Points to touch:

• Is AI so dangerous?
• Will robots take our jobs?
• Can robots take the world?
• Can they save us from ourselves?

Intro

Terminator, the Matrix, I Robot, Ex Machina, all those movies indicate the danger that we may suffer in the future if we build robots with AI. But is the future going to be like that? Are robots threatening our existence? In this episode of Robotics Insider, we are going to discuss how the robots of the future will be and if they are going to be a threat or a help. Let’s start!

Clarification

We are going to talk mainly about robots, not about AI devices. What is the difference? Robots have a direct interaction with the world. Their actions have consequences in the world.  AI devices may not have any type of interaction with the world because they live inside a device, like a phone. They don’t have to interact with the world. In this discussion, we are going to concentrate on robots, because that is what we like the most!

The future is unclear

  First of all, having a really intelligent robot around is something for which we cannot devise the implications. In the same sense as we couldn’t predict the disaster of social media when we invented the Internet, we cannot predict the actual impact that real robots will have in our future   Apart from that, we are still far from having such kinds of robots that can operate in human environments understanding what is happening and how they need to adapt to the situation.

Robots will take our jobs

 

• This one, I think is going to be true. It is actually already happening. This is going to happen
• How the transition will be, is another matter. I would like it to be smooth, but it looks like it is not
• What will happen at the end of the transition, which kind of life will we have?

 

Robots will take the world and kill us all

• I don’t think AI robots will kill us, but I haven’t seen very good arguments that demonstrate it. The typical one is that since in the past other technologies inspired the same fear and never happened, then now it is the same situation. But lack of proof is not proof of lack.

 

• Her, the movie
• Wall-E
• The bicentennial man

 

What is their motivation for doing that?:

• They don’t want to be slaves 
  • this is projecting human desires into a machine. They want nothing.
• The paper clip robot manufacturer’s problem
  • just switching it off
    • But they will anticipate it
      • Really? Only if you include that level of consciousness. Don’t include it because it is not necessary for the clip manufacture
• Somebody creates one as a weapon
  • Create another one to destroy the first one
• An error occurs and a robot gets mad
  • Go to the previous point

Robots as our helpers

What about robots helping us in difficult, dangerous, boring, or tough tasks? Wasn’t that the original goal for creating robots?!?

• To do the difficult, dangerous, and boring tasks that we do not want to do

Robots as our companions

• Her and the like
• Robots that will do our jobs and free us from work
• Robots that will be our assistants in every step of life

 

We merge with robots

This is the one that looks more plausible to me. Actually, it is the thesis argued by Rodney Brooks in his book Flesh and machines As we progress in robotics and AI, we will also progress in augmenting ourselves  

Many interests

Of course, the main players on the field want to have their share of attention and will say anything they can in order to keep the attention on them. You should not pay them too much attention

• Like the guy from Google, that thought he was in the Ex-Machina moving, saying that Google machine was conscious
• Or the claims that ChatGPT is almost Artificial General Intelligence. So far from it!

Conclusions

 

• We are still far away from intelligent robots
• You still have a chance to influence how the robots of the future will be
• The robots of the future depend on you

Resources

• Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
• The Construct ROS1 & ROS2 academy
• The Robotics Developer Master Class 2023
• The full 3 days training The Construct delivers about ROS2 including basics of ROS2, ROS2 Navigation and ROS2 Manipulation

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