Would You Settle for Just Humming the Body Electric?

From the (U.K.) Daily Mail comes a report entitled “Are we safe from robots that can think for themselves?” Curiously enough, it does not concern the chances of Al Gore running again for president. Rather, we are told some scientists “predict that in the next five years robots will be available for child-minding, to work in care homes, monitor prisons and help police trace criminals.” No word, so far, on whether such robots will dream of electric sheep.

Stories such as these crop up periodically, invariably asserting the imminence of “thinking” machines of the sort we routinely find in science fiction stories and dredging up references to Asimov’s three laws of robotics. Perhaps we shall see the advent of genuinely thinking machines some day – I hope I live to see it and will even join People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots when the time arrives – but the difference between state-of-the-art artificial intelligence and human intelligence remains vast. Five years?

Still, the public debate called for in the article is a good idea. Whether “autonomous” robot “soldiers” or “caretakers” for the very young and very old are on the near-term horizon, robotics will make a substantial difference in our eventual future and we are well advised to consider the implications of that emerging technology now. Will the “soldiers” now under development soon be able to act independently of their programmed “rules of engagement” or robot “caretakers” soon be able to change diapers? Not a chance. But when the robotics boys finish beta testing and work out all the bugs in the first production model Pris, give me a call.