“If I think the future of robots and society, I don’t see the engine overlords”
Miguel Madina / AFP by Getty Images
Do you worry that AI-Powered Robots stole our jobs and maybe kill us all? You’re not alone. But it’s time to play the devil’s fighter yourself and think about whether the opposite can be true.
My new novel, Automatic NoodleLater this year, about four robots struggling with a country’s job in which people make laws from combining bottles, opening bank accounts, opening their own businesses. Yes, it is science fiction. But it is based on true tech – and, more importantly, it explores the implications of our deep doubt that robots are bad.
I spent the years written in the unrealized robot robots, interviewing roboticists and engineers to see what was to come next. Recently, I visited an incredible lab of Yale University called Talatsadowhere Rebecca Kramer-Botiglio leads a team that develops soft robots. It includes bendy, squishy, pneumatic creatures with circuits made from liquid metal. deer Swims like a turtle and can be used for environmental monitoring of swampy areas. Another, called a usage The robot, looks like a set of plastic sticks held with drinking rubber. Toss it from one height and it explodes, walking around going to check its surroundings.
Medha goyA fomberatory researcher, showing me minuscule ball of liquid that extends while warming. Later, thousands of “Granular Actuators“Can be used within a robot, expand and contract to create stiffness or tenderness of a limb. They can also have medical robots inside your body to provide medication or diagnosis of a problem.
The point is, the Kramer-Botiglio and his colleagues challenging The very idea of what a robot is. The bots in tomorrow may not be like giant people; However, they can soften little men, flow around with pneumatics instead of metal gears. Indeed, one of the robots in my book is a soft octopus soft robot, designed for searching and water rescue missions. The name of Octobot was Cayenne, and they tasted things with the sensors of each arm.
The bots in tomorrow may not be like giant people; They can be soft little boys
If I think about the future of robots, I see Cayenne’s wishes. All of them and their friends robots want to run a noodle restaurant in San Francisco. Their robo-pals include a three-foot, tire named Sweetie; one named hands with nothing but a mixer with two arms attached; And the Balikbehind, a bot of the Humanoid-ish soldier who is more decorating at the restaurant than fighting in a war. They make a family of ragtag.
This family lives in a unique time in human history. In the 2060s, the Government of the New California country rules that some robots AI-powered people. But politicians are worried that robots with the same rights as people increase uncharted, rapidly carried everything. So they deprive of the right-rights “for their own good”, which promises that people can vote to expand robot rights.
However what their neighbors think of the person, Cayenne and friends don’t like to take the world away. In fact, they just want to continue to do the jobs they already have. Besides making crap food for a distant master of man, they make something they love, with caution, because they want to do it. They are basic immigrants in a new country, trying to live in a country more law and their worst dead.
I use this metaphor intentionally, because it cannot change how many stereotypes are about immigrants in a man’s mirror about robots. They will steal our jobs. They arise and destroy us. They will define the fabric of our culture. The shocking is that people say these things about immigrants often have no time to know them. Meanwhile, people hold the same ideas about robots that Don’t even. Looks like a pattern. These are the kinds of fears we have mentioned about the groups we think that never do any research on the fact that they are. Or, in case of robots, whom they can.
And that’s why I think about the future of robots and society, I don’t see machine overlords. I see the fact that it is hidden in frightening fantasies and freedoms restricted to the laws based on fantasies. I can see soft body creatures and turtles and pneumatic arms, not terminators. I saw Cayenne, who lived in fear of man’s hatred and human watchmen and keeping care committees to post deep crimes.
People are Masterminds in preparation for the future that is never avoided, while ignoring the eyes of our eyes. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can try to make plans based on evidence and science, instead of surreal dreams that cannot be fulfilled.
Annalee’s week
What am I reading
Text clean RACEBOOK: A personal history of the Internet, A perfectly inspiring collection of essay about cosplay, video games and social media.
What I looked at
Murumberbot, Apparently.
What am I working on
Includes archaeologists in the town of Punic / Roman in Tharros in Sardinia in Italy. More later!
Annalee Newitz is a journalist and science author and their newest book is the automatic noodle. They are the co-hosting of Hugo-winning podcasts are the right opinions. You can follow IT @annaLeen and their website is techsploitation.com
Check out the science fiction world and find out how to make your own persuasive sci-fi tales in this way over the weekend. Topics:
The art and science of science fiction writing
