Robots of Doom.
Simon Laub
Just think about the Robosaurus that stands in
front of a Las Vegas casino. It breaths fire and
crush cars in its big claws.
Come to think of it. There has never been
a time when we (humans) have felt completely safe
with the concept of robots.
It started with Czech writer Karel Capek, who coined
the term "robot" in a 1920 play called R.U.R.
--- Rossums universal robots.
Here a factory populates the world with artificial slaves,
meant to relieve humans of the drudgery of work.
The robots soon outnumber the humans. And the robots are
immediately used as soldiers. But eventually the robots wipe out the humans.
So much for being freed from the drudgery of work.
And it is interesting that the person who invented the concept
of robots imagined they would destroy us all.
Later visions aren't that much better. And still today
optimistic visions seems to be much further
apart than the visions that spell doom.
You wonder why that is so?
- Simon
sila...@mail.tele.dk
Simon Laub
Tim Shoppa
> The robots soon outnumber the humans. And the robots are
> immediately used as soldiers. But eventually the robots wipe out the humans.
> Later visions aren't that much better. And still today
> optimistic visions seems to be much further
> apart than the visions that spell doom.
I'm surprised that none of the "visionaries" saw a world where
workers spend half their day rebooting/re-installing software and
tweaking drivers and DLL settings just so they can stay late trying to
get their real work done.
Tim.
Johnny1A
Because humans instinctively see robots as potential competitors for
our 'niche' in the system. The assumption, based on experience with
human intelligence, is that artificial intelligence will necessarily
act primarily in its _own_ self-interest, rather than ours.
Psychologically, matters are made worse if the robot is human-shaped,
thus making it harder to avoid anthropomorphizing it.
Shermanlee
Rupert Pigott
news:3D27F9E8...@trailing-edge.com...
There's an obvious two part answer to that :
1) People think that they are clever.
2) That's a stupid waste of life.
Cheers,
Rupert
Dorothy J Heydt
Simon Laub <sila...@mail.tele.dk> wrote:
> It started with Czech writer Karel Capek, who coined
>the term "robot" in a 1920 play called R.U.R.....
The word comes from a Slavic root meaning "worker" or,
frequently, "slave."
Keep in mind, though, that Capek's robots were not metal
but flesh: they were synthetic humans whom in the 1950s
we would've called "androids" and nowadays would
probably call clones. Or azi.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Travers Naran
where I read this article.]
I thought that's what the workers were doing in Fritz Lang's
"Metropolis". :-)
--
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Patrick James
(in message <3D27F9E8...@trailing-edge.com>):
well... the people who use Macs don't do any of that. What's a DLL, he asked
innocently...
--
Si hoc legere scis nimium eruditionis habes
Mike Schilling
news:Gyvxo...@kithrup.com...
> Keep in mind, though, that Capek's robots were not metal
> but flesh: they were synthetic humans whom in the 1950s
> we would've called "androids" and nowadays would
> probably call clones. Or azi.
While Lucas's "droids" are robots, whether humaniform or not.
Serg
> of robots imagined they would destroy us all.
Well, remember Golem of ben Bezalel. But in that case creator of the robot won.
David Cowie
>
> Keep in mind, though, that Capek's robots were not metal
> but flesh: they were synthetic humans whom in the 1950s
> we would've called "androids" and nowadays would
> probably call clones. Or azi.
^^^
azi?
--
David Cowie david_cowie at lineone dot net
So high, so low, so many things to know.
Dorothy J Heydt
Also true.
"Language drifts down time in a current of its own
making." --Edward Sapir
Kristopher
>
> Tim Shoppa wrote:
>> Simon Laub wrote:
>>
>>> The robots soon outnumber the humans. And the robots are
>>> immediately used as soldiers. But eventually the robots
>>> wipe out the humans.
>>> ...
>>> Later visions aren't that much better. And still today
>>> optimistic visions seems to be much further
>>> apart than the visions that spell doom.
