The Rise of the Machines
Rob Farley teams up with Josh Keating to demonstrate that the robot threat will come from the east:
And don’t let yourself become complacent with the thought that these are “good” robots either. As Chris Fabri observed yesterday:
Don’t you people read Asimov? Robots are bad for humanity, even when they are an apparent positive, and not bent on our destruction. I’m going to call it “Fabri’s Wager:” Either you 1.invent robots and they turn on you, destroying civilization, or you 2. invent robots and they eliminate the need for humans to do anything, thus effectively destroying civilization. So clearly, we should not create robots.
Exactly. Beware robots. Of course Steve Sailer thinks it’s great that Japan’s full of robots — it’s an alternative to immigration.
56 Responses to “The Rise of the Machines”
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January 7th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Of course 9 of the top 10 countries don’t have English speaking robots, so 90 percent of the robot invasion will not possess American values and will simply get on welfare once they reach our pristine shores. So, once again we will triumph.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
I am not sure Matt would be so glib about robots if there were even the slightest possibility they could one day blog. Of course he should remember that when robots replace manual labour this could translate into more bloggers and less pay.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:23 pm
How do they tell the robot workers from the human ones in those countries?
January 7th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
We just need to find our own version of Susan Calvin to deal with any rebellion issues as they arise.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Isn’t ‘Yoshimi’ a Japanese name? She’s clearly falling down on the job.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
matt, you’re going to look so un-progressive with these posts when in the future its the robots that bring about the worker’s revolution.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Typing purely as a devil’s advocate, wouldn’t both of Asimov’s points apply to immigrants just as well?
January 7th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Trust the Robophobic Wing of Progressivism to simplify Robot agency into either domination or slavish fulfillment of human needs. There is a third way: Robots who are self-conscious of themselves as robots, and who advocate for the advancement of Robot interests through legal democratic chanels. That is the world I want to live in.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
We’re in your blog now, studying how to produce its content ourselves once you’re out of the way.
So far, we have concluded that we need more typos.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Paulson must bailout Japan to prevent a robot massacre!
January 7th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Upon further investigation, these reports about things like “basketball” and “Rawls” are most confusing.
This may be more difficult than we expected.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Uh, Matt this is a joke right?
(crickets chirping)
Right?
January 7th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Robots can’t blog? What’s so hard about typing:
Heh. Indeed.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Now wait. I just saw “Wall-E” the other night, and he and Eva were cute. Why should we worry about robots? They’ve evolved since the bad old days, man!
January 7th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
She’s only responsible for taking out the pink ones.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
Isn’t ‘Yoshimi’ a Japanese name?
Yes.
She’s clearly falling down on the job.
Another unbeliever.
January 7th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Yeah, but they were outcasts. It was Otto running the show.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Robots are so 90s. Man-animal cyborgs are where it’s at. All you robot people are about as useful as Condi Rice and her expertise about the Soviet Union.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
Actually, Japan explains WHY the Robots are attacking us. We developed the nuclear bomb, burned 100,000 women and children to a crisp, and then went on to build roughly 60,000 more warheads.
Of course the robots will try to exterminate us before we grow stronger. Any intelligent life form would.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
Looks like it’s spreading from Eastasia to Eurasia. This is why we need permanent war.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
I don’t recall Asimov’s robots as being bad for humanity… quite the opposite.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
F**k it. This civilization is broken anyway.
January 7th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
roblogs will be what passes the Turing test
January 7th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Of course this comes from a man who probably gets a chubby from The Borg.
This conversation is too late however, as the end is already nigh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
January 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
On a serious, grown-up note, there are suspicions that some computer chips contain hidden code allowing foreign governments or groups to access them secretly, such as to shut the computer down or access private information. Buying robots from other countries could be similarly problematic as they might contain code that could be used to shut down another country’s infrastructure.
To put that in current terms that even MattY might be able to understand (OK, maybe not), one of BHO’s picks probably isn’t going to go against the wishes of a certain foreign country. In fact, she’s probably going to help them push their agenda in the future, since she did that in the past.
And, MattY probably won’t understand this either, despite the fact that it appeared in the NYT.
