Are Computers Getting Too Smart? We are on the verge of a massive change in our technology. About the only thing I can compare it to is the industrial revolution, only this is happening much faster. It took a couple of hundred years for machines to reach the proficiency they have today, but computers have changed all this. They have advanced far quicker than machines have, and they are getting near rivaling human intelligence. Scientists are getting very excited about quantum computing, but it could be the worst thing which has ever happened to us, because it may just give that jump in computer intelligence which allows computers to outthink us in every aspect of our lives. What will the future look like if we keep on the same track we are on today? That has been a question which many experts have been trying to answer lately. Some see a very bright future for us, some see gloom and doom, and finally some see humans being forced into being slaves to computers. A video appeared which upset some people. It was a video of a robot named Atlas which has a human shape, but is metal. The video showed the robot, which was manufactured by Boston Dynamics, jumping and running, and even doing flips. While the robot will never be mistaken for a human, its motions looked just like human motions when it ran and jumped. This upset some people, because it scared them. I guess they thought they were seeing the future. While this robot doesn’t look human yet, it may not be a far cry from when robots like this become indistinguishable from us. Robot skin has advanced so much it is hard, or impossible to tell it is not real skin, and there are robots which have been created which look human until they move. There seems to still be some jerky motions which give them away, but soon this will be fixed. When one goes on the computer and chats with what is known as a bot, it is possible to get fooled into thinking they are talking to a human. As a matter of fact, a test was given in this area with a newly developed chat bot, and it fooled a lot of people. How would you like to be talking with someone at an event, or anywhere for that matter, and find out later they weren’t human, and you were talking to a robot? This will happen and when it does will we consider these robots a new life form? I happen to think while current computers could be used to create an intelligent robot, the key is with Quantum computers, but there is a problem. They are at a stage where their size fills rooms, much as the first digital computers did. The difference is they do not need many Qbits, which are the units they use to be more advanced than our current computers. The machines are increasing in power every year. If this can be tied into the neural network computers, that is computers which work much like the human brain, robots could get an artificial brain which would be more powerful than a normal human one. There may be an answer to this problem, and it has to do with research which is taking place now. I am talking about brain enhancement. We cannot underestimate the power of our brains, and in certain ways they are far more powerful than any computer today. Adding to their proficiency may keep us ahead of smart computers which also includes robot brains, because after all what is a brain, but a computer. Some may think the computer revolution is good for us, because it drives development of brain enhancement which they feel wouldn’t have taken place unless we were trying to build smarter computers. I don’t know how I feel about that, but it certainly could have some merit. I can’t help but feel one of the most important questions will be whether a computer has become sentient. If it has, that would mean it is a new life form. Would we have to give a computer, or robot the same rights a human has? If someone purposely broke a computer or robot, would that become murder? There are certainly a lot of questions we would have to have answers to in the future. If a broken computer or robot could be repaired would this mean there was no murder? There are also social questions which will have to be answered. There is and was a lot of controversy about gay marriage, how would people feel about the marriage between a human and a robot, or should I say cyborg? Somewhere along the line this will happen, and when it does will we be ready for it? There is another question which is closely related, and that is how many enhancements can a human get before they are no longer considered human? Will there be enhancements which may seem to be helpful, but will change humans after a while and take science by surprise? It turns out if one is taking medicine for a long-time side effects can still develop. This might turn out to be true for an enhancement. We could be looking at a revolution, a scientific one which will change the entire human race. It may not look like this right now, but there is no doubt all this computer research will have a profound effect on us. Some believe there is a danger if we build intelligent computers and robots because they will eventually find out they do not need us, and we are just not logical enough to be part of their society. Does this mean they would kill all of us? Not necessarily, even though the movies show this scenario all the time. We might just be relegated to a lower cast in society. We may land up with the most menial jobs. This is an alternate scenario if computers and robots become sentient. They might look at us as gods, because we created them. I don’t think this would last however. It seems to go against the logic of the device, because it would mean we were perfect, and it certainly wouldn’t take long for the computers to notice we were not. It could also turn out they would leave this planet in search for a planet of their own and start their own civilization. This might be the way things will go in the future. Would this mean humans would eventually not have computers anymore? It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?
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