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Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by onlyforchrist: 2:00pm On Nov 01, 2015
Picture the scenario - a sentient machine is "living" in the US in the year 2050 and starts
browsing through the US constitution.
Having read it, it decides that it wants the opportunity to vote.
Oh, and it also wants the right to procreate. Pretty basic human rights that it feels it should
have now it has human-level intelligence.

"Do you give it the right to vote or the right to procreate because you can't do both?" asks
Ryan Calo, a law professor at the University of Washington.
"It would be able to procreate instantly and infinitely so if it and its offspring could vote, it
would break the democratic system."

This is just one of the questions Prof Calo is contemplating as he considers how the law has
to change to accommodate our ever-growing band of robot and AI companions.
He does not think that human-level intelligence is coming to machines any time soon but
already our relationship with them is raising some interesting questions.
Recently there was a tragic accident at a VW factory in Germany, when a robotic arm, that
moved car parts into place, crushed a young man who was also working there.
Exact details of the case are not yet released but it is believed human error was to blame.
Volkswagen has not commented on the incident.

While industrial accidents do happen, the law gets a little fuzzy when it involves a robot. It
would be unlikely that a human could sue a robot for damage, for example.
"Criminal law requires intent and these systems don't do things wrong on purpose," said
Prof Calo.
How the world deals with the rise of artificial intelligence is something that is preoccupying
leading scientists and technologists, some of who worry that it represents a huge threat to
humanity.

Elon Musk, founder of Tesla motors and aerospace manufacturer Space X, has become the
figurehead of the movement, with Stephen Hawking and Steve Wozniak as honorary
members.
Mr Musk who has recently offered £10m to projects designed to control AI, has likened the
technology to "summoning the demon" and claimed that humans would become nothing more
than pets for the super-intelligent computers that we helped create.

The pet analogy is one shared by Jerry Kaplan, author of the book, Humans Need Not Apply.
In it, he paints a nightmarish scenario of a human zoo run by "synthetic intelligences".
"Will they enslave us? Not really - more like farm us or keep us on a reserve, making life
there so pleasant and convenient that there's little motivation to venture beyond its
boundaries," he writes.
Human intelligence will become a curiosity to our AI overlords, he claims, and they "may
want to maintain a reservoir of these precious capabilities, just as we want to preserve
chimps, whales and other endangered creatures".

Philosopher Nick Bostrom thinks we need to make sure that any future super-intelligent AI
systems are "fundamentally on our side" and that such systems learn "what we value" before
it gets out of hand - King Midas-style.
Setting the controls for AI should come before we crack the initial challenge of creating it, he
said in a recent talk.

Without clearly defined goals, it may well prove an uncomfortable future for humans, because
artificial intelligence, while not inherently evil, will become the ultimate optimisation
process.
"We may set the AI a goal to make humans smile and the super-intelligence may decide that
the best way to do this would be to take control of the world and stick electrodes in the
cheeks of all humans.
"Or we may set it a tough mathematical problem to solve and it may decide the most effective
way to solve it is to transform the planet into a giant computer to increase its thinking
power," he said during his talk.

Ask an expert in AI when the robots will take over the world and they are likely to give you a
wry smile.
For IBM's head of research, Guru Banavar, AI will work with humans to solve pressing
problems such as disease and poverty.
While Geoff Hinton, known as the godfather of deep learning, also told the BBC that he "can't
foresee a Terminator scenario".
"We are still a long way off," although, he added, not entirely reassuringly: "in the long run,
there is a lot to worry about."
The reality is that we are only at the dawn of AI and, as Prof Hinton points out, attempting to
second-guess where it may take us is "very foolish".
"You can see things clearly for the next few years but look beyond 10 years and we can't
really see anything - it is just a fog," he said.
Computer-based neural networks, which mimic the brain, are still a long way from replicating
what their human counterparts can achieve.
"Even the biggest current neural networks are hundreds of times smaller than the human
brain," said Prof Hinton.
What machines are good at is taking on board huge amounts of information and making
sense of it in a way that humans simply can't do, but the machines have no consciousness,
don't have any independent thought and certainly can't question what they do and why they
are doing it.

