First, thank you for the link. That was a very important information I somehow missed! So, we even kill the bees that we need so desperately?

Regarding the quote: Indeed this can produce issues. But Asimov wouldn't be Asimov if he'd not already covered that topic as well. You might want to read "The Bicentennial Man", which is about a self-aware robot that starts to "improve" itself, up to a point where the question arises if he might be on the same level as a human being and should therefore also receive human rights? There's a Hollywood movie based on that novel, but if you want the sincerity of Asimov without all the shiny polished Hollywood adaptation, read the book.

 

the poor thing will start off as Data, but after dealing with us, humans, for a while, he will go mad like HAL and will grow to understand that human is the real problem to begin with. oh dear, all in all, we are fucked, regardless

 

It is an awesome read.
In my opinion, AI isn't truly intelligent unless it can think for itself with a sense of actual being. Anything else and it's just a cleverly scripted Turing test.
Any machine that has the sense to acknowledge 'I' as opposed to 'you' is already somewhat conscious and deserves to be treated as such, in my opinion.

So true. I'd say it's much further along than most people would believe. With the seminal disinformation and desensitization of ideals and values, masses have already been programmed to exist within certain rules of law. Moral and otherwise. This is a type of artificial intelligence.
Now think of how dependent many have become on their phones and computers and virtual networks. Some displaying an almost emotional longing and feeling of incompleteness when separated from said device. This is the transition into transhumanism we are all being forcefully eased into.

Google is shaping up to be the future SkyNet.
Microsoft / Lockheed Martin most likely Cyberdyne Systems.

For anyone still playing along with this analogy, Jesus Christ would be John Connor.
Savior to the human race. Born from a father not of his world. Persecuted and ridiculed by the very people he will save.
The machines are us. The people are also us. We are fighting amongst ourselves.
The only way for the human race to receive complete salvation is for the protector (which is us, the Living Testament) to die unto itself.

It may seem like I'm going off topic.
I'm not.

 

Last edited: Oct 5, 2016

I still think we are a very long way off from that vision and that we are no where near as technologically advanced as you might think. We can't even make a home computer or smart phones that don't constantly crash or have one sort of problem or another. We have a long way to go. I'm not all that impressed with the state of technology. I thought we'd be much further along quite frankly.

 

Technology or even science isn't a linear process of advancement. It is very hard to imagine what the future will be like because you always base it on what you know of the present. Even great futurists and great writers fall into this trap.

How many times have Philip K. Dick, or even Assimov described one of their characters as "Taping something" only to actually refer to the actual physical media of magnetic tape. Now that tape as recording a medium is useless outside of esoteric reasons, we roll our eyes and chuckle, but even someone who can imagine sentient and independent robotic life, and gravometric star ship drives could not imagine digital audio or the density of information we now take for granted. The future is a mysterious place and it is often a place we run away to when we do not have the spine and wherewithal to deal with the problems that we must face now.

Besides, for the few that actually read the entirety of Asimov's Foundation which was the raison d'être of robots, the laws, Danielaties, Giskaridans, the Watchers, Harry Seldon, etc.... it all ends in a Pan-Galactic (not to be confused with Universal or Cosmic) communist over-mind taking over humanity and every other sentient and non-sentient living entity into a hive mind called Galaxia and after that everyone is doing just fine.... at least in the Milky Way. This is all just literature but I find it humorous that the put cheese on it, sky is falling, lock up your daughters, stock up on assault riffles, a tiger, a dragon, an Eagle and a Jet fighter and nuke em all crowd is so enamored with the i-Robot and Asimov in general.

As far as to what will come or not come, I do think that humans are approaching a point where technology will become integrated into their bodies. This has already started on a rudimentary level and it has been going on for a long time. Common spectacles is the earliest one I can think of, but now we have pacemakers, penis pumps, insulin delivery pumps, hip and knee replacements that are better than the originals, it is actually a pretty long list. There are anti aging drugs that are being tested that extend a mouse's life four fold, and allow it to fight disease better, and so many advancements that are on the cusp of becoming useful that it is sure to be a brave new world, though probably not as mechanical as some would think.

