WARNING, WARNING!!!
Big media telling lies about robots!!!
Posted on 03/11/2010 6:31:14 PM PST by BruceDeitrickPrice
Here’s another beef I have against my local paper: they glorify robots.
Haven’t you seen articles in your paper, usually from AP, that talk about robots as the next big thing? Or they’re already here--wow!!
Here is a headline that actually appeared in the Norfolk paper: ROBOTMAKER BUILDS AN ARTIFICIAL BOY. This is complete nonsense.
The fact is, we have wonderful industrial robots assembling cars, etc. We also have a lot of ingenious remote-controlled devices such as drone aircraft. Conceptually, however, these are much like radio-controlled toys.
If by robots you mean something more or less like a human, they don’t exist and they won’t exist any time soon. Newspapers lie by giving the impression that robots live among us. The average teenager, taught very little in school, might believe the hype. If Obama said he was appointing a robot to his cabinet, many people would say: Cool, it will probably do better than the humans!
You also see articles suggesting that animals have a lot in common with humans. So there is a media onslaught arguing that robots and animals are great...BUT HUMANS AREN’T ANYTHING SPECIAL. I think we’re seeing a propaganda campaign aimed at undercutting the confidence that average humans feel in themselves. This is a vicious ploy.
To understand why real robots are a long way off, please see linked story “17: Understanding Robots.” It’s a good article for teenagers and non-technical people.
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(http://www.improve-education.org/id25.html)
Having worked with painting robots I can tell you that they aren’t anything special. There are advantages and disadvantages.
WARNING, WARNING!!!
Big media telling lies about robots!!!
Step one, switch to decaf...
I just read the linked article. Very interesting. I wonder if technology will advance to make it possible for robots to become persons. Or at least person like. Think about characters in stories. These characters take on a life of their own and become so well known by the author and reader that they appear like real people.
Characters in stories, love, find jokes funny, feel pain, make free choices and have introspection like humans outside of their story world.
Robots may be like literary characters brought to life in our world.
This will be like procreation. Parents don’t create a child, they pro-create a child. Makers of robots will take what we are given as humans (language, culture) and re-arrange it to pro-create the robot person.
This will happen about 2030.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-pS0t27-nM
Personally, on a job like this, I prefer bottom-up design.
"I love the feel of Plastiflesh. It makes me.......hot."
I think she left him and ran away to the Digital Circus.
The point is, we are SO extraordinarily complicated, there’s little chance of imitating us for a long time.
At this point robot-makers can’t replicate the behavior of a bird. All animals are fear-based, hunger-based, sex-based and survival-based. And probably some others. All hard to imitate. Notice how cats and dogs can show affection for each other? That’s really complicated.
Here’s my YouTube version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-_bP2SulI0
What happens in 100 years is another story; but I still have the sense that robots might never get past the point of being the crazy guy in the woods.
I will look at the Youtube version.
You say that we are a long way off. You are probably right. But, even Huber Dreyfus, the persuasive critic of AI, agrees that AI could be possible if we could create a human like body for the AI system. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Dreyfus
I wonder if such bodies could be created in virtual reality. That would mitigate the technical problems. Then the virtual persons could be socialized, mimicking what every human experiences in the formation of the self.
These virtual robot-persons would be like characters in literature. You have to admit that literary characters do seem to take on a life of their own, and appear very real — especially to their authors and fans.
After the virtual persons become human-like, the program could be put into a physical robot body.
I also wonder if Kruzile’s application of Moore’s law may actually turn out to be true. http://www.kurzweilai.net/
He (and others) say that technical knowledge is going to exponentially explode in the next 25 years. So, that in only about 60 years we will have millions of times more knowledge.
That would mean that this stuff could become real — just as Sci-Fi has become reality countless times.
I AM SEXBOT 9000
(surprisingly good pickup line)
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