VIKI Coming soon?

[DigitalBuddha]

iRobot? Skynet? VIKI? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, AKA Blade Runner coming?

Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia.

European scientists have embarked on a project to let robots share and store what they discover about the world.

Called RoboEarth it will be a place that robots can upload data to when they master a task, and ask for help in carrying out new ones.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12400647

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

I wonder and worry what will happen when  the Robots take our jorbs?!

It is only a matter of time before robots can do every job faster and cheaper than a human, even cheaper than illegal immigrants. So do we move into the Star Trek like utopia, or some Terminator nightmare?

Either way, we are very close to pushing humans out of the workforce entirely, as of now 60% of middle management jobs have been lost, that does not include all the jobs lost in manufacturing. That ATM you got money at, is a robot that put a bank teller out of work.

And what will the gun toting red necks do when they lose jobs to robots, they can barely handle Mexicans? Get ready to hear, 'robot took yer jorb!"

[BikerDude]

Can you say "Pleasure Bot"?

[cckeiser]

Can you say "Pleasure Bot"?

100 % electronic dude!

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

They are working on a sexbot that can cook bacon.

The term electronic vagina makes some men uncomfortable.

[DigitalBuddha]

They are working on a sexbot that can cook bacon.

The term electronic vagina makes some men uncomfortable.

Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say. Whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his robotic "dick" or his electronic "rod" or his cyber "Johnson".

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

LULZ

[Landshark]

If the robots got hold of wikipedia they would be doomed, but it would be even better if they got inked to uncyclopedia or the like.

[meekon5]

Personally I don't see the world going in the direction of Terminator, it doesn't make sense.

AI has not hit a level of autonomy instead it is routines that just mimic intelligence. At the moment AI is just a scam, programmed routines that copy actions to look like the program is being clever. Programming has not yet reached the ability to make intuitive leaps by itself. All that happens is the routine uses increasing computing power to run probabilities and get the statistically most probable outcome.

By the time AI is able to make intuitive leaps humans will be so integrated with computer augmentations that it will be difficult to tell who is AI and who is human.

At that level why would AI turn against humans when we are basically the same thing.

(Except for the Luddites living in caves out of their own choice)

[Rev. Gary (revgms)]

Resistance is futile!

[brother_erwin]

I must say, I find it all a bit scary. In particular the speed of how electronics develop.

Perhaps just because I understand less and less h o w the fuck it all works.

But then again: You will all surely know "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance". If I remember correctly it contains the statement (not literally quoted, though): Buddha resides in a digital circuit as comfortably as in a lotus flower.

I understand good old Robert M. is still around: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Pirsig

Faithfully BE

[cakebelly]

Why would they hurt us? Well, Dudes http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2011/02/07/133432897/meat-eating-furniture - they might just be hungry. 

[brother_erwin]

mmmh, hopefully they do not grow with every mouse or fly eaten.

[BikerDude]

Personally I don't see the world going in the direction of Terminator, it doesn't make sense.

AI has not hit a level of autonomy instead it is routines that just mimic intelligence. At the moment AI is just a scam, programmed routines that copy actions to look like the program is being clever. Programming has not yet reached the ability to make intuitive leaps by itself. All that happens is the routine uses increasing computing power to run probabilities and get the statistically most probable outcome.

By the time AI is able to make intuitive leaps humans will be so integrated with computer augmentations that it will be difficult to tell who is AI and who is human.

At that level why would AI turn against humans when we are basically the same thing.

(Except for the Luddites living in caves out of their own choice)

Yes they have a long way to go.
Of course the spark is the magic moment when we build a machine that can improve it's self.
And build other artificial intelligences.
We only need to get to that point and then our involvement is done.
Some things have been going that way for some time. Dynamically self recompiling programs for one.
I worked for a company that studied some of this. It's far off but lots of people have studied the idea of programs that could be turned loose onto the net and act autonomously improving themselves.

[meekon5]

...programs that could be turned loose onto the net and act autonomously improving themselves.

I believe the first virus was intended to do just this (a program to fix things that was fully autonomous), but ran amok and just destroyed things instead.

All Hail Eris.