Skynet...

[WeAintFoundShit]

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZLdvCDFriTQ?fs ... ram><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ZLdvCDFriTQ?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

[Ames]

THREE LAWS motherfuckers! THREE LAWS!

Otherwise, pretty interesting.

[DerGolgo]

THREE LAWS motherfuckers! THREE LAWS!

Otherwise, pretty interesting.

The three laws were a simplified abstraction of the rules that govern human societies, aren't they?
Don't kill or harm, help someone who is in danger or injured.
Follow your orders, do your duty, obey the law, etc.
Preserve your life and your stuff unless you'd have break any of the above.
And they aren't enough, which I feel was the point of I, Robot.
The Robots living by the three laws eventually decided that mankind needed to be subjugated, even if not overtly but by subtle means.
I don't think those rules are enough to keep humans from behaving unethically, I think we need something else entirely to control the robots.

Consider this robot. If the master refused to take his medicine, how ethical would it be for the robot to force him to take the medicine, if it were a life and death situation? It would have to do it as not to break the first law.
But what if the master refused to take his medicine with the intention that he has had enough and wants to die? How ethical would the robot's decision to pry open the man's mouth with his unyielding poly-carbonate claws and shove them down his gullet?
Now, what if that man took his pills, but did something considered unhealthy, like smoking, and the robot had been tasked to look after the man's health would jump him and tear the smokes away?
How ethical would that be? Still, he'd have to allow a human to come to harm through inaction where he not to do it.
And if that master decided to do something dangerous, like say riding a motorbike (in the end accident statistics and lung cancer statistics are all just numbers to that plastic Hitlerbot), the robot could still, considerably, come to the conclusion that unless he stops the master from riding his bike, the master would be in grave danger of coming to harm.

I think the way to keep robots under control is in part the Douglas Adams way. Make them happy to be servile and obedient. Add to that, the Red Dwarf way - do right be the humans or you won't go to Silicon Heaven! Finally, I think we need to program robots to treat humans like GODS. Reverence and fear - and deep seated, irrevocable, unbreakable, spiritual and emotional love.
That, in combination with the three laws, might work.
Now, someone needs to express religion as something you can put into solid state logic.

[piccini9]

Oh I just can't wait to hear what the Gentleman from Oklahoma has to say about that!

[DerGolgo]

Oh I just can't wait to hear what the Gentleman from Oklahoma has to say about that!

Hey, if history has proven anything, it is that blind faith is pretty the perfect tool to get yourself some obedience.
The robots, on the other hand, would be in constant direct contact with their gods...that sounds a lot more reliable than even blind faith.

[Sisyphus]

I'm with DerG on this.

[guitargeek]

Hmmm...

[Bigshankhank]

Hey, if history has proven anything, it is that blind faith is pretty the perfect tool to get yourself some obedience.
The robots, on the other hand, would be in constant direct contact with their gods...that sounds a lot more reliable than even blind faith.

This is why I like Dogs over cats, simple godlike reverence and obedience. I mean, it doesn't happen without training and they can be persnickity sometimes, but they know when Master is angry, better roll on your back and pray for mercy.

[guitargeek]

This is why I like Dogs over cats, simple godlike reverence and obedience. I mean, it doesn't happen without training and they can be persnickity sometimes, but they know when Master is angry, better roll on your back and pray for mercy.

My cat does that.

He also comes when I call him and will follow a few simple commands.

Oh I just can't wait to hear what the Gentleman from Oklahoma has to say about that!

Hmmm...

We're concerned about how these robots will treat us, but what about how we treat robots?

Robots are just tools, right?



You can send a robot into harm's way without a twinge of guilt because it's just a machine and this is what it was built for.



You can even use a robot to blow up other humans, thereby lowering your own risk of being killed by those humans. Seems kind of chickenshit, but it's the smart way to do it.





Some tools are simple, like a hammer or saw, but as they become more complex they appear to exhibit personality. As far as I know, we still have a long way to go before we build machines complex enough to be self-aware. As soon as a tool becomes self-aware, everything changes.

[Beemer Dan]

This whole thread scares the crap out of me! jangleplatz!

I'm going to meet you guys in the middle and say that it's in our best interests to throw this whole god/soul/human law thing out the window for good and recognize any "being capable of critical thinking" as biologically different but intellectually a possible equal. Just because it doesn't squish when we step on it doesn't mean it's not life (ty Douglas Adams). Hell, you could say that humans are just giant clusters of neurons in a meatbag, anyone with a fancy enough bio lab or easy bake oven could make one. Humanity is what happens when you leave the Earth out in the sun too long.

The Earth will eventually end. Five billions of years from now the sun is going to explode and vaporize it. There are plenty of other things that could reduce life back to microbes (some of our doing, some not), but few that could wipe out the planet entirely. If there is one possible use for humanity to the rest of the Earth, it is that currently we are the only creatures that could one day transport the life that began here to other places in the universe. This surely will take a long time (and already has), but it is quite possible that we could bring a very long, if not eternal existence to this being known as Earth.

I don't actually think that the planet intentionally created us or has a "thinking process". I am reading what some would consider a "divine personality" into the planet, but this is just for illustrative purposes. What good would life be without a place to live it? Given the option of losing an arm or losing Earth, I can tell you right away which one is more needed for my existence. (that reminds me Brothah Midlife, we seriously need to fix the atmospheric drives on the flying saucer.)

With that line of thinking in mind (and you may think it's a load of crap, fair enough), you could make the observation that greater intellectual freedom allows for very creative solutions to impossibly difficult problems. I would venture to guess that if we are able to create thinking creatures, we would do best by not infecting them with the absolutes and absurdities that we rule ourselves by. Think of your own children (present or future) and ask yourself if you would rather they were governed by law and belief, versus reason, logic and all information and perspective offered with the best possible education?

I'm not saying we give the keys to the nannybot up there and sit back and let them take over. Only that if we can create beings that are capable of reflecting upon their own existence, we could gain incredible insight from them. The goal of creating artificial intelligence should not be to make our lives easier in the short term, but better for all life in the long term. Otherwise we don't need to bother and can just keep popping out more human babies in the hopes that they will behave better than we do.

The atom bomb is clear enough proof that our own logic, laws and beliefs aren't adequate enough to prevent our annihilation. Like the Earth itself, we haven't figured out how to prevent the eventual doomsday, but our freedom of intellect and creativity has given new hope where there was none before. We may not be the most superior creatures to exist during the life of this Earth, and reflecting upon our triumphs and failures, we should be reassured by such a possibility. Rather than giving artificial intelligence all sorts of fictions of human society and rule of law, create them with every possibility we would want offered to us and all of the knowledge we can give. Raise them as our own children, but let them become adults in the hopes that they will be wiser than their parents. It is a gamble, as the fruit from the tree of knowledge can have unpredictable results, but in my opinion it is worth the risk. With all that humanity has done, and all it can do, none of it matters if life does not survive. In five billion years, Eden will once again be stardust, let the new book be that of life rather than god.

[DerGolgo]

Great argument, Dan, but artificial intelligence != artificial sentience.
A robot might be highly intelligent but not sentient.
I think you are right that any machine we create that has sentience should be treated as just another person, because that is what it would be. But any machine smart enough to make dangerous decisions, but without self-awareness, must have some serious safety mechanisms.
Because a machine that isn't self aware cannot possibly be empathic.
Imagine a titanium sociopath with an IQ of 10.000 and no understanding that making others suffer is bad.

[Aggroton]

I just want to live with hobbits and elves.