>>
>> I'm surprised that none of the "visionaries" saw a world
>> where workers spend half their day rebooting/re-installing
>> software and tweaking drivers and DLL settings just so
>> they can stay late trying to get their real work done.
>>
>
> a DLL, he asked innocently...
I've never had that much trouble with a PC. On the other
hand, the year I spent working in the Mac-based GIS lab
was utter hell, because more stuff went wrong with the Macs,
and because of the design philosophy, they're far harder to
get into and fix.
--
Kristopher
"I'd like to trade in this shovel for what's behind Door #2.
Oh, look, a backhoe."
David Silberstein
I thought that was Rabbi Loew? <Google> Silly me; it's the same
person: Rabbi Yehuda Loew ben Bezalel.
uray
news:S_ZV8.1607$M57.19...@newssvr14.news.prodigy.com...
In _Attack of the Clones_ Obi Wan makes a comment that starts something
like "If drones could think". That certainly indicates that they are just
mindless robots, although very sophisticated mindless robots. It has
caused some debate among the Star Wars fans though. Many have pointed out
how many times droids (especially C3P0) use phrases like "I think", "I have
half a mind" and similar phrases. It's not hard to attribute that to
programming though. They are definitely not biological in origin.
uray
Joseph Hertzlinger
wrote:
> Not everything about Robots are entirely nice.
>Just think about the Robosaurus that stands in
>front of a Las Vegas casino. It breaths fire and
>crush cars in its big claws.
>
> Come to think of it. There has never been
>a time when we (humans) have felt completely safe
>with the concept of robots.
> It started with Czech writer Karel Capek, who coined
>the term "robot" in a 1920 play called R.U.R.
>--- Rossums universal robots.
Actually, it started with Thomas Hobbes who wrote (in "Leviathan"):
|Nature, the art whereby God hath made and governs the world, is by
|the art of man, as in many other things, so in this also imitated,
|that it can make an artificial animal. For seeing life is but a
|motion of limbs, the beginning whereof is in some principal part
|within; why may we not say, that all automata (engines that move
|themselves by springs and wheels as doth a watch) have an artificial
|life? For what is the heart but a spring; and the nerves but so many
|strings; and the joints but so many wheels, giving motion to the
|whole body, such as was intended by the artificer?
We can see why some people might object to robots when we see where
Hobbes took the idea:
|Art goes yet further, imitating that rational and most excellent work
|of Nature, man. For by art is created that great LEVIATHAN called a
|COMMONWEALTH, or STATE (in Latin, CIVITAS), which is but an
|artificial man, though of greater stature and strength than the
|natural, for whose protection and defence it was intended; and in
|which the sovereignty is an artificial soul, as giving life and
|motion to the whole body; the magistrates and other officers of
|judicature and execution, artificial joints; reward and punishment
|(by which fastened to the seat of the sovereignty, every joint and
|member is moved to perform his duty) are the nerves, that do the same
|in the body natural; the wealth and riches of all the particular
|members are the strength; salus populi (the people's safety) its
|business; counsellors, by whom all things needful for it to know are
|suggested unto it, are the memory; equity and laws, an artificial
|reason and will; concord, health; sedition, sickness; and civil war,
|death. Lastly, the pacts and covenants, by which the parts of this
|body politic were at first made, set together, and united, resemble
|that fiat, or the Let us make man, pronounced by God in the Creation.
Hobbes is not merely describing a government; he is describing a
totalitarian government in which all parts are acting with a single
will. When we look at all the horrible things such governments have
done...
Robert Carnegie
The last time I heard the exclamation "I've created a monster!"
was from Eminem. But Hobbes's government is a "machine" consisting
of ordinary human beings, and (AIUI at second hand, having not read
much of that very dense prose myself) he considered it to be either
inevitable, or the best alternative to other even worse conditions
of humankind. Civitas keeps your neighbour from murdering you in
your sleep to steal your property.