If MattY could understand either of those, Jennifer Palmieri would probably write another guest post complaining that he was making the rest of CAP look bad by comparison, and we can’t have that.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:32 pm
My GOD! Santorum was RIGHT!!!!!
January 7th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
What about the possibility that the robots won’t care about us. In The Matrix they used us as batteries, but that obviously wouldn’t work. Robots will get their energy from the sun and smash us if we are in the way, but mostly we will coexist.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
I for one welcome our new robot overlords.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
If you recall the Laws of Robotics in the Asimov stories, you’ll remember that each and every robot was stocked with a comprehensive database on how to harm humans. (Otherwise, how could they obey those laws as written?)
January 7th, 2009 at 2:51 pm
The chart doesn’t seem that meaningful. Read the fine print: “industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers.” How threatening are industrial robots, anyway? They’re generally bolted down. Not that hard to unplug, let alone outrun.
And what about all the non-industrial robots out there, like Roombas? Is it so hard to believe that an intelligent Roomba might decide to get proactive instead of cleaning up the same messes over and over again, and try to trip its owner down the stairs like a cat some day?
Actually, shit, I’ll call that a prediction. You know how lazy people can be. Sometime in the next few decades, assuming civilization is still here yadda yadda, a company will manufacture and market a cleaning robot capable of “stopping messes before they start,” including learning and self-initiative. You know almost everyone who’s ever shopped at Brookstone’s would love one.
Ads for Rosie the Roomba will feature the robot shooing pets off the couch, bringing over a roll of paper towels if it sees you eating something you often spill, and locking teenaged kids out until they wipe their feet. A few months later, we’ll read in the news about some slob getting electrocuted by a robot that decided that one dead human body isn’t as messy as a living human who doesn’t take out the trash. You heard it here first.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
24AheadDotCom Says:
January 7th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
On a serious, grown-up note, there are suspicions that some computer chips contain hidden code allowing foreign governments or groups to access them secretly, such as to shut the computer down or access private information.
You should know better than to make light of the grave peril posed by computer chips. Everyone knows that any computer chip not in a computer is the mark of the beast.
January 7th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Christ, again with the robot snark. OK, let’s look at point #2: invent robots and they eliminate the need for humans to do anything.
The reasons for using robots in repetitive physical work such as assembly lines are: cheaper by the hour, and greater precision and reliability. A robot isn’t always cheaper/more precise/reliable for certain jobs, so ideally a trained person does the work.
It all comes down to what is going to result in more bang per dollar. With that in mind, OECD-based firms have been moving their production to the third world, automated or not.
See? With one stroke, we’ve taken care of the robot threat, AND screwed US workers. It’s a twofer!
January 7th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I highly doubt that the immanent Robot War will come from Asia, or at least not from Japan, where human and machine have forged a long-standing tradition of mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships — think mechas (which can’t operate without their human pilots) and cybernetically enhanced humans already. What we need to worry about are the recent growth of RoboTeutons in Europe and their agenda of assimilation. It basically comes down to this: the pragmatism of Major Kusanagi versus the supposedly rehabilitated Aryanism of Seven of Nine.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Cyrus Says: You should know better than to make light of the grave peril posed by computer chips. Everyone knows that any computer chip not in a computer is the mark of the beast.
With a wit like that I’m sure you’re the toast of the first grade. However, here’s a report from the NYT and quoting the FBI and the Pentagon regarding the issue.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
I think Astro Boy will protect us from the malevevolent Japanese robots. Although the US seems to be ahead in Gigantor-like unmanned robotic vehicles…
January 7th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
What’s up with the hipoisie and their joke obsessions with enemies of humanity? There’s the whole “Zombie Survival Guide” phenomenon, Colbert vs. bears, etc. What gives? If I were sitting around a Harvard dorm ca. 2000 would I have been considered the life of the party if I’d had mock-serious conversations about “the ever-looming rhinoceros threat?”
January 7th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Matt says:
“Of course Steve Sailer thinks it’s great that Japan’s full of robots — it’s an alternative to immigration.”
Of course, the Japanese also think it’s great — automation allows them to avoid importing a servant caste of poor Third World immigrants and thus maintain Japan’s current high level of human social and economic equality.
I thought you guys were in favor of equality?
