Robots

[fredjacksonsan]

Originally Posted by Muscletang

Here are my questions for you guys to answer.[

1. How long will it take before our technology will become very compact to where we can fit it anywhere
and advanced enough to run the computers and software needed?

I see it happening in our lifetimes, certainly within the next 50 years. In the last 50, we've gone from building-sized computers that were less capable than your pocket calculator, to cell phones that can transmit moving video.


2. How long before we can make very fast, quick, mobil machines, and small enough to fit human form?

If we're talking about human-sized and shaped robots, such as in I, Robot, it will probably be awhile. But there will be great public outcry when it happens.


3. How will they be powered?

Fuel cells or some very efficient battery. The power source seems the be the weak link, for now. Once the oil runs out there will be great progress into new types of energy.


4. Will there be a type of three laws and could they be broken?

As in any programming, the programmer ultimately controls what the machine does. I'm sure that there will always be the honest scientist that intends for some laws to be programmed and followed; but, just like the movie, there will always be someone or something that wants to corrupt the programming for other purposes.


4. Could an advanced A.I. computer become aware?

Ultimately, IMO, yes but it will depend on whether or not "thinking machines" can develop creativity. And networking computers adds to the power so you wouldn't need to have all the circuits in the same place to make it happen.


5. If this A.I. become independant and aware, would it see humanity as old, weak, and outdated?

Depends on the perceptive abilities that were programmed, and a thing called creativity, which so far machines haven't shown.

Assuming AI became aware, I don't think that the "Terminator" series of movies were that farfetched. Think about "The Matrix" also - humans could be seen as a virus, an inferior life form, which although was the Creator for the computers had outlived its usefulness.


6. If robots become cheap, mass produced, smart, and can do task like or better than humans, could they cause an economic depression of some sorts?

How about the rich get them and sit around and do nothing. Then they spread to menial tasks, removing the cost of say, picking oranges from the people that currently do that job. Since they'd be replacing people, it could be good but I think at first it will have a negative impact...headlines: "Robots Cause Unemployment to Jump 15%"....

[AlmostStock]

http://marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

From the article:

One of the key capabilities limiting robotic expansion at the moment is image processing -- the ability of robots to look at a scene like a human does and detect all the objects in the scene. Without general, flexible vision algorthms, it is hard for a robot to do much. For example, it is hard for a blind robot to clean a bathroom or drive a car. Part of the problem is raw CPU power, but that problem will be solved over the next 20 to 30 years because of Moore's law. The other part is a software problem. We don't have really good algorithms yet. My prediction is that we will see significant progress in the image processing field over the next 20 years. Think about the changes that will take place once basic research in image processing yields the algorithms we need. Suddenly it will be easy for robots to walk around and manipulate objects in any human environment.

• Robotic cars and trucks are one obvious application for vision systems. There are more than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. every year because of car accidents. Human negligence causes most of these accidents. With robots doing all the driving, the number of accidents will go way down and we will eliminate one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. Unfortunately, robotic vehicles will also leave every taxi driver, bus driver, truck driver, etc. out of work.
• Robots with vision systems will be able to do all the cleaning in every hotel, store, airport and restaurant. Things will be spotless, but that will unemploy perhaps five million people.
• Robots with vision can stack brick, lay tile, paint and put on roofs all day and all night. Five million more people will be out of work.
• Robots with vision can easily stock shelves in stores. Think of all the workers stocking shelves, restocking merchandise, taking inventory, directing customers and manning cash resisters in places like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, BJ's, Sam's Club, Toys R Us, Sears, J.C. Penny's, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, Kroger's, Winn-Dixie, Pet Depot and on and on and on. More than 10 million employees will be on the street.
• Armies of robots with built-in night vision will be able to provide security and policing unlike anything we can imagine today.
• And so on.

A single research area -- computer vision -- will have a tremendous impact once it reaches its goal of general, flexible image processing algorithms. This is analogous to the development of airplanes. Nothing happened in the field of aviation until the Wright Brothers made the breakthrough that got the first airplane off the ground. 44 short years after the breakthrough, supersonic flight was possible. Once robots have flexible, accurate vision systems, the pace of change will be unbelievably rapid and unstoppable. Tens of millions of people will become unemployed over the course of just two to three decades. If you think about it, robots are a very good thing. Human beings should not be driving trucks, flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets. These activites represent a massive waste of human potential. The question is: what will these tens of millions of people do to make a living when their tens of millions of jobs evaporate? What will happen to the economy when the unemployment rate reaches 30% or 40%?

From AlmostStock:

The writer goes on with his predictions and suggestions, and there are lots of side bars to click on. I haven't read it all. I will say that if robots ever do come to this type of development and prominence (and that's a big "if" for me) then "great public outcry" will be a huge understatement. My first thought was that the misplaced human workers would be making robots, but that wouldn't happen because robots would be doing that too. The humans without jobs would do what ever they could against robots and companies that use or make them, including using terror tactics against them. After many more years of evolving, the robots themselves thinking they are superior, will want to take over the humans. Eventually there will be an all out robot verses human war. I wonder who will win?

[96Civ]

Seing as an EMP would wipe out robots in one swipe, I think we would win as soon as things started blowing up.