I go for "inevitable"; I consider a nation-state to be a territory
held by armed force, essentially, and if you have no such armed
force then someone else will send /their/ armed force over to add
you to /their/ state.
I don't think that this has much to do with robots, though.
I don't think that humans really dislike their real mechanical
servants, despite a bunch of horror stories and movies; the
automobile, the PDA...the worst thing that machines ever do to
most persons is to do the person's job more cheaply and leave
the person unemployed. The alien entity with unknown abilities
and strange thoughts that stimulates xenophobia, the creature
that imitates a human being but is not human - these are horrible,
but they are not yet real.
Robots and other artificial beings are made acceptable in fiction
when they are granted the same sort of emotional and even social
lives that we have ourselves. C-3PO and R2-D2 bicker and diss
each other; Frankenstein's monster is lonely; in a recent commercial,
an assembly line paint-robot practises abstract art on automobiles
when the supervisor isn't looking, then hastily paints it over,
still leaving the impression that the automobile in question
incorporates spirit as well as mechanical excellence...
Elf Sternberg
"uray" <ur...@remove-att.net> writes:
>In _Attack of the Clones_ Obi Wan makes a comment that starts something
>like "If drones could think". That certainly indicates that they are just
>mindless robots, although very sophisticated mindless robots.
So writes one carbon-chauvanist of another.
Elf
--
Elf M. Sternberg
Disproportionately Popular Among Homosexuals.
http://www.drizzle.com/~elf/ (under construction)
Johnny1A
> In article <g48W8.13360$Iu6.7...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
> "uray" <ur...@remove-att.net> writes:
>
> >In _Attack of the Clones_ Obi Wan makes a comment that starts something
> >like "If drones could think". That certainly indicates that they are just
> >mindless robots, although very sophisticated mindless robots.
>
> So writes one carbon-chauvanist of another.
>
> Elf
Obviously some droids were sentient, or close enough that they could
pass the Turing test or any other you want to devise. They may not be
as capable as bio intellects, but they are clearly sentient in some
cases. Given that the Force exists in the Star Wars universe, it may
be inherently impossible to duplicate all aspects of bio-sentience
cybernetically in the SW universe.
I suspect that the average droid, periodically memory wiped and
probably with built-in programming restraints on how complex its
personality can become, might reasonably be considered dumb metal.
Other droids develop minds over time, with R2-D2 being the classic
example.
Also, in TPM and AofC, the R2 series is new. In TPM R2-D2 is
literally brand new. It's possible that droids capable of full
sentience are relatively recent developments, and most people just
haven't gotten used to thinking of them as 'people' yet.
Shermanlee
Robert Carnegie
> "uray" <ur...@remove-att.net> writes:
>
> >In _Attack of the Clones_ Obi Wan makes a comment that starts something
> >like "If drones could think". That certainly indicates that they are just
> >mindless robots, although very sophisticated mindless robots.
>
> So writes one carbon-chauvanist of another.
>
> Elf
Ouch! Are you not a little quick to accuse Ray of chauvinism?
Having said that, we are overlooking that Obi-Wan apparently
is referring to drones and not to droids as a whole.
"Drone" is an English word, with from m-w.com the relevant
definition "an unmanned airplane, helicopter, or ship guided
by remote control", here presumably extended to robots which
have some freedom of action as well as outside control.
(For that matter, AIUI present-day fighter planes basically can't
fly because they're unstable in the air - except that they have
a computer which is smart enough to keep them flying without
flipping over, while the pilot inside points the joystick to
tell the thing where to go. But really the computer's driving it.)
I propose that drones are robots with little or, to save young
Obi-Wan's blushes, no abstract thinking capabilities, controlled
by a very small computer that doesn't qualify as a brain -
say if they just detect heat sources, home in on them, and
chop them to pieces with the rotating knives, then you have a
killer robot without giving it the power to think.
Droids, androids, are robots with reasoning abilities approaching
human or other biological species'. Even so, not many of them have
speaking parts ;-)
David Johnston
>
> e...@drizzle.com (Elf Sternberg) wrote in message news:<1026149895.851423@yasure>...
