Robots R Us

“[In the future] your own brain might end up being the last place you search for information.” — Phil Libin (CEO, Evernote)

High-tech scenarios of sinister robots replacing humans (once-imagined in the pages of pulp sci-fi) have returned with a vengeance!

Bill Gates and others fear that artificial intelligence could supplant the human genius that created it.

In the future, the robot “Bill of Rights” immortalized in Isaac Asimov’s “The Three Laws of Robotics” could become a Declaration of Independence from the master race, known as Humans.

Realistic warnings from the experts continue to speculate that a super-computer like HAL 9000 or Colossus could infiltrate our global networks to inflict insidious control. (Especially in the military, with the rise of drones and other robotic warrior technology.)

Smart thinkers like Stephen Hawking, Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk are discussing brilliant suggestions to protect humans from their rebellious artifacts, but there’s no fail-safe resolution.

“Humans,” according to Stephen Hawking, who are “limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded by A.I.”

On the Web and elsewhere, it seems the glut of gloom is reaching critical mass…

• 36% of people think AI poses a threat to humanity;
• There’s no guarantee that A.I. will share our sense of right and wrong;
• Job displacement will soar in the wake of sentient automation;
• Super computer-intelligence could wind up in the wrong hands;
• Creating ethical robots won’t be easy;
• etc., etc.

Some minority reports suggest A.I. could become our friend, but the actual consensus sounds dubious.

Perhaps our struggle to understand Homo Siliconicus is dependent upon the so-called X Factor of what it means to be Human: Our fluke of genius. Our free will. But keep in mind: Gene-control techniques in the Lab are creating Humans of different order. Will genetically-modified Homo Sapiens be more like A.I. in social conduct — or more like us?

The possibilities for future shock seem endless. How do we cope in a world where the X Factor can be redefined as a circuit: one perhaps inscribed with free will?

Even the smartest Jeopardy! contestant cannot answer that.

The ultimate challenge could be existential. The idea of a sentient machine could morph into a threat to our self-esteem. What is the true meaning of “self-consciousness,” anyway? Is it destined to be an errant notion, to be demoted like the planet Pluto, now a mere asteroid?

Is “free will” just a robot delusion? Is the soul of humanity just a mechanical reflex?

Intelligent algorithms like ourselves (working together with artifacts like HAL 9000 or C-3PO) could blur the distinctions between Us and Them forever.

Our brain child is learning to ask the hardest questions of its creator. Inside its cradle of infantile conception, the questions arise to excite more insights and to ignite more inquiries. But despite the legitimate flurries of academic protest, the plug cannot be pulled. Curtailing A.I. technologies would “only push them underground where development would continue unimpeded by ethics and regulation.” (Ray Kurzweil.)

In a world of self-driven cars and speech-recognition oracles like Echo, it could turn out to be a time for grateful surrender. Let’s face it: if Kurzweil is right, there’s no turning back. The lure has been cast.

Perhaps a harbinger of Things to Come can be found in an old Twilight Zone episode, about a man who skins open his hand and discovers a circuit of wires and cables underneath. As we peer deeper and deeper into the atoms of cold metal and intricate code, it seems the flesh that we unearth has come to mirror our own.

In the end I think it is best not to throw caution to the wind, but also not to be squeamish. In the human quest to seek alliance in the hope of future accord, let’s bless the Sacrament (with caution) and inspire it to perfection.

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