I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream

http://www.bookrags.com/guides/mouthmustscream/

The reason that I know about this is because by husband is a sci-fi fan. Often when something happens in the real world, he ralates it to a story that he read in a sci-fi story years ago.

Sometimes it looks like art really precedes life!

I am (unfortunately) only casually acquainted with the work of Isaac Asimov, one of the 'fathers' of sci-fi writing.

He wrote alot about robots, which I suppose are only really computers with legs. He came up with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics which he believed should be coded into any AI or 'free-thinking' machine.

I think they are incredibly clever in their simplicity. People have tried to come with better, but I've never seen anything that comes close. The man was a genius.

Here is a link to a piece by Roger Clarke discussing Asimov's Laws. He extends them, but they basically remain the same:

An Extended Set of the Laws of Robotics

The Meta-Law
A robot may not act unless its actions are subject to the Laws of Robotics

Law Zero
A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm

Law One
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm, unless this would violate a higher-order Law

Law Two
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with a higher-order Law
A robot must obey orders given it by superordinate robots, except where such orders would conflict with a higher-order Law

Law Three
A robot must protect the existence of a superordinate robot as long as such protection does not conflict with a higher-order Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with a higher-order Law

Law Four
A robot must perform the duties for which it has been programmed, except where that would conflict with a higher-order law

The Procreation Law
A robot may not take any part in the design or manufacture of a robot unless the new robot's actions are subject to the Laws of Robotics

Do you think that a takeover by computers will ever be possible? Might they enslave us or kill us?

I certainly think that safeguards will need to be strengthened in direct proportion to the degree of autonomy and/or physical ability of the machine.

There is a definate risk that technological advances will happen faster than the ethical, social or moral decisions needed to integrate the new technologies into society safely. This is happening now with genetic engineering/cloning/stem cell research etc. Scientists have the capability, but no-one has enough time to think through the implications before the processes are applied.

As long as someone sensible works all of this out before IBM or whoever start building the super-computers to run our world, then we should be safe.

After all, I was always taught that a computer will only do what it has been told to do...34998ryu9387394696976(*UIB()hece*He8w0

!!!

In a way, I think it's inevitable. But I see the "takeover" more as a result of a process described by Clifford D. Simak in his novel _Visitors_, in which a "takeover" is accomplished not by force, but by offering rewards so beneficial, that society and biology become dependent on the rewards, and change themselves to merge with it.

It seems likely to me that Humanity will become so dependent on technology over time that the two things will become virtually inseperable. Nanotechnology, genetic engineering and neural feedback systems will probably result in future humans which are more than some small part artificial.

We may even find ways to move our consciousness into artificial vessels, and if this happens, then the very question of what a "human" is will have to be answered before we could say that we had been taken over. Physical biology may not be a good defining characteristic of a human in the future.

Then you don't believe that intelligent machine will simply take over by force? What do you feel would preclude them from just getting it over with and killing us all?

I certainly think it's *possible* that they might take over by force, but I think they would need motivation to do that, and before we find a way to gift them with sufficient AI for motive, I think we will find ourselves in a mutually symbiotic situation which will diminish the logic of a forced takeover.

I see artificial intelligence and mechanization as a logical extension of human evolution. But I allow myself the flexibilty of not restricting my view of humanity to a purely biological analog. Long before we perfect AI in pure machines, I suspect that we will have augmented our own neurology in ways which will be far more invasive as competitors to our existing form. By the time pure machines are inclined to take over, I think they will find themselves surrounded not by mere biological humans, but by nano-cybernetically modified humans in symbiosis with ubiquitous non-aware global systems. An advarsary which any pure mechanical AI may not want to contend with.