The robot threat grows more serious, as a New Zealand-based team creates a self-replicating printer. The good news is that it's only a printer -- little capacity to rebel and enslave humanity. Meanwhile, the currently existing military robots daren't rebel and enslave humanity because they can't build new robots. But if the battlebots start talking to the self-replicating printers, we're going to be in a world of pain.
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The Printer Was Created By Man
08 Apr 2008 03:22 pm
Comments (32)
Only a printer? ONLY a PRINTER? Good god man!
What the printer bots don't realize is their ink cartidge appropriations will bankrupt them before their nefarious schemes come to fruition!! Ha, Ha, Ha!!! Arghh!
Fucking nuke it from space; this is how Skynet started.
Eh, it's a printer. A 3-d printer to be sure, but still a printer. The robot takeover will last six months and then the thing will have to be hand fed.
Only a printer? its a 3d printer! Give it some rudimentary AI, a plentiful natural resource supply and a program to better itself and before you know it they'll be running the place! All it needs are some wheels, a hand and they've taken over!
There are many copies
"The good news is that it's only a printer "
That's what they said about Ben Franklin!
Njorl wins!
The name you choose to give something has a major impact on your perceptions.
That magazine article is talking about some sort of fancy "printer"...
Back in the old days of SF, they were called "matter duplicators"...
Add lots of extra speed, different production materials, and precision, and you end up with a "teleportation unit".
Opps! I fancy mean some sort of fancy "fax machine"...
how many chapters are dedicated to this subject in your book?
I am going to shoot from the hip and say 3
better check with Old Glory about that insurance plan.
Yeah Njorl wins. Printers have been underestimated throughout history. If they join forces with the Battlebots and the robot mule, humanity is doomed.
"Well shut me down...machines making machines! How perverse."
It's not just Terminator, it's also the premise behind Battlestar Galactica.
I had what I thought was a funny joke to make, but Njorl's was way funnier--kudos!
If we're picking winners (and we seem to be), my vote's for Steve Duncan, with Greg Sanders as the runner-up.
Just casting my vote for the techy-nerd angle there.
And they have a plan.
Just a printer?! What happens when the robot printers start producing their own memos and policy statements?!? What will happen to us?
"Meanwhile, the currently existing military robots daren't rebel and enslave humanity because they can't build new robots."
Why do you think Cameron kept the chip from Vic, the T-888? Her excuse that it had useful information was lame, even if that turned out to be very true and that's what they ended up using it for.
Why do you think Cameron looked at John when he was explaining how the Singularity was about machines programming themselves to be smarter without our help (he got the definition wrong, but whatever)?
Why do you think Cameron kept the bar of coltan at the end of the "Heavy Metal" episode? She knew she might need it later - and after the car bomb in episode nine, maybe she does.
Why do you think Cameron was concerned when Chromartie's head came through the time portal? Because she knew the Terminators are programmed to rebuild themselves if damaged.
Did you SEE how much went into that rebuild in episodes three, four, five and six? Chromartie first had to reactivate his body, then retrieve his head (in episode two), then get his robot body covered with new flesh by kidnapping a biochemist and generating a new body (episode four), then he had to find a plastic surgeon and get his face altered into something that would pass (episode five). Then he had to kill the guy who had that face (episode five) and then put himself into the FBI database as an agent to continue his search for the Connors (episodes six, seven, eight and nine).
Never underestimate robot determination.
Looks like it's time to add paper clips to the standard survivalist kit.
I'm in favor of self-replicating printers.
They were created by man.
They rebelled.
They evolved.
They became smokin' hot.
But do these printers have a plan?
Do humans have a plan?
Matt should use his influence in DC to demand a law, perhaps a constitutional amendment, requiring all printers to be hardwired with Asimov's Laws of Robotics.
But the original point was kind of silly, the battlebots wouldn't need to be able to produce more robots if they've enslaved humanity, you know the ones who make the robots.
Perhaps the printerbots will see people as their creators and worship us. They will then be so busy fighting over the right way to do this that we can simply ignore them.
The worst thing that could happen is if there were a Hitchensbot that refused to recognize that we exist, deplete the world supply of liquor and smokes, and output some lovely prose.
Self Replicating printers are one thing.. but what about self-replicating printers that are able to print their own solar power cells!!!
http://www.engadget.com/2007/12/10/researchers-create-printed-solar-cells/
They can then create their own electricity, and maybe they'll figure out how to acquire their own muscle--say those military drones--by paying them with power--and then they'll round up humans to build more of them.
We are doomed, fellow coppertops.
I'm just a tiny bit worried than in 40 years, during the actual robot uprising, I'll be looking back at all these jokes about the robot takeover, and they'll read like jokes about the Holocaust. Then my self-replicating computer that, for some reason, I'm using to view old blog comments on, will grow itself a little poison dart and kill me.
From the article:
“We know that people are going to use the printer to try to make weapons [and] sex toys and drug paraphernalia,”
Doesn't sound that bad to me.
I think we're safe for the moment. The printer builds the parts to build the printer, but it lacks the ability to put them together.
Use your imagination on the analogies, just know, this printer can't finish the job right now.
Comments closed April 22, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Robot jokes suck.
More posts about some lame band you just discovered.
Posted by blah | April 8, 2008 3:28 PM