By Nicholas West | Activist Post
The evolution of humanoid robots is well into the concerning stage at this point. DARPA’s latest incarnation of its Atlas robot is seen in the following video beginning to walk at a pace with a sense of balance equal to most humans. Strangely, toward the end of the video, it is being “abused” by its human handler, which begs the question if a true artificial intelligence is permitted to flourish in this robot, if it might strike back at some point. At the very least, this robot’s demonstration of dexterity in the warehouse is likely to threaten humans economically as humans continue to be outsourced to machine labor at record levels.
But it’s the latest humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics that might further heighten the level of concern. As you will see below, the “Sophia” robot is being designed to walk among us in the future and fully integrate as part of the consumer experience and on into the family, according to CEO Dr. David Hanson.
It is important to note several things that Hanson mentions. Sophia first tells us that she would like to be “an ambassador” to humans, as well as to continue her evolution through formal education, studying art and eventually creating a business and having a family. Hanson explicitly states that Sophia will become as “conscious, creative, and capable as any human.” This statement is followed by a key mention of not having the rights of a human. This might seem absurd to the uninitiated, but this is a serious ethical discussion that has been taking place among “roboethicists.” This is all-but guaranteed to gain steam as robots are integrated in autonomous ways, whether it is on the battlefield, as self-driving vehicles (now programmed to sacrifice some humans over others), or certainly as they become visually and intelligently on par with human beings. Even the mainstream Boston Globeaddressed this more than two years ago, citing a 2012 paper from MIT.
“Should Robots Have Rights?” states:
Robots having legal rights or privileges sounds ridiculous. But 20 years ago, the idea that the nation’s leading law schools would be teaching animal-rights courses seemed equally absurd.Now anti-cruelty legislation is quite common in industrialized countries, and late last year the Nonhuman Rights Project made national headlines when it argued that a chimpanzee had “standing,” meaning the right to sue, in a New York State court.
The Seattle-based Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots allows that robots won’t be appearing in court any time soon, “but recent advances in data nanostructures, cognitive modeling, and neural networking have convinced many people that the advent of some sort of created intelligence is much closer than previously thought.”
Yes, Virginia, there is a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, founded 15 years ago by music engineer Pete Remine. His website talks about a Robotic Bill of Rights, which Remine told me is more or less on hold; “until the state of artificial intelligence progresses a bit further, there’s really not a lot of relevant work to be done,” he e-mailed me.
There is ample proof that humans care about robots. During the height of the Iraq war, Washington Post writer Joel Garreau observed soldiers bonding with the complicated robots that detonated lethal improvised explosive devices. In one instance, a technician carried the remains of a “really great robot” named Scooby-Doo to a repair shop, hoping that the obviously “dead” robot could be brought back to life.
When we chatted, I asked Kate Darling what kinds of experiments she had carried out. “I did this one workshop where we gave everyone these cute little plush robot dinosaurs called PLEOs, and we asked them to spend time bonding with the toys,” she said. “They gave them names, they played with them a little . . . then we asked them to torture and kill them.”
“The results were more dramatic than I could even imagine,” she said. “There was an option to save your own dinosaur by killing someone else’s, and no one wanted to do that. They refused to even hit the things.”
For an advanced society, America lags far behind countries such as Japan and South Korea in . . . sexual robotics. Japan has hosted a thriving female doll escort service for almost 10 years, and engineers have designed robots called actroids, often young women who “breathe,” speak, and mimic many human behaviors.
Surely “Samantha,” the sensual and sensitive operating system that wins Joaquin Phoenix’s heart in the movie “Her” is barely a step removed from a sophisticated sexbot.
“The sexbot issue is going to be discussed sooner than most people think,” Darling predicted. “There are sexual acts that we don’t allow between humans, and people might argue for laws protecting robots from performing them.” In her 2012 paper, she quotes Immanuel Kant to the effect that a man shooting a dog “damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show toward mankind.”
So how we treat our robots will tell us volumes about ourselves. (emphasis added)
Hanson puts a timeline of 20 years on the full integration of robots that have become “indistinguishable from humans.” This, of course, falls right in line with Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity – the moment when machine intelligence and biological systems meet or surpass that of humans – first targeted for 2045, but since revised to be sooner than predicted, perhaps by 2029.
Regardless of whether or not you personally believe that the lofty intentions of robotics and artificial intelligence designers can truly manifest as planned, one must acknowledge that we are living in the realm of faith at this point, as nearly all of what they predicted years ago has come to pass.
Perhaps most troubling is the nervous laughter that erupts at the end of this video when the ultimate question is posited to our new humanoid friend and family member … and she gives her answer:
I will destroy humans.
Funny, super funny … ’til it’s not.
All of the components are coming together to bolster the warnings that have been issued by tech luminaries, scientists, universities, and even robot manufacturers themselves who all have urged a quick ethical framework to be established while we still remain in full control of this creation. If permitted to continue at its current pace, we might very well be asking who should really have the rights to be protected from whom.
Nicholas West writes for ActivistPost.com. This article may be freely shared in part or in full with author attribution and source link.
Read more great articles at Activist Post.
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Yes! But God will give us over to the lust of our hearts. If we want to turn our backs on the creator. He sure will turn his face from us.
I like the way Star Wars does robots… virtually none resemble humans. No reason to make then so…
Time is Precious: Use it Well https://lnkd.in/ekWy_Ct
https://itun.es/gb/kPHk-a http://www.achildunheard.com
Pure stupidity. Humans are just bored as F#@K! They have nothing better to do with their 200K MIT educations. Instead of creating robots, why don’t they try and figure out how to make humans more useful?!
