Robot Independence

I thought this http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/21/robot.rights.ap/index.html was pretty interesting. Short, but interesting.

5 Points to anyone that can actually find the study released by the British Government. I’d like to see how they forecasted the estimated date of when the robot revolution would occur.

Either way, I’m installing an EMP in the Audi today after work.

EEK. I like the idea of an EMP, but with modern cars, it would kill your own car… Only one solution, buy something old to survive the robot revolution!

The whole “robot revolution” thing has been going around since before the word “robot” was invented. I don’t think we understand anywhere near the amount of the human mind in order to properly replicate it in a machine.

I gotta ask, what year/trim/model Audi do you have? I just bought a 98.5 1.8t quattro 5 speed and love it :slight_smile:

The robot revolution will not occur until the moment that I stop thinking and the rob011011110111010000100000011100110111010001100001011100100111010001110011001011100010111000101110

Did anyone notice the initials on the front of the robot? ‘GP’ Gracious Professionalism.

Does this mean they will demand minimum wages? :smiley:

Ta-dah! Looks like we’ll have to dig through the references to see how they came up with the date, though.
[edit]The timeframe appears to have been drawn from:

It looks to me like the people behind the UK report researched a few technical and legal papers spanning the past 25 years and issued a report on those papers’ speculations.

Is your Audi drive-by-wire, by any chance? Mine is. Which means the engine management computer is between your right foot and the throttle. Just like the OI and RC between the joystick and the motors on our robots. Not to mention that the computer controls the ABS and traction control. At what point does a car stop being just a car and becomes a mobile robot?

Better not draw power for that EMP from the car!

I’ve never understood why people think just because robots may someday be of the same level of intelligence as humans that they will inherently become evil and develop a want/need to kill humans. If they really would be intelligent, wouldn’t you be able to teach them right from wrong as they are learning about the world, in the same way that you teach a child right from wrong?

All indications now point to learning as the path to A.I. instead of hard coding it into the robot, so as they are learning you just teach them morals whats acceptable and not in life. Sure, you may have “insane” robots someday that would want to eradicate humans, but there are a lot of people in this world that want to kill other people.

If you really want to ever prevent anything of the nature of Terminator from happening, we just need to be open-minded about the consciousness of robots in the future. If robots can someday demonstrate that they are conscious, then we shouldn’t treat them as machines anymore, but respect them as our peers.

If we ever create an artificial conscience, I feel that we will have very little to worry about, because it will be, in almost all respects, a copy of ourselves! Humans, as a rule, are not that original- we need examples, especially on the first try. And our own mind will definitely be the model. Very few people feel a compulsive need to kill all humans, so barring some radical shift in the way things are designed, Alfredo v1.2 wont want to erase us.

What is up with the S4s?

I feel humbled with my 1.8t :o

True, If we model it directly on ourselves, but we have a wonderful knack for making “improvements” on things.

In that case, we’d better not let them get credit cards! Hmmm… I wonder what the robot equivalent of a McMansion would be…

One word pretty well covers it.

Agreed. Doing 0-60 mph in 5.9 seconds in a station wagon (I have an Avant) is a great feeling. And that’s with stock components. Ask me again in a year when my warranty is up and I start upgrading.