Author: Rafe Kaplan

I have heard that man was created in god’s image. Man is the seemingly faulty, unequal and plentiful clone that now controls the world that god created. We live our lives in the way described in the picture “The Creation of Adam”. All we do is try and mimic god’s ability to transform, create, control and destroy. Now what are robots created as? Are they the faulty, unequal and plentiful clone of man? Will there be a painting of “The Programming of AI”? Will they live their lives trying to be human, to achieve what we can achieve?

Continuing on our discussion from Thursday’s class concerning how the GI would take away from our privacy. I believe that if everyone had access to all the knowledge of every people from when they were young there would be no way for individuality. Everyone would have the same complete knowledge and would have no experiences or biases to shape it into anything. It would be like if everyone was a twin who had lived the exact same life. Everyone would wear, or not wear, the best clothing, have the best thoughts, know the best ideas, etc… It would be just a world of clones.

Going off the assumption that we are in this plane of existence in order to live, while being quite a big assumption it makes sense because there is no other subconscious direction that we are given, I believe that the assimilation of a human mind into a robotic body is the natural evolution of the human species. Because if our only true purpose is to live, is there any better way than to combine with an undying body that can carry our, seemingly, unkillable minds forever. The concept that we would not enjoy the presence of robots in our daily lives is an understatement as we hate sharing the world even with each other let alone a, vastly, superior being. However, my prediction is that living with robots as our slaves is only the first step towards total robotification of all humans as there does not seem to be a reason not to. And if that is the case, the singularity would not be when robots realize they no longer need us, but when we realize we no longer need our mortal bodies and metamorphize into our final forms. The ultimate, imperfect, being…unkillable, and ever-collecting knowledge of a world where we were born in order to live. Forever.

After the question about whether we, as a species, are ready for robots that look like us to enter society was brought up I started thinking about the implications outside of job loss, ethics and how we would react. I came up with the idea that if robots are so far ahead of us, they cannot get injured, sick, and have many other advantages over us, how long until we start trying to be more robot than human. I do not know how everyone else feels, but I wish I did not have to get a cold two to three times a year and being part robot would end that. Being a cyborg would make us all olympic-level athletes, we could probably have night vision inserted into our eyes, we would never need any food, or drinks to stay alive and we could all potentially live forever. It sounds almost too good to be true until we consider that we would be throwing away our humanity and thus would be no better than a smartphone. Furthermore, at what point of human-robot combination causes the human to lose its humanity? A leg, a finger, an organ…? What part of us makes us human? And if the only human that is left is a brain, do we still count as living?

I really enjoy the controversy around the trolley question. Is it the most ethical to do nothing and kill five people, or move the steering device in a way in order to only kill one. However, I believe taking the variable of time out of the equation degrades the question from a real-life moral and ethical decision into a crazy “what if” proposition that brings in many unnecessary variables. My favorite unnecessary variable that is probably the most frequent addition to the problem is the identity of the single person versus the identities of the five. The problem itself is about the sheer number of people not murdering one person is worth. If killing five people is a worse offense than murdering one then you you obviously steer into the one and vice versa. The question can only work in a situation where the rules of society do not apply. In the analogy and unlike reality: every life is equal, you as the killer/ murderer will not go to jail regardless of what happens, the people are hogtied up in front of the trolley and the trolley moves at a pace so fast that bystanders are unable to save the hostages. None of these variables are realistic, nor has this situation ever really happened, so the extra variables take away from the point of the moral question, which is: Is killing five people you do not know equal in your mind to murdering one person you do not know.