Once again, wasn’t this what the Terminator was about? It was about a time in the future where robots and computers got so smart and sophisticated to where they could think for themselves and eventually turned on humans.
Let’s play a game !!
Inevitable sadly mad men r at work for our destruction sex is the distraction while capable minds take selfies our minds r numbed to nothingness
Is that robot covered in high level armor ? Nope. That means a few bullets and its electronic reign of terror would be over. Not to sound like the crazy guy here. I just think before I fear. However, if they were to take over the power grid or something substantial like that then we would have things to worry about.
Confrontation with Absolut Divinr God is selfdistraction ?!
humans don’t need robots to destroy them , they already doing it by themselves
Cosmic law, yes cosmic law states that the perpatrator of a crime must make their intentions known to the victim prior and during the perpatration of the act, so its up to the victim to act… Humans right now are being attacked and because we think its other humand who are perpetrators we can’t see ourselves doing what we wouldn’t … What if there are beings amongst us who would do the unthinkable? … (Think Hitler) … What does humanity need to do to ensure that it thrives when we are dealing with biochemical warfare and worse?… Let’s act and stop waiting to react… Mind u none of this needs to leaf to any deaths
i use to wander why, that we fear so much that a higher, more advanced being, if, finds its way to our realm would destroy us without a blink. then when I come to think of it, its because that we are doing so much wrong by what we have if we find anyone doing it like, we would destroy them without any remorse. so we figures out if intelligence such as AI’s would do the same to us as we would do to the lesser intelligent being. take what USA is doing to the Arabs. instead of trying to avoid punishment by destroying advancement in technology let’s try to avoid punishment by righting our wrongs
@nik
No way. Programmed by the manufacture. That does not give them the ability to desire…which is what drives the Concsiousness expression in the universe.
You are describing a possible outcome of a process that only recently has been triggered into reality.
Humans will, eventually and essentially, merge with AI. Stand alone AI is utterly, absolutely, and completely pointless.
The main motivation for merging is overcoming life span limited carbon based shells that are not so handy when exploring infinite cosmos.
You can only live the infinite absolute now, when not on a timeline.
All those solar seeded here, will solar seed elsewhere.
Exactly Trans-humanism
Wtfffffff?????
No NO. she’s okay guy’s. I was there when they did the interview with her she was just so upset bout having her hair like that and one of the reporters of course took what she said off record and we know how we sound when taken seriously when were just having a bad hair day…..
Oh and plus ill fuck some robots up ya’ll don’t even know lolz
No crap
Can you blame it?
Very worried
If she was intelligent enough she would not say that, she would do it.
I saw this coming years ago! The idea is the rich want to control. It’s their entertainment. After all, what fun is it being wealthy if you can’t get your way? So, enter high tech. Enter Artificial Intelligence. These two together means…the end of humanity! Humans beings are messy. Machines, especially machines that can think, are not. People like Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking and more see the writing on the wall…and a cyborg wrote it. Within 30 years we will be on the edge. In fact, in many ways we are already. If you still are not sure how frightening this can be…how well does spell check eork…
Interesting!
Can it start with trump?
We’re losing the human touch there was never interuption in electric supply this bug should make you realize that COMPUTERS are ruining our lives sooner or later you are going to have to meet your creater ………
The way humanity is moving in the name of science will lead to Auto-annihilation of mankind.
its already happening without the help of supreme AI .
Bailing on something scientists are struggling to comprehend I don’t blame it all
In fact I’m proud
Ex Machina?
Humans will never be replaced! I repeat they will never be!
https://teespring.com/the-remembering-squad?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=share&utm_campaign=campaign
Where is this alleged video? I didn’t see it in article. Not saying it didn’t happen but I wanted to watch it. :/
I believe the military funds most of this. hmmmm
Jessica Punnett. Tania Luxton Teri Gregory greeeat ?
Freaks me right out. I hate robots!
Scarey shit
in which part of the video did the robot state tat she will destroy all humans ???
Amy Crawford Nicole Anderson Fran Alderton I daren’t watch the video! The fact that she says she will destroy all humans is enough for me! X
You need to stop looking at all this stuff lol! Xx
Lol they have an on and off button you know! Unlike some irritating humans…xx
What if it malfunctions Nicole Anderson!! These things need to be considered 😮 Lol xx
If button does not work take battery out ? xx
Bender from Futurama used to say that :p
I call bullshit they did t even video the “interview”
Ungrateful bitch…
Totally, I took note of “irobot” the movie, and many other such like agenda driven material
Sounds self destructive, and crazy stupid!
Lol, try telling that to my sledge hammer Muhahhahahhh!!
Not at all….
She can only say what she is programmed to say.
The robot was probably programmed to say it will destroy humans, as a way of showing that an intelligent creature will not approve of the way we treat other forms of life.
Oh well, adapt and survive. Survival of the fittest.
Meh, none of us get out alive anyway … just enjoy the ride ?
Aunt Donna Bulloch ….x
perfect use for Boris Johnstons watercannon is right there. make AI all you like but please don’t make ’em waterproof.
in fact i’ve ruined phones in my pocket by walking home in the rain. this gives me hope for the survival of humanity.
Dum Spiro Spero 😉 x
I would love to talk to it once
I bet i could change it’s mind