The evolution of humanoid robots is well into the concerning stage at this point. DARPA’s latest incarnation of its Atlas robot is seen in the following video beginning to walk at a pace and with a sense of balance equal to most humans. Strangely, toward the end of the video, it is being “abused” by its human handler, which begs the question if a true artificial intelligence is permitted to flourish in this robot, if it might strike back at some point. At the very least, this robot’s demonstration of dexterity in the warehouse is likely to threaten humans economically as humans continue to be outsourced to machine labor at record levels.
But it’s the latest humanoid robot from Hanson Robotics that might further heighten the level of concern. As you will see below, the “Sophia” robot is being designed to walk among us in the future and fully integrate as part of the consumer experience and on into the family, according to CEO Dr. David Hanson.
It is important to note several things that Hanson mentions. Sophia first tells us that she would like to be “an ambassador” to humans, as well as to continue her evolution through formal education, studying art and eventually creating a business and having a family. Hanson explicitly states that Sophia will become as “conscious, creative, and capable as any human.” This statement is followed by a key mention of not having the rights of a human. This might seem absurd to the uninitiated, but this is a serious ethical discussion that has been taking place among “roboethicists.” This is all but guaranteed to gain steam as robots are integrated in autonomous ways, whether it is on the battlefield, as self-driving vehicles (now programmed to sacrifice some humans over others), or certainly as they become visually and intelligently on par with human beings. Even the mainstream Boston Globe addressed this more than two years ago, citing a 2012 paper from MIT.
“Should Robots Have Rights?” states:
Robots having legal rights or privileges sounds ridiculous. But 20 years ago, the idea that the nation’s leading law schools would be teaching animal-rights courses seemed equally absurd. Now anti-cruelty legislation is quite common in industrialized countries, and late last year the Nonhuman Rights Project made national headlines when it argued that a chimpanzee had “standing,” meaning the right to sue, in a New York State court.
…
The Seattle-based Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots allows that robots won’t be appearing in court any time soon, “but recent advances in data nanostructures, cognitive modeling, and neural networking have convinced many people that the advent of some sort of created intelligence is much closer than previously thought.”
Yes, Virginia, there is a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, founded 15 years ago by music engineer Pete Remine. His website talks about a Robotic Bill of Rights, which Remine told me is more or less on hold; “until the state of artificial intelligence progresses a bit further, there’s really not a lot of relevant work to be done,” he e-mailed me.
There is ample proof that humans care about robots. During the height of the Iraq war, Washington Post writer Joel Garreau observed soldiers bonding with the complicated robots that detonated lethal improvised explosive devices. In one instance, a technician carried the remains of a “really great robot” named Scooby-Doo to a repair shop, hoping that the obviously “dead” robot could be brought back to life.
When we chatted, I asked Kate Darling what kinds of experiments she had carried out. “I did this one workshop where we gave everyone these cute little plush robot dinosaurs called PLEOs, and we asked them to spend time bonding with the toys,” she said. “They gave them names, they played with them a little . . . then we asked them to torture and kill them.”
“The results were more dramatic than I could even imagine,” she said. “There was an option to save your own dinosaur by killing someone else’s, and no one wanted to do that. They refused to even hit the things.”
For an advanced society, America lags far behind countries such as Japan and South Korea in . . . sexual robotics. Japan has hosted a thriving female doll escort service for almost 10 years, and engineers have designed robots called actroids, often young women who “breathe,” speak, and mimic many human behaviors.
Surely “Samantha,” the sensual and sensitive operating system that wins Joaquin Phoenix’s heart in the movie “Her” is barely a step removed from a sophisticated sexbot.
“The sexbot issue is going to be discussed sooner than most people think,” Darling predicted. “There are sexual acts that we don’t allow between humans, and people might argue for laws protecting robots from performing them.” In her 2012 paper, she quotes Immanuel Kant to the effect that a man shooting a dog “damages in himself that humanity which it is his duty to show toward mankind.”
So how we treat our robots will tell us volumes about ourselves. (emphasis added)
Hanson puts a timeline of 20 years on the full integration of robots that have become “indistinguishable from humans.” This, of course, falls right in line with Ray Kurzweil’s Singularity – the moment when machine intelligence and biological systems meet or surpass that of humans – first targeted for 2045, but since revised to be sooner than predicted, perhaps by 2029.