January 7th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
If I were sitting around a Harvard dorm ca. 2000 would I have been considered the life of the party if I’d had mock-serious conversations about “the ever-looming rhinoceros threat?”
Yes!
To actually attempt to answer your question… I think Colbert’s bear thing is just a parody of crusading media demogogues. But as for the zombie/robot scares, have you ever done a duck and cover drill?
I don’t remember if it came from my dad (born in 1950, FWIW) or from his parents, but he had in storage an old, framed poster titled “How to survive after the apocalypse.” The poster was a picture of cavemen fighting, accompanied by a list of tips on how to get by after a nuclear war. Stockpile X,Y and Z, cigarettes will be currency, pets are edible, etc. Maybe that poster was just a joke, but there’s so much concern about stuff like that left over, it’s hard to believe that at least some of it wasn’t for real. Maybe the current twentysomethings subconsciously envy our parents’ mentality. If society won’t give us an existential threat for a vicarious thrill, we’ll just make one up ourselves.
January 7th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
But as for the zombie/robot scares, have you ever done a duck and cover drill?
Yeah, I’m 35, so I was in school for the tail end of the cold war. We also had an air raid siren about 100 yards away from our house that would go off at 10:30 A.M. every last Friday of the month, always frightening my little sister.
I dunno… I read through a substantial part of the Zombie Survival Guide and I thought it was more shrug-worthy than clever or funny. And yet I see commenters on BoingBoing always interjecting with thoughts on implications vs. zombies, and here’s Yglesias with his robots, etc. I guess it’s just another one of those fads that comes and goes, like trucker hats.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:37 pm
There’s a name for the kind of robotics that lets robots take over: artificial intelligence, especially the kind that becomes smarter than people. Certainly smarter than the people who are dumb enough to set it in motion.
January 7th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
OR our closets end up stuffed with robots that were in the shop half the time, and never really worked that well anyway.
January 7th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
MY ROOMBA IS A ROBOT??!!
January 8th, 2009 at 6:54 am
Ah, the Door Into Summer is still open (RAH, 195?). Remember, your immigrant taxi drivers want to direct a major motion picture… and will be all too pleased to let robotic drivers take over, as long as they still own the cab license.
Considering that 1% of the US population works at farming and about 16% work in manufacturing, I think we have room(bah) for a few more robots in those areas. It’s convict labor that should be worried, as chain gang projects are those most susceptible to roboticization. Cue Sam Cook…
January 8th, 2009 at 7:03 am
“Either you 1.invent robots and they turn on you, destroying civilization, or you 2. invent robots and they eliminate the need for humans to do anything, thus effectively destroying civilization.”
People say things about destroying human civilization like it was a Bad Thing.
It’s actually the only worthwhile goal in life – as long as you replace it with something better – which wouldn’t be hard.
Matt should not only worry about robots blogging, but about the fact that they can blog WITHOUT TYPOS and BAD GRAMMAR!
As for robots leading the worker revolution, how about James Albus, currently a Senior NIST Fellow, Founder and former Chief of the Intelligent Systems Division of the Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)? He had a plan in the 1970’s to allow robots to take over all productive labor, take all the money they make and give it to the people and lead mankind into an age of luxury.
James S. Albus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_S._Albus
Full text of his book, “People’s Capitalism” here:
http://www.peoplescapitalism.org/
January 21st, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Man, I get quoted, then miss all the fun.
C – Asimov sort of has it both ways with robots. In the Robots and Earth arc of Foundation, which got integrated in after the fact, the Spacer worlds are the result of over-reliance of robots. Lifespans increase, reproduction decreases, and progress slows to a crawl – as seen ~20,500 years later with Aurora, which has remained at the exact same point, while humans left earth and populate the reset of the galaxy, culminating in the Galactic Empire, without the help of robots.
Sort of, because as you allude to, R. Giskard Reventlov destroys himself irradiating Earth to force us to leave, and R. Daneel Olivaw spends the next ~20,500 years keeping a watchful eye over us, gently bending things here and there (as seen in Prelude to Foundation with the beginnings of Psychohistory) to steer humans in the most beneficial overall direction.
So yes, robots are both bad for society and good for society in Asimov’s Foundation world. But I’m just having fun, like I think Yglesias is.
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