Don't be Fooled by the Robot
Human-looking automata that mimic human behavior have been built since ancient times and some of them could perform sophisticated movements. They were mechanical. Today we have electromechanical sophisticated toys that can do all sort of things. There is a (miniature) toy that looks like a robot riding a bicycle. Technically speaking, the whole toy is the "robot". Philosophically speaking, there is no robot riding a bicycle. The robot-like thing on top of the bicycle is redundant, it's there just for show: you can remove the android and put the same gears in the bicycle seat or in the bicycle pedals and the bike with no passenger would go around and balance itself the exact same way: the thing that rides the bicycle is not the thing on top of the bike (designed to trick the human eye) but the gear that can be anywhere on the bike. The toy is one piece: instead of one robot, you could put ten robots on top of each other, or no robot at all. Any modern toy store has toys that behave like robots doing some amazing thing (amazing for a robot, ordinary for a human). It doesn't require intelligence: just Japanese or Swiss engineering. This bike-riding toy never falls, even when it's not moving. It is designed with a gyroscope to always stand vertical. Or, better, it falls when it runs out of battery. That's very old technology. If that's what we mean by "intelligent machines", then they have been around for a long time. We even have a machine that flies in the sky using that technology (so much for "exponential progress"). Does that toy represent a quantum leap in intelligence? Of course, no. It is remotely controlled by a remote control just like a tv set. It never "learned" how to bike. It was designed to bike. And that's the only thing it can do. Ever. If you want it to do something else, you'll have to add more gears of a different kind, specialized in doing that other thing. Maybe it's possible (using existing technology or even very old mechanical technology) to build radio-controlled automata that have one million different gears to do every single thing that humans do and that all fit in a size comparable to my body's size. Congratulations to the engineer. It would still not be me. And the only thing that is truly amazing in these toys is the miniaturization, not the "intelligence". A human is NOT a toy (yet).
3 comments:
Not being fooled by the Human-looking automata is easier said then done. We can know deep down that it is not real, but it slips our mind when the object is right in front of us. I like how he says "it would still not be me." I have the same sort of opinion. It is impressive the technology created, but it will never be as impressive as a unique human being.
The thing with humans, "real" humans is that we can learn new things and there will always be more for us to learn. We stop learning when we die not when our memory gets full, we get too old, or when we break. A human is not a toy, and I do understand that the automata can be decieving by the eye and that if this object was sitting in front of me I may think differently but, for now my opinion is that robots can't do the things that humans can. We are not controlled by a remote and there is no control to our lives, we learn from memory and our experiences throughout our lives. In the end, I feel that we know deep down that an object, robot or toy is not real and it will never by "us" (real humans)
At the end of the day, humans can simply do things that robots cannot do. A human is not a toy, and the automata can be decieving to the eye. If the automata was in the same room as me I might be fooled, but my opinion is that robots cannot do the things that humans can. Technology is pretty amazing and may be able to help in certain areas of life in the future, but it should never be able to replace a human. We are the ones creating these machines and we need to be careful.
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