoughts and rants on the subject maybe skewed a bit, as I am a huge Sci-Fi nut, and to be honest, I hope (yet am doubtful) I am wrong about what I think the Government would be up to… But in all honesty, we too often try to play “God” and in most cases it bites us in the ass… The US created the Atomic bomb as a preventative measure, then actually used it on Japan… Today there are enough nukes to destroy the world several times over… Face it, we like to create things that can destroy us. We are human after all.

“Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Julius Robert Oppenheimer, Creator of the Atomic Bomb, as quoted from the  Bhagavad Gita

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