Thoughts about the Future: Will Robots overtake us?

Veeravel Dakshinamurthy

Introduction:

True, whatever scientific achievements have been made till date and that which will be made in the future, point towards the fact that - the robots will rule the world in the future. It will all result either directly or indirectly by us first becoming cyborgs.

Industrialization and competition between each other will lead to the adoption of faster and more efficient technologies. This will lead to the more and more increase in the usage of machines and software. Depending on the knowledge and the resources of an organization we will compete with each other (just like we have done in the past) for advantage and lead each other in various areas of technology. Things will also depend on the current level of money an organization has. The richer organizations will develop faster -consume whatever they can in their vicinity and will move to other places.

People want to live longer and better lives. Ultimately - they will turn to machines. Whatever improvement there are in genetics, the cells being biological, will not be able to live forever (killer germs will modify themselves accordingly - (DDT created a change in the malarial bacteria’s genes for better survival) –and thus will still be fatal for us in one way or another), people will still compete among themselves (food, war, survival) thus reducing each other’s survival ability.

Adapting new genes or methods, such as growing gills to live under water will essentially change us and differentiate one from another in a fundamental way(setting man against man?). Balancing the new genes to get the maximum output or trying new methods to survive in other planets will take some time and help from the machines themselves.

Possibilities:

People right now seem to have 2 routes to become immortal. One - the machine route, two - the genetics route. In choosing the ways the first thought that comes to mind is - are we the body or the soul? (or knowledge?).

The Machine Way:

If body - go the machine way. In doing that we not only live (bodily) long, we also preserve that which we call our soul (whatever that is - because surely everyone "knows??" that the soul does not reside in our limbs or internal organs but rather in the mind or the brain. And changing everything and preserving just our brain (or will it still work if we copy our memory and values (rules) into a computer memory?). We will be faster, efficient, full of (non-volatile) knowledge - ultimate survival machines competing with other survival machines - continuing the process of evolution. Basics such as food, clothing and shelter, will be in terms of energy, protective unit (both hardware and software) and replication. What will happen to the effect of the internet? The communication among the systems? so that they can also form societies of their own. Gang up and charge on other individuals. Large systems having the power to replicate on their own in large numbers (a thought that there might be a factory set up for such a purpose..)compete for global domination??

Businesses such as energy and knowledge packets being sold for something in return (maybe loyalty to their organization, giving up personal replication, sharing knowledge, bringing in more 'people' to be dependent on energy and knowledge, merging with the company to make a profit together?)

But will robots really be immortal?(will rust - if made of iron, memory loss due to accident?, giving up body parts for survival?, gaining more and more new knowledge and erasing the old knowledge(saving memory space) - have diseases of the mind(viruses?, memes?, fatal wrong information?).And wont they in trying to overcome these change in shape and size - evolve? They will be kind of human that way won’t they (does it matter?)?.What will happen to those poor humans who cannot afford to be cyborgs??Maybe they will die out and become extinct or will be kept alive for various purposes (basically knowledge, maybe even for preservation of the species(like our tigers?), breed them such that we have natural memory space(brains?), produce energy like in the movie The matrix?..).

The Genetics way:

The genetics - find ways to take out the glitches in our genes. Remove all the glitches and create a pure (!) species. That which is a pure survival machine(lots of knowledge(there is a limit to the amount their brain could hold too - but being smart they will find ways to deal with it wont they?), quick - efficient actions, will still need food for survival(maybe less than ours) - shelter - clothing). I believe survival genes from even other animals can be incorporated in time and will help them survive in any condition, like - have gills and live in water -or breath methane and eat hydrogen(live in Venus or Mars - we will have machines to help us yet - will we really be ourselves?), maybe not breath at all(anaerobic)??maybe have green pigments to absorb sunlight and do photosynthesis?)The ideas are limitless - limited only by our realities and possibilities.

Combining both the worlds. A genetic Cyborg?but wouldnt a machine have a longer life period than a genetically altered being(GAB)? Depends on adaptability. But if that is equally good - the machine will survive better in the long run. Eaither way we see the machine coming out in the end. (For even if the GAB comes out better than the machines at a time, they will still compete against each other and the only thing that will give one GAB an edge over the other will be their tools (which will lead to machines again)).

Conclusion:

Lets think about the machines (robots) for a moment. Are they really alien?think of a world full of machines. They too will - like us, compete against each other for energy. They will also be susceptible to germs and diseases like us(probably mostly of the mind but again there will also be nano machines acting like parasites/predators).In competing against each other they will evolve too.some will take to the air, some to the water, some will stay in one place, some will move on earth.All will compete for energy in any form for survival and will also fight for metals/silicon/other materials.But doesn’t that sound like birds & animals?and doesn’t the whole process sound like our evolution?I believe that this is evolution.That one species(isn’t that a small term, just a variable compared to the program of life?) will be better than the other in survival and will eventually cause the decrease or extinction of the lesser species.

For humans to dominate Earth in the coming years they will have to become faster and more efficient - and in that process they will definitely change. And then, will they still be Human? Will they look and feel and behave Human? What is human? Is it just the set of genes that make us what we look like? Or is it our ideas, values and knowledge (Robots then, will be more human than we humans ourselves can be). In trying to be human - the most efficient and highest species in the food chain - we have forgotten that there is something that created us. Evolution.

P.S. I believe that if we are worthy enough for survival we will survive, knowing that this vision - that looks bleak is in actuality not a complete vision. In complex systems – new avenues open only after a certain stage is reached. A century ago people had not even thought about the computer – and here we are talking about automated machines that think for themselves – overtaking humans. There are so many things in this world that are unpredictable (we could be hit by an asteroid, the flapping wings of a butterfly can cause the destruction of the world and other such things : ) – nobody can predict accurately -anything that deals with a long time period. But, in the absence of any such abnormality - machines we are meant to be.

10/30/02