Are We Giving Machines Too Much Control?
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Just as I was finally able to stop having nightmares about becoming a slave in the future to my robotic overlords, I discover that Toyota is looking to give us mental control over robots.
Wow, really? Sure this sounds like a fantastic idea for having our automated friends doing household tasks and such. But what happens should it begin to teach other lesser sophisticated robots to attack? Next thing we know, we’ll be run out of our homes by Roombas and then chased down the alley by the neighbor’s RoboMow!
Then things really get out of hand. Apparently, iRobot is not just a movie… it really exists! Great, so we can be chased down by even more otherwise docile machines once Toyota’s robot goes on the rampage!
Being totally serious here, I am sure the technology Toyota is working on is pretty cool. But I will go on record as saying this now. Such ease of control over a machine could prove dangerous. Think I am nuts? Imagine what would happen if one of the kids got a hold of one of these things and then proceeded to play some variation of the Nintendo Wii? Now imagine the robot being controlled is “LawnBot”… complete with hedge clippers instead of hands. It’s a mess waiting to happen. Surely you can see the tremendous sense of urgency for scaling back a little with mental control over machines. It’s just a bit too soon. We have not evolved enough yet to use such a thing wisely I do not think.
7 Comments
Is There More to Life than Gnomedex? | Chris Pirillo
June 30th, 2009
at 10:58pm
[...] Are we giving machines too much control? [...]
Christoffer
July 1st, 2009
at 1:52am
Have you ever seen The Matrix?
RPG Grasshoppers ~ Windows Fanatics
July 1st, 2009
at 11:45am
[...] Are we giving machines too much control? [...]
zitiboat
July 1st, 2009
at 12:13pm
I agree. I cannot fix my truck even though there is nothing wrong with it to prevent it from running. Four sensors in the air intake and three in the exhaust have decided that the engine should not run so they kill the fuel supply. I can dribble gas into the manifold horn to keep the motor running at what appears to be the proper mixture, but the sensors have said no!
Keith Stoneberger
July 1st, 2009
at 1:01pm
Something else for the hackers to hack into and create chaos. Terrorists would love something like this.
Kawazoe Masahiro
July 1st, 2009
at 8:46pm
Fear of the unknown, fear of change, fear of conquest; They all prevent evolution. This is no different. Do you remember when the first human tried that new, amazing technology called fire? Well, off course not, you weren’t there. But still, what happened? It probably burned him to death. This is no different. We fear fire because it burn so as technology. It might look risky but there is so much we can accomplish with it.
Darren Anthony
July 2nd, 2009
at 2:22pm
“War of the Worlds” anyone?