Why Would They Turn Against Us?

The Onion is aware of the danger:

"The president was just speaking to its 'destroy all humans' base" is a classic.

Comments

Am I the only one who's never found The Onion to be all that funny (especially not the "network" version)? Except, of course, "Christ Converts To Islam": http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29540

Posted by ZednCu | March 24, 2008 12:34 PM

Yes, I'm pretty sure you are.

Posted by Dave L | March 24, 2008 1:01 PM

Dave

How date you answer a rhetorical question.

-- r

Matt - I agree with you, though.

Posted by DesiPanchi | March 24, 2008 1:07 PM

Oddly enough, MattY doesn't seem to have picked up on slight parallels to something he supports.

Posted by TLB | March 24, 2008 2:25 PM

Quoting the ever-present Slashdot, "I for one welcome our new robotic overlords!"

Especially if they act like this:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=v2IIz3cTXGc

http://youtube.com/watch?v=HdA1d_I8hVI&feature=related

Seriously, the issue of out-of-control AIs should never be an issue. Barring stupid accidents - like Skynet - for which we have decades of warning in science fiction - the purpose of AI research should be to enable the enhancement of or even replacement of human brains to superhuman levels - not specifically external intelligences superior to human intelligence.

In addition, it's fairly clear that we're not likely to even get close to true AI until we have massively better knowledge of how the human brain works (which we will get from nanotech-based neurological research). By definition, it's likely that knowledge will be employed to enhance human intelligence even before it is employed in external machines.

The same applies to robotics. The same capacity to produce a superior robot can be employed to produce a superior "human" (if the term "human" is useful at that point.)

In short, there's no apparent value is producing a superior replacement species without actually becoming that replacement species. And the same technology would be applicable to both approaches.

That should be obvious - although apparently it isn't, even to pundits in the AI field.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | March 24, 2008 6:26 PM

The parallel being that you, TLB, are saw terrified of latino immigrants that you connect everything to them while the fictional people in this video live in a world ruled by robots?

Posted by washerdreyer | March 24, 2008 7:25 PM

washerdreyer: the issue is that partisan hacks like MattY continually promote massive immigration without knowing about much less revealing to his readers the downsides of what he promotes. And, even if he revealed everything that was involved, he still would refuse to engage the arguments from those who oppose what he's (I'm going to guess) told to say.

Posted by TLB | March 24, 2008 11:16 PM

That was a brilliant clip. Written with a knife.

Posted by JJF | March 25, 2008 11:13 AM