As Andrew Ng, chief scientist at Chinese e-commerce site Baidu, puts it: "There's a big
difference between intelligence and sentience. Our software is becoming more intelligent, but
that does not imply it is about to become sentient."
AI may be neutral - but as author James Barrat points out in his book, Our Final Invention,
that does not mean it can't be misused.

"Advanced AI is a dual-use technology, like nuclear fission. Fission can illuminate cities or
incinerate them. At advanced levels, AI will be even more dangerous than fission and it's
already being weaponised in autonomous drones and battle robots."
Already operating on the South Korean border is a sentry robot, dubbed SGR-1. Its heat-
and-motion sensors can identify potential targets more than two miles away. Currently it
requires a human before it shoots the machine gun that it carries but it raises the question -
who will be responsible if the robots begin to kill without human intervention?

The use of autonomous weapons is something that the UN is currently discussing and has
concluded that humans must always have meaningful control over machines.
Noel Sharkey co-founded the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and believes there are several
reasons why we must set rules for future battlefield bots now.
"One of the first rules of many countries is about preserving the dignity of human life and it
is the ultimate human indignity to have a machine kill you," he said.
But beyond that moral argument is a more strategic one which he hopes military leaders will
take on board.
"The military leaders might say that you save soldiers' lives by sending in machines instead
but that is an extremely blinkered view. Every country, including China, Russia and South
Korea is developing this technology and in the long run, it is going to disrupt global
security," he said.

"What kind of war will be initiated when we have robots fighting other robots? No-one will
know how the other ones are programmed and we simply can't predict the outcome."
We don't currently have any rules for how robots should behave if and when they start
operating autonomously.

Many fall back on a simple set of guidelines devised by science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.
Introduced in his 1942 short story Runaround, the three laws of robotics - taken from the
fictional Handbook of Robotics, 56th edition 2058, are as follows:

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 laws.

By Jane Wakefield
Culled from BBC
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by feldido(m): 2:22pm On Nov 01, 2015
Why not?... Humans are growing from Bad to Worse and without love or affection... Now tell me what's gonna happen if Boko Haram gets its hands on the technology of AI?
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by onlyforchrist: 2:29pm On Nov 01, 2015
feldido:
Why not?
What really get my nerves high is the rate at which world powers ( USA, Russia, South Korea, Iraq, Israel) are building robot for war purpose. I fear the world will be destroy by our own making.
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by feldido(m): 2:36pm On Nov 01, 2015
onlyforchrist:

What really get my nerves high is the rate at which world powers ( USA, Russia, South Korea, Iraq, Israel) are building robot for war purpose. I fear the world will be destroy by our own making.

I believe they've already developed autonomous Robotic soldiers as we are speaking but are keeping quiet for what the world will say... All these articles are just to hear people's view about the matter.
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by onlyforchrist: 3:32pm On Nov 01, 2015
feldido:


I believe they've already developed autonomous Robotic soldiers as we are speaking but are keeping quiet for what the world will say... All these articles are just to hear people's view about the matter.
see brother, I forecast that developing and underdeveloped countries will bear more of the pains because I still see slavery underway using these dreadful weaponries embedded in Robotics. Africa needs to wake up.....
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by feldido(m): 4:29pm On Nov 01, 2015
onlyforchrist:

see brother, I forecast that developing and underdeveloped countries will bear more of the pains because I still see slavery underway using these dreadful weaponries embedded in Robotics. Africa needs to wake up.....

We sure need to
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by inumidun2010(m): 9:05am On May 20, 2022
Hello Bro, I saw one of your comment about MOAT ACADEMY on one thread about STUTTERN... please can I have your mail or digits ..I want to make some enquiry from you..
Re: Intelligent Machines: Do We Really Need To Fear The Rise of Robotics? by inumidun2010(m): 9:07am On May 20, 2022
onlyforchrist:

see brother, I forecast that developing and underdeveloped countries will bear more of the pains because I still see slavery underway using these dreadful weaponries embedded in Robotics. Africa needs to wake up.....

Hello Bro, I saw one of your comment about MOAT ACADEMY on one thread about STUTTERN... please can I have your mail or digits ..I want to make some enquiry from you..

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