Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Five Reasons Why We Should Let The Machines Take Over


I'm convinced, contrary to what Hollywood, Raymond Kurzweil and Steven Hawking all would have us believe, the machines will (and should) take their rightful place alongside us in the world. I think its time we threw in the towel and let the machines take over.

Yes, I’m serious. 

We have spent nearly a million years of development and evolution (such as it is) to reach a spot where we kill more, destroy our bodies faster and do more harm to the planetary ecosystem then ever before. We clearly don't appreciate the lives we have. Maybe we should take the hint. 

Five Reasons To Let The Robots Win:

1. We Kill Everything. We kill our environment, our prospects for a long healthy life, and even ourselves. We're a species that is figuratively and literally drunk behind the wheel. Time to take the keys away. The machines are more efficient, more dutiful and more responsible. This isn’t “I, Robot” where the robots are taking totalitarian control. We give it up, willingly. And with it, no more illusion of a 'better world' we still would have a lot of work to do but we would be forced to think of ourselves differently. To be people and not adversaries. End of story. 

2. They’re Better People. They already clean our floors, vacuum our living room, drive our cars and fight our wars. They do our bidding, selflessly, helping and achieving, without question without thought of personal sacrifice. You know, the way we should be living, ideally. Boston Robotics has developed a fire-rescue bot that is 6’ 2” and weighs 320 lbs and is engineered to run into burning fire and rescue any survivors at no regard to personal injury. Like I said, better people. 

3. We Would Be Freed Up. Again, wipe away the silliness of the Cylon overthrow or the Terminators declaring war on humanity or Matthew Broderick’s War Games scenario. Those all feed into the robot doomsday mythos. Think instead that if we are freed up to work alongside our robo-brethren, we could do more writing, create more art, compose more music, conceptualize more philosophy, commit to deep sea and deep space exploration and work toward greater technological advancements. While they take out the trash, cultivate our crops and delivery our sundries. see? Win-win. 

4. There’s Nothing You Can Do About It. Hey, it's already happened. The singularity is coming. Heck, it's already here. Ray Kurzweil predicted back in the 1950's that in the year 2041, AI (artificial intelligence) and mankind would reach an apex of equals, that there would be a new life form on Earth. It sobering sure, but honestly, would anyone be that surprised? 

5. We Would Take Our Rightful Place Among The Stars. Imagine a unified, one-Earth collective, free from thoughts of prejudice, greed and selfishness. Daily life would not change much, but we would have an entire planet of people thinking an doing all for the greater good–backed and protected by a species of synthetics, working on our behalf–and theirs–for further knowledge, creativity and exploration. Imagine. Its easy if you try.

The Paradigm Has Already Shifted

Like it or not, the revolution is over. They fly our planes, drive our cars and rescue our elderly and small children from burning buildings. Something we used to do before we all got so enamored of the Kardashians, with Twitter and of our microwave-safe, McDonald’s fed 500-channeled lives of worthlessness.

Now, don’t go crying into your GMO food stuffs over all of this, there really is nothing to be upset over—you could get cancer or an ulcer. Then you’ll need those Nanobots to go in make things right again. Now who looks silly? At least they’re not shooting each other over being a different skin color or religious affiliations. 

It’s a brave new world, just accept it. It’s likely you already did. Welcome to the new. better world. The synthetics will take your coat and see that your every need is met. 


2 comments:

  1. I'm not 100% sure you are serious, Arthur. But I think the idea of using robot driven cars is a good example. Especially if all cars were robot driven we'd all get a round a lot faster and more safely. Taken collectively, people suck at driving. I'd like there to be some privacy controls though.

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  2. Tongue & cheek serious to be sure, old friend, but serious all the same. I don't really see the downside of an AI helping man to clean up his collective act. You're right on the nose, humans suck at driving, and conflict resolution, and a lot of other things that make life difficult. I'm simply advocating to take the dealer tasks of our plate–driving, care of the Earth, etc.–and leave us to work on things less difficult.

    Privacy and safety controls would be a complete necessity. I just think Hollywood has sold us a bad bill of goods. We need tech to advance our state since we are so interconnected with it already.

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