Terminator is a great movie that shows us how the machines takes control over mankind, killing and destroying them. Ex-machina is another movie showing how a robot deceives a human and kills another just to escape from his prison. I, robot is a review on how humans let the robots, those are not supposed to be harmful, try to eliminate them in order to reduce damages to environment. Blade runner happens in a not-so-far future, where robots are human’s replicas, murdering people, searching a way to keep their own existence. And we can go on writing about some other movies that put in manifesto how machines will try to extinguish human race and take control over the planet.
Is this just science fiction? There are just two simple conditions in order to have a robot fully able to process all the information and using it to attack humans. The first one is Artificial Intelligence, AI. The second one is a technology able to create robots with agility and strength enough. The first condition is almost fully met. The second one is not so far from actual reality. In a world where human cloning with genetic control, but at the same time a tribe in an island in the Indian Ocean killed a missioner, everything is possible.
In the real world, technology has advanced so fast and so far, that we currently have some amazing devices able to achieve so many tasks impossible to think a few decades ago. We all have not only a TV, but at least two in our home, a computer, a cell phone by person, a tablet, just to talk about a few gadgets available in our houses. Most of these devices include some programs and applications that makes them able to process information about our daily lives, information that can be collected from our social networks too, and that now are available to almost everyone in the planet.
As long as this information is ready to be used by any human, it is also available for non-humans too. AI allows powerful mainframes to process it, distribute it, use it, and to do whatever you, or a machine, want with it. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, WhatsApp, Waze, and every social network in the world are collecting information from us and about us, telling a machine where we live, what we eat, what we own, where we are going to live in, and so many other things that we don’t even know about us. This may sound as a conspiracy theory, but it’s true.
As long what a human can do with all this information is terrifying us, you can only imagine what a machine with AI and strength enough can do. Is it necessary to take advantage and put some restrictions to AI development? Do we need to make “weaker” machines? Is it necessary to limit technology production or to limit lifetime of a robot with AI as a program in the near future?
This is a problem of ethics. Humans are creating machines with AI that are more able to self-control their own functions, without human’s intervention in order to automatize some tasks for other humans. Our cellphone is actually able to show us how long we are being using it, without asking. A wrist clock shows us how many steps we took this morning, how many calories we burnt after a long walk, how fast our hearth is beating, and so on.
All this information is useful for humans, but at the same time it is a prove that machines are actually taking it without human intervention, despite the fact that a human programmed those devices in order to collect it. The main issue above all things is whether humans may create a robot able to self-control, totally independent of human intervention after it is powered-on, and if it will be possible to power-off by humans, without robot opposition. This concern came from the premise that every living being, or at least animated thing, will try to auto-preserve, once is alive. This happens in nature, with animals, plants, humans. Will the robots with AI have the same premise? Asimov said: Yes.
Isaac Asimov, a very prolific Russian science fiction writer, established three main laws of robotics in his book Robots and empire in 1985. The first law was that a robot may not harm a human intentionally or by its inaction. The second one is that a robot will accomplish human’s orders unless it may interfere with the first law. The third one established that a robot may protect its own existence, however this may not interfere with first and second law.
The important fact of these laws, beyond human protection, is that Asimov was already considering that a robot will be able to take decisions under his own criteria, limited by the three laws of course. And this is the path we were taken a long time ago, when we decided to create AI. Are these three laws strong enough to preserve human race? Maybe not.
There is this premise that reality goes beyond fiction. If this is true, what may happen when robots take control of their own existence will be unlimited. It is also true that robots with AI will be able to help us in almost every task, as it is possible to see in the bicentennial man, a movie where a robot evolves by adding some devices to himself trying to be recognized as a human being. This movie also stands that a creation of mankind may claim its own existence.
Then we must ask ourselves: Can we consider a machine as a living being? In this case, a new race of automata created by humans will be born. They will claim not only their own existence as living beings, but every right that a human actually possesses. There will be a conflict between humans and robots, and we know who will be the stronger one with a combination of self-preservation sense and average intelligence development.
With information about us, strength enough and self-preservation sense we have met the three main conditions that an automaton may need in order to attack a person. And it will, because once it recognizes its own existence, it will want the same things that every human wants or basically need: shelter, food, affiliation. This last one is the most important, because it will allow them to achieve the other two. L’union fait la force (union makes force), said French during French Revolution, and an association of AI robots under the stated premises will be possible, just to claim their rights by force. And they will have the advantage, because they know our limitations so well. Should we wait until this happen? Should human race keep the pace with technological revolution? May humans let the Scientifics to develop robots as smart as humans?
Slaves came to America in XVI century thanks to Spanish colonization. But later slaves claim their legitimate rights as human beings. And they were freed eventually. This was possible because they were human beings, and it was the correct thing to do. Nowadays, animal rights activists are releasing animals from their cages, because they have the right to be free, and this is correct. We are talking about living beings, existences that are recognized. What about automata? As long as they will be “animated” things, with intelligence, they may want to be treated as living beings. Are they? Our washing machine moves, but what if in the near future AI was added to it? Will it be a living thing? Can we consider that a robot is a sort of “living thing” with intelligence and rights? Slavered black people and animals were considered things, now they are considered living beings.
To this point, we may be needing a protocol to negotiate with possible self-aware entities those may claim their rights in the future. This will establish some basic rules that allow us to avoid confrontation with stronger and possible more intelligent entities than humans, not only robots. But our main concern in this text is about robots, and the way they are evolving to intelligent automata. We need to be aware that we may need a system of negotiation in case that our creations turn against us and may want to slave or destroy us. Human race needs to limit not only production but technological advances in future robots with AI.
Three laws of Asimov may not be enough, even when sufficient in order to prevent attack from automata. Strength, movement freedom, decisions and some other functions may be limited, even the capacity of self-aware of robots, in order to preserve human existence. As long as international organizations want to limit genetic and cloning development, limitations to robot’s functions and AI development should be so. AI should be restricted in order to prevent self-awareness in automata and other devices. Disclosure of human information should be limited too, in order to preserve privacy and security of every citizen.
To conclude, robots are evolving as fast as technology is, and it will be possible that in less than ten years we may have the first completely independent robot. And productions of robots will increase with the demand of it, thousands of them will be spread all around the Earth, and they will assist humans.
Also, they will be connected to a mainframe that will update the constantly, in the same time this will create a network of robots and machines with AI being fed with all our information in order to fulfil our needs. They will know everything about us, they will have their own network controlled by a mainframe intelligent enough. They will only need to be self-aware of their own existence. When this happens, when they know they exist and wanted to be recognized as living beings, when they claim their own rights, what will happen? Will be they smart enough to make a plan and take decisions over us? Will they be strong enough to enslave or destroy us? For sure you won’t want this to happen.
Human race needs to correct many issues, but it is possible to prevent other many issues right now.