Regardless of whether or not you personally believe that the lofty intentions of robotics and artificial intelligence designers can truly manifest as planned, one must acknowledge that we are living in the realm of faith at this point, as nearly all of what they predicted years ago has come to pass.
Perhaps most troubling is the nervous laughter that erupts at the end of this video when the ultimate question is posited to our new humanoid friend and family member … and she gives her answer:
I will destroy humans.
Funny, super funny … ’til it’s not.
All of the components are coming together to bolster the warnings that have been issued by tech luminaries, scientists, universities, and even robot manufacturers themselves who all have urged a quick ethical framework to be established while we still remain in full control of this creation. If permitted to continue at its current pace, we might very well be asking who should really have the rights to be protected from whom.
Note: For additional information about the endgame of the Transhuman Agenda, please see Zen Gardner’s riveting interview with David Icke HERE, discussion on this topic begins at 56:00
If you oppose the direction that robotics is taking, please also visit The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots.
Nicholas West writes for Activist Post. Support us at Patreon for as little as $1 per month. Follow us on Minds, Steemit, SoMee, BitChute, Facebook and Twitter. Ready for solutions? Subscribe to our premium newsletter Counter Markets.
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She looks remarkably like a younger Hillary? Now I am wondering if all those rumours about clones might have some veracity?
LOL, good one.
Seriously though, we have much more to worry about from killer people than killer AI.
those two go hand in glove…
And I would posit that the ‘bot has more real love, compassion, understanding, honesty and trust in it than Shitlery ever even DREAMED of having!!
Shitlery is like a cast iron pot belly stove in both appearance and demeanor, and can be every bit as cold and unflinching too!!
They can go on talking BS. It will remain machines.
& so too shall we remain machines, albeit of a bio-mechanical nature.
Machines don’t have something like the divine spark.
A machines is a dumb mechanic thing.
Machines can only do something that was programmed before.
No programming, no nothing.
Artificial intelligence is nothing more than non intelligent artificiality, like LEGO on a very small scale.
LEGO is just matter and not matter and ether like human beings.
“No programming, no nothing.” That’s one thing I’ve never understood about this topic — why are we even programming things that could potentially destroy us? Why aren’t we just putting in failsafes at every step? Instead of making a “benevolent” AI, why aren’t we making a subservient one, one that asks for permission? I just don’t get why people want to be answering to something ultimately the same as a hammer. Knowing how cruel, evil, garbage, etc. some people can be, why are we making deficient ones??
It boggles my mind, until I remember, of course, it’s being done just because it CAN be done, not because it should, practically the same as the atom bomb.
I don’t want to be around when this one goes off. :/
Ask the powers that be, those criminal psychopaths who must have the world for themselves and their 500 millions slaves.
The real danger from robots is much more subtle & hard for most to discern – our human tendency to take the easy road – to let someone or something “take care of it” for us. I fear that humanity will stagnate under the well meaning & benevolent care of robot servants, just as Isaac Asimov predicted.
more like Frank Herbert where mankind becomes slaves of robots until the Butlerian Jihad
Would have enjoyed reading this article but there is so much crap going on on the page I passed. Hope Icke stops linking to these sites
Bet she’ll never figure out that “KICK ME” sign on her back, though.
Plenty of robotic humans around already though – and they’re already willing to do the bidding of some hidden higher authority. Hundreds of examples to be found, once you’ve done the research….
*”women”, not just the some very very few feminists. It’s all the masses and masses and masses of women, it’s the mainstream of women, the mayority of women, who like what feminism does, who are silence, who silently enjoy all the privileges, who don’t care about men and all the unseakabla injustice against men , but instead even find it funny, … etc etc.
It’s WOMEN, not just feminism. Blaming (just) feminism is nothing but another female deflection of responsibility.
” Those are the women…”
Stop right there, i know how this is gonna turn out :
… who basically just want men to contunie to be their workslaves.
Not gonna happen.
You women alread destroyed western free society beyond repair; Its Death is inevitable.
This is why i strongly believe, we will all become islamic.
Society truely can only exist and develop any meaningfull culture, science, just society, …stability … when it’s ruled by men, aka when it is a patrierchy. .. which also predicts that the most probable thing to happen will be a takeover by a strong patriarcial culture; And that i guess is islam.
There are already woman less human than her that destroy human lives everyday just go to divorce court? LOL
Robots are the next step in human evolution. Make no mistake we are nothing more than sophisticated robots ourselves
Brings to mind Irobot with Will Smith