Blog 8: Introduction & Robot Visions

There is one quote or line that really struck my interest and stuck in mind : "all devices have their dangers. The discovery of speech introduced communication - and lies. The discovery of fire introduced cooking - and arson... The automobile is marvelously useful - and kills Americans by the tens of thousands each year..." It is interesting to think about all that we have created, that has in turn brought bad side effects. What would Robots bring to the world? What is our fear? Would they turn on us? When we created the speech did we ever think about the negatives that may come from this creation? When we created automobiles did we sit back and think about how many people these were going to kill? "Robot Visions" (Chapter 1) goes into this idea. This story is very interesting in itself. The idea that the robots would take over the world after us and do a better job than us. I found that the story was very clever with the notion of past, present, future. The "humans" of the future had heard that Archie was coming purely because of the present humaniform robot, the first humaniform robot. I found myself reading and just wanting to know how the story was going to end. If we develop Robots can theyh ever be smarter than us? Can they develop emotions? It is all very interesting to consider.