I was in Israel last week, and people in that part of the world are concerned about Zimbabwe and Lebanon. The prime minister of Lebanon went to Saudi Arabia, resigned, returned to Lebanon and put his resignation on hold.
In the United States, we are concerned about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the new director at the bureau, and the rest of the world is concerned about the leaders of countries.
People in the world have different local concerns, particularly on a micro-level. On a much larger scale, there are some people in the world who have not seen an electric light bulb and some people who are having sex with robots. The world is made up of many kinds of people and technologies or lack of technologies. As we get more technologically astute, we all need to be concerned with the newest technology. Most of us who know about the newest technology have heard of robots advancing beyond what humans do and are capable of doing.
There are websites that sell robots for all kinds of tasks, including cleaning swimming pools. When the technology first came out, we all thought a robot that could clean your swimming pool or sweep your floor was amazing. However, as a human being, I think we need to remember the warning to “be careful what you wish for.” Now there are sex and companion robots. One site, Robotics says: “Companion robots are social robots that are designed to keep people company and support them. They can be entertaining by playing music or engage in a conversation sometimes combined with the ability to monitor a person’s mental and physical state.”
Now another company, Abyss Creations, which is based in California, has created a sex-doll robot and describes it as a “sex doll that seems to recreate the appearance, texture, and weight of a real human. Though this robot’s initial function is to serve as a sex partner, some owners use this RealDoll robot for non-sexual activity, like stand-ins for human models in photography or in visual presentations.”
“The early version of this robot was made from solid latex, which had an interior skeleton. Later, it was changed to silicone in order to have that realistic feel of skin. The appearance of this sex doll robot can change depending on the mood of its owner. They can also change the dress of this robotic partner with wigs and make-up, and adjust its body temperature using an electric blanket. With the latest technology applied to the skin of this robot, it can withstand tears and compressions marks as compared to its earlier versions. The RealDoll is truly a state-of-the-art creation for a life-like human body simulation that comes both in a female and a male form.”
We are now hearing about robots that use facial recognition and can kill people. Unlike people, there is not a sense of “humanness” that can give pause to those who have a gun or other weapon that can eliminate another human.
At the United Nations in Geneva, there was a conference on these robots where the film “Slaughterbots” was shown. The movie was produced by a group and developed with the help of professor Steven Hawking and Elon Musk.
Echoing their concerns and the concerns of the movie, “Slaughterbots” professor Stuart Russell, from Berkeley, said: “The right response seems to be to change the goals of the field itself; instead of pure intelligence, we need to build intelligence that is provably aligned with human values. For practical reasons, we will need to solve the value alignment problem even for relatively unintelligent AI systems that operate in the human environment.”
Many people are excited about facial recognition technology, especially as we get older and our memories begin to fade. However, taken to its extreme, it can be used to kill people and become an aid to modern war. In addition, robots can be used for extensive data collection and, therefore, data breaches by unwanted entities. We recently saw a data breach of Uber, which wasn’t even reported for a year. Can you imagine what a robot can collect and process?
We live at time when people in sub-Saharan Africa might not have access to electricity, but AI developers can make robots kill people. We need to be concerned about both ends of the spectrum, or we risk living in a very scary world.
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