> > In article <g48W8.13360$Iu6.7...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>
> > "uray" <ur...@remove-att.net> writes:
> >
> > >In _Attack of the Clones_ Obi Wan makes a comment that starts something
> > >like "If drones could think". That certainly indicates that they are just
> > >mindless robots, although very sophisticated mindless robots.
> >
> > So writes one carbon-chauvanist of another.
> >
> > Elf
>
> Ouch! Are you not a little quick to accuse Ray of chauvinism?
> Having said that, we are overlooking that Obi-Wan apparently
> is referring to drones and not to droids as a whole.
No, he was just misquoted.
jex
> front of a Las Vegas casino. It breaths fire and
> crush cars in its big claws.
At least it doesn't gamble. :]
> Come to think of it. There has never been
> a time when we (humans) have felt completely safe
> with the concept of robots.
Yes, but couldn't you say that humans have never felt completely safe
in the company of other, thinking humans?
> It started with Czech writer Karel Capek, who coined
> the term "robot" in a 1920 play called R.U.R.
> --- Rossums universal robots.
Popular movies often depict robots as capable of mass-distruction,
with the same meanspirit of their human creators. Look at "The
Matrix", "The Terminator", "RoboCop" (he he)...
The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
too. Any others?
> And it is interesting that the person who invented the concept
> of robots imagined they would destroy us all.
> You wonder why that is so?
Yes, it is very interesting. It tells us a lot more about humans than
it predicts about robots.
-DS
Stan Barr
>
>The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
>of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
>too. Any others?
Huey, Dewey and Louie in "Silent Running"??
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr st...@dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!
Stan Barr
>of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
>too. Any others?
Huey, Dewie and Louie in "Silent Running"??
Larry__Weiss
> The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
> of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
> too. Any others?
>
Movies:
Data - StarTrek
Tin Man - Wizard of Oz
David - A.I.
V.I.N.CENT and Old B.O.B. - Black Hole
TV:
Tom Servo and Crow - Mystery Science Theater 3000
Robot - Lost In Space
James Nicoll
Piro in _Metropolis_. Strictly a 3 Laws type robot.
Jonathan Hendry
"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:agklmf$7g6$1...@panix2.panix.com...
Twiki on Buck Rogers
The robot dog thing on Battlestar Galactica
Doctor Who's K-9
A.C.
news:742596FC902F4C7B.E033D9BF...@lp.airnews.net...
> jex wrote:
> > The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
> > of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
> > too. Any others?
> >
> David - A.I.
Hmm, I got the feeling that he wasn't completely good, as witnessed by
..
..
..
..
..
..
spoiler
..
..
..
..
..
his ultraviolent reaction to the identical-appearing robot he met. A good
example of what I think scares us most about robots; their implacable drive
to fulfill their programming.
--
nomadi...@hotmail.com | http://nomadic.simspace.net
"Thus let me live, unheard, unknown/thus unlamented let me dye;/Steal from
the world, and not a stone/Tell where I lye." -- Alexander Pope
Paul Hanks
--
Paul Hanks
SSG Unix Administration
206-650-6830 pager 206-797-7891
Chris Hedley
> The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
> of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
> too. Any others?
Probably a few. Kryten off Red Dwarf was painfully good natured,
at least until Lister removed his inhibition device; Data off Star
Trek, excepting the numerous occasions when he was taken over by
something; Marvin off THHGttG, miserable but not malicious; Zen
from Blake's 7, took care of its owners and was only rarely less
than forthcoming...
Chris.
Charlie Gibbs
sa...@jexnet.com (jex) writes:
>> Come to think of it. There has never been
>> a time when we (humans) have felt completely safe
>> with the concept of robots.
>
>Yes, but couldn't you say that humans have never felt completely safe
>in the company of other, thinking humans?
Indeed you can. So why are robots so much worse?
