[ASTRO] Robot Armageddon!

["Kirk Filley" <kirk@mail.ltlb.com>]

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I haven't posted much in quite some time so I'm gonna attempt to make up 
for it today (as you SCREAM: "NOOO!!!").

I wonder if the robots in Servotron are aware of this outdated information, 
someone should tell these so-called scientists that robots are, in fact, as 
we speak annihilating the human race.

Swiss scientists warn of robot
                      Armageddon

                      February 18, 1998
                      Web posted at: 3:19 p.m. EST (2019 GMT)

                      From Correspondent Patricia
                      Kelly

                      DAVOS, Switzerland (CNN) --
                      Could artificially intelligent robots
                      signal the end of the human race?
                      Some Swiss scientists say such a
                      threat may be closer than we think.

                      Their doom and gloom talk was prompted by one of 
their own
                      creations: an autonomous robot that learns from its 
environment.

                      Within a few minutes, the microprocessor based robot 
can learn not
                      to bump into a barrier. No one programs the robot's 
actions, and its
                      creator isn't exactly sure how it will behave in any 
given situation.

                      Within 10 years, they predict that similar but more 
advanced
                      machines, equipped with artificial intelligence, will 
be as clever as
                      humans. Soon after, they say, the man-made objects 
could become
                      more intelligent than their creators -- and capable 
of taking over.

                      "Next century's global politics will be dominated by 
the question of
                      should humanity build ultra-intelligent machines or 
not," said Hugo de
                      Garis, who's already created an artificially 
intelligent machine.

                                               "In fact, I'm going so far 
as saying
                                               there will be major warfare
                                               between these two major 
groups,
                                               one saying building machines 
is the
                                               destiny of the human 
species,
                                               something people should do 
and
                                               the other group saying it's 
too
                                               dangerous," de Garis said.

                      Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics -- the 
science of
                      comparing biological and computerized brains -- 
agrees that thinking
                      robots could be dangerous.

                      "I can't see any reason why machines will not be more 
intelligent
                      than humans in the next 20 to 30 years and that is an 
enormous
                      threat," Warwick said.

                      De Garis speculates that the robots might soon tire 
of their human
                      creators.

                      "We could never be sure these artellects, as we call 
them -- artificial
                      intellects -- wouldn't decide that humanity is a pest 
and try to
                      exterminate us, and they'd be so intelligent they 
could do it easily,"
                      de Garis said.

                      Warwick has even gloomier premonitions.

                      "We're talking in the future the end of the human 
race as we know
                      it," Warwick said.

                      The day when robots no longer do what we want them to 
may
                      already be here.

                      De Garis' machine quickly decided it was camera shy 
and refused to
                      be filmed by a CNN crew.

                      Shy or not, only time will tell if these artificially 
intelligent machines
                      will evolve enough to bring about our demise. 

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