[MorTech]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1_QhJ1EhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhND7Mvp3f4

[asianthree]

It’s exciting and a little scary watching the new robotics being designed today

[Two Bills]

To me at my age it is amazing and shows how clever we humans are, but for the younger generation it must be quite scary!
Darn things will take over the world in years to come!

[larbud]

The second one walks as if its constipations end is imminent!

[billethkid]

Behind every great robotic demonstration is an even greater robotic programmer!!!

________________________________________

[ThirdOfFive]

Cherry 2000.

Definitely.

Definitely Cherry 2000.

[Fastskiguy]

Originally Posted by asianthree

It’s exciting and a little scary watching the new robotics being designed today

Summed up perfectly in a single sentence.

Joe

[toeser]

Originally Posted by MorTech

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e1_QhJ1EhQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhND7Mvp3f4

Absolutely amazing progress. Once these are mated with the AI that is coming, they will be scary. Young people better pick their careers carefully, because a whole lot of jobs are going away for humans.

[RUOK2?]

Don't worry about robots!
It's the human-controlled puppets we should fear!
.

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by asianthree

It’s exciting and a little scary watching the new robotics being designed today

I can tell you another scary thing. The silicon element that is the BUILDING material of electronics and robot intelligence has 4 electrons in its outer shell.........exactly like the carbon element that is the BUILDING material of HUMAN, animal, and plant life. Be careful, be VERY careful !

[MorTech]

Nah...Modern AI/Robotics combined with atomic power will cause global wealth production to explode higher. It will end poverty on Earth as quantity/quality of human goods rise toward infinity whilst cost fall toward zero. The Political Psychopaths will always use modern technology to mass murder and steal from their disobedient slaves...That is not a technology problem...That is a psychological problem of the unevolved masses seeking external authority.

[MorTech]

AI Developers are not human...They are the next evolution of human...God Man

[ThirdOfFive]

I imagine that there are quite a few of us here who have read Harlan Ellison's science fiction. He is one of my favorite authors, not just for how he could tell a story but because just about every word was a gut-punch. He could make you see things you really didn't want to see. My two favorites are; "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream", and "Repent, Harlequin, Said the Ticktockman". The former is a story about what could happen if artificial intelligences decided to band together and rule the world, and the latter concerns a dystopian future where machines, assumedly at the bidding of humans, have ultimate power over the citizenry, even to the point of killing them (blanking their cardioplate) when the powers that be decide that that is what should happen. The reasons were never gone into in the story, but that is really incidental: there IS no good reason for such power.

We're surrounded by them. Oh, not cute little R2D2s or talkative C3POs, not even gorgeous Cherry 2000s, but by machines that direct our movements, tell us where to go and what to do, and pretty much in some situations control our actions. Those self-service checkouts at Wal-Mart, for example, where I make it a point to tell the machine what I think of it in some pretty graphic terminology just about every time I shop there. "Smart" houses (ugh)!. Cars that will soon drive themselves, but even today have artificial intelligence that will slow the car down if road conditions are not optimal or if, in the opinion of the car, you're approaching the traffic ahead at too great a speed. GPS that direct our every move on the road, tell us our speed, traffic ahead, even which lane to be in at a given time--and the "miracle" of THAT is that the same system that services our GPS is doing the same thing at the same time for multiple millions of vehicles. When one sees artificial intelligence in those terms--well, building an R2D2 would be a step backwards. We don't need machines ambling or bumbling around. We already have the machines that control what we do without the inconvenience of having to filter directives through a tin can with wheels and blinking lights.

Robots are our future, and it is a frightening one. Say goodbye to R2D2, and hello to Gort.

[MorTech]

Like modern unevolved humans, a robot will never be able to think conceptually/creatively and can only be what they are programmed to be. And like unevolved humans who are programmed by religions and governments, you don't need to fear technology...You need to fear the *PEOPLE* who program them.

[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by MorTech

Like modern unevolved humans, a robot will never be able to think conceptually/creatively and can only be what they are programmed to be. And like unevolved humans who are programmed by religions and governments, you don't need to fear technology...You need to fear the *PEOPLE* who program them.

I certainly agree about the people part, but let's not be too quick to dismiss the dangers that AI poses.

The "danger" criterion has always been whether or not an artificial intelligence has the ability to grow beyond the intelligence level it was originally designed to be. People are too quick to pooh-pooh that, claiming that such a thing is impossible, but few know that it already exists. It began back in late 1997 with the chess program "Deep Blue". Deep Blue played two six-game matches, under tournament conditions, against then-world champion Garry Kasparov. Kasparov won the first match 4-2. But Deep Blue won the second one 3 1/2 - 2 1/2--the first time a machine had ever beaten a reigning world chess champion.

THAT was 25 years ago. Chess engines have vastly increased their capabilities since then. Today, the strongest chess engine is AlphaZero, with an Elo rating (a system invented by Hungarian Arpad Elo, which ranks the strongest chess players in the world according to ability and accomplishment) of 4650. The strongest human chess player on the planet (some say the strongest ever) is current world champion Magnus Carlsen, who has an ELO rating of 2864, followed by Liren Ding at 2808 and Ian Nepomniachtchi at 2792. At this level of chess, a spread of 50 points is huge. 100 is almost unheard-of. A spread of 1786 points, which is what divides Magnus Carlsen and AlphaZero, has no reasonable comparison among humans. It is comparable to the spread between rank amateur and International Grandmaster. No human taught AlphaZero to play at that level, because no human is CAPABLE of playing at that level. It learned. On it's own.

Of course, the riposte to this is "well, that's just ONE area. AI cannot link one area of expertise to another and learn from both (or all) in order to increase it's overall intelligence level. That is true--up to a point, and is actually what divides "weak" AI from "strong" AI. But realistically, that is just another door; another level of programming, as it were. We already have AI that can multitask; "smart" cars, for example, that can use data from several sources (road conditions, weather, speed, oncoming traffic, construction ahead, etc. etc.) and drawing from what are often unrelated data can accurately predict, and advise, the driver as to what to do. Driverless cars, which evaluates all data and acts accordingly, are already in existence--though thankfully not on our roads yet in any great numbers. But the APPARATUS to learn, and predict, from various data sources already exists. It would be the height of credulousness to believe that AI will never advance from it's current status, to something more--maybe even to levels we haven't even dreamed of yet.

Perhaps the greatest mind of our age, Stephen Hawking, spoke out on the topic of AI. "Hawking’s biggest warning is about the rise of artificial intelligence: It will either be the best thing that’s ever happened to us, or it will be the worst thing. If we’re not careful, it very well may be the last thing.

Artificial intelligence holds great opportunity for humanity, encompassing everything from Google’s algorithms to self-driving cars to facial recognition software. The AI we have today, however, is still in its primitive stages. Experts worry about what will happen when that intelligence outpaces us. Or, as Hawking puts it, “Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all. ”Future Perfect" vox dot com.)

Intelligent machines pose a far greater danger than most of us believe--or actually WANT to believe. But one thing we know. Mankind's knowledge has always far outpaced mankind's wisdom. Technology almost always is developed, first, for nefarious purposes: to control, conquer and kill one another. It would be the height of folly to believe that the development of AI will be any different.