>> It started with Czech writer Karel Capek, who coined
>> the term "robot" in a 1920 play called R.U.R.
>> --- Rossums universal robots.
>
>Popular movies often depict robots as capable of mass-distruction,
>with the same meanspirit of their human creators. Look at "The
>Matrix", "The Terminator", "RoboCop" (he he)...
Robocop? Give him a break. Remember the scene where he was first
booted up, with that quick reference to COMMAND.COM? No wonder the
poor guy was so messed up - he was running MS-DOS. But he was one
of the good guys. "Dick, you're fired!"
>The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
>of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
>too. Any others?
Disney's "Black Hole" had one that was typical Disney cute.
Anyone who hasn't read Isaac Asimov's robot stories (anthologized in
"I, Robot" and "The Rest of the Robots") is missing some good stuff.
--
cgi...@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs)
Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply.
I don't read top-posted messages. If you want me to see your reply,
appropriately trim the quoted text and put your reply below it.
Charlie Gibbs
j_he...@whamo.snet.net (Jonathan Hendry) writes:
"Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Hello, I'm Rags." -- Sleeper
Charlie Gibbs
nomadi...@removethistomailmehotmail.com (A.C.) writes:
>A good example of what I think scares us most about robots; their
>implacable drive to fulfill their programming.
Sort of like fundamentalist extremists.
Larry__Weiss
> j_he...@whamo.snet.net (Jonathan Hendry) writes:
> >"James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
> >news:agklmf$7g6$1...@panix2.panix.com...
> >>> jex wrote:
> >>>> The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can
> >>>> think of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star
> >>>> Wars" too. Any others?
> >>>
> >>> Tin Man - Wizard of Oz
> >>> David - A.I.
> >>> V.I.N.CENT and Old B.O.B. - Black Hole
> >>> Robot - Lost In Space
> >>
> >> Piro in _Metropolis_. Strictly a 3 Laws type robot.
> >
> >Twiki on Buck Rogers
> >
> >The robot dog thing on Battlestar Galactica
> >
> >Doctor Who's K-9
>
> "Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Hello, I'm Rags." -- Sleeper
>
Rosie - The Jetson's
the U.F.R.s in Batteries Not Included (I think some of them were robots)
Bubo - Clash of the Titans
Rachael - Blade Runner
Bill_Leary
> Rachael - Blade Runner
Rachael was biological*. A living** organism.
The thread seemed to be dealing with mechanical robotic systems. Extensions
(logical or not) of what we have today.
I see Rachel (and all the replicants) as an end result of genetic design.
"Clones" which are not duplicates of their donors. Genetically engineered
creatures.
- Bill
---------------------
* Yes, I'm assuming by "robot" we mean something mechanized.
** Yes, it can be argued that it need not be biological to be living.
And the related arguments as well... why can't a robotic system be biological?
Steve O'Hara-Smith
J> The only movie with a completely good natured robot-- that I can think
J> of, was the "Short Circuit" series. There were some in "Star Wars"
J> too. Any others?
Alpha and Circuit - Power Rangers.
Creighton - Red Dwarf.
The thing in the box (Orac ??) - Blakes Seven
--
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The computer obeys and wins. |A Better Way To Focus The Sun
You lose and Bill collects. | licenses available - see:
| http://www.sohara.org/
Richard Steiner
Larry__Weiss <l...@airmail.net> spake unto us, saying:
> Rachael - Blade Runner
Rachel was a living, breathing replicant, not a "robot" according to
the classic definition.
I want one! :-)
--
-Rich Steiner >>>---> http://www.visi.com/~rsteiner >>>---> Eden Prairie, MN
OS/2 + BeOS + Linux + Win95 + DOS + PC/GEOS = PC Hobbyist Heaven! :-)
Applications analyst/designer/developer (13 yrs) seeking employment.
See web site in my signature for current resume and background.
Erik Max Francis
> Creighton - Red Dwarf.
That's Kryten, by the way.
--
Erik Max Francis / m...@alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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