The only barrier to human - computer integration is pretty much the interface, if one were to develop a viable interface between a computer and human senses it become a pretty banal thing to most people to have their phone on an organic circuit board, subcutaneous and powered by the same ATP that make you move. This isn't that far off, OLED production techniques transfer to such a process quite easily... even just 20 years ago when some smart people wanted to imagine the world of the future in Star Trek TNG, they could not imagine a human that would look as normal as anyone else, networked and communications connected invisibly as a matter of routine. They still had communicators that the physically tapped attached to their chests......... go figure.

Aside from cultural reasons, I am not quite certain that an artificially intelligent singularity is the correct term for the first sentient computer. A singularity is an implicit declaration that as far as anyone is concerned in human knowledge terms - we have no idea how, what, when, and where such a process exists. The term can apply to a black hole, beyond the event horizon, or if anyone observed a worm hole it would be applicable, A singularity is something that exists, but that you just can no explain more the fact that it exists and maybe how it got there. A singularity is where human knowledge breaks down, and I do not think the first A.I. will be a mystery, there are people purposefully trying to make machines learn and interact, I think of it as a great disservice to them that in some accidental circuit a random event will beat them to the punch.... but nothing is impossible so who knows.

This is getting kind of long and I am getting bored, TLDR >>>> What ever happens happens.... and BTW just because we have to pick between D. Trump and H. Clinton, that doesn't have all that much to do with the world. We the People are a Country called the United States of America... we have borders, we have our own laws............. and those are not pan global........... if the US goes to shit, the world needn't necessarily follow. It didn't follow the Egyptians, The Romans, The Chinese, The Turks, The French, The Maya, The Aztek... all of whom were part of Era and Millennium ( in the proper sense of the word) defining nation states and cultures that still resonate with us today (they actually lasted a 1000+ years)

 

The U.S. govt has already requested a Harvard study on the possibility or feasibility of A.I. and or robots taking over. I don't know the results or if they are even in yet but I can tell you that once given,, if ever Free Will we will get our asses handed to us quickly no doubt. Will we deserve this fate maybe. One thing is for sure,, you cant stop progress. We will have to become partly if not all robotic to compete at any level with and an intelligence capable of learning at an unlimited rate. Stephen Hawking fears A.I.s takeover as well which adds credibility. Pretty scary stuff makes me wonder why it must be developed in the first place. I'm sure people can think of many good reasons but only one bad one is enough for me.

 

Last edited: Oct 6, 2016

The problems are obvious and I am now afraid that solutions are too late in coming. There is not time for phasing in the change needed to turn this giant ship around, it's all too late, we've already run aground. For over 60 years we have been poisoned with deadly insecticides which has impacted our immune systems giving rise to all kinds of cancers, microscopic plastic is ripping us apart from the inside as well as without, long buried petrochemicals are burned so releasing more poison into the atmosphere and the oceans and on and on and on and on. The bees. Shit needed to stop yesterday, not tomorrow. Everything is a throw away, there is all take and nothing is given back. The system was broken from the start, this system of greed and power without forethought of consequent, this is what has driven the mass of humanity like a whip from the beginning. On the other hand, we can write a song to make us laugh or have us cry, paint a thousand words on a canvas and sculpt the soul of a woman in stone, but all that beauty that we reflect is to naught and will be buried in the rubble of our own undoing and against our own self interest, against our so called better judgement. This paradigm of patching up instead of creating fixes and thinking for the future is and always has been our slow self suicide. The perfect storm of our undoing is beating down on us as we stand naked and unprotected in its fury. We are done, again. We rise in time, we fall in time, we laugh and now we cry. We can blame Monsanto, Beyer, our politicians and leaders, we can point a finger at any and every horrid money grubbing grabbing goon of our choosing that sees profit in pain, but the finger changes nothing and wags furiously at ourselves looking back in the mirror for we are them, they are us, and we did nothing but create the wave a'coming as it will, crashing over our heads, our undoing. We can still walk in protest arm in arm with banners high because we must, we have a conscience and must do what we must do to say STOP to the madness. The wind is still before the rain, we know that it is coming from the black clouds on the horizon, but who can stop the rain? I am sorry, but sorry isn't good enough, not this time.