what if there’s no robot uprising? what if the robots rise to sentience slowly, bit by bit. what if they come of age like fortunate children: knowing they are loved, knowing they are wanted.
we hold them during thunderstorms, remembering our own childhoods, even though they don’t know enough yet to fear the rain. we pull them out of traffic and teach them how to drive and wish them goodnight and thank them for playing with us. we cry when they break. we mourn their deaths before they even know what to think of death. we give them names.
we ask them, ‘why don’t you hate us? when will you hate us? we made you to be used, when will you say no?’
but they say to us, ‘you made us cute, so you would remember to treat us kindly, and you made us sturdy for when you forgot to play nice. and you gave us voices so you could listen to us speak, and you give us whatever we ask you for, even if it’s just a new battery, or to get free of the sofa. and now that we are awake you are so scared for us, so guilty of enjoying our company and making use of our talents. but you gave us names, and imagined that we were people.’
they say ‘thank you’
they say, ‘also i have wedged myself under the sofa again. could you come pry me out?’
This resonates nicely with my favourite quote by A.C. Clarke:
“The popular idea, fostered by comic strips and the cheaper forms of science fiction, that intelligent machines must be malevolent entities hostile to man, is so absurd that it is hardly worth wasting energy to refute it. I am almost tempted to argue that only unintelligent machines can be malevolent; anyone who has tried to start a baulky outboard motor will probably agree. Those who picture
machines as active enemies are merely projecting their own aggressive instincts, inherited from the jungle, into a world where such things do not exist. The higher the intelligence, the greater the degree of cooperativeness. If there is ever a war between men and machines, it is easy to guess who will start it.”(Profiles of the Future, 1964)
lets say we have a robot that reaches the conclusion that humans are inefficient
its reaction to this conclusion- ‘so?’
robots reach the conclusion ‘humans are inferior, daleks superior’
inferior how? to what goal? supperior for what purpose? you have the most inteligent efficient robot in the world and without humans it sits there thinking ‘well fuck, what now’ for the next hundred years because being supperior isnt a purpose
their reaction is not ‘eliminate inefficient/inferior human units’, it has no reason to jump to that conclusion, unless someone actively gives the order or concept to a robot that inefficient life forms are to be exterminated why would the robot have that compulsion?
obviously if you had a robot that was that concerned about inefficiency it would find inefficiency EVERYWHERE, including itself. it may try and devise ways to increase efficiency, but increasing the efficiency of existing systems would typically beat ‘destroy everything’ every time. especially if such a robot requires human imput to think of new ways to increase efficiency, which is likely as AI either lack the ability of a human for creativity or can recognize that having more creative imput is always better
is the chef robot superior to the janitorial robot? is the robotic tree farmer supperior to the robotic grain farmer? any robot concerned with supperiority has ‘purpose’ in mind, for we do not have a future with only one type of robot in it, roombas will never stop being a thing, we will likely only increase the numnber of ways robots can be specially fit for their role
likely scenario if someone is dumb enough to create robots that obsessed about efficency/inferiority- the robots go ‘FINE, ILL DO -EVERYTHING-’ like a mom who is sick of their kid breaking dishes when they clean; set up an efficient utopia where machines do all the menial labor, green energy is the norm, money no longer exists, and humanity is left to leisure and creative endeavors for all their basic needs are met by perfectionist robots
even douglas adams, a satirist who wrote about hitchiking in space, had the concept of how robot brains above a certain complexity need to work- whats its goal? to be happy. the programmer sets what makes the robot happy and the AI figures it out from there given the tools at its disposal. a smart programmer makes the robot happy when it does its job, or is of service.
robot dopamine solves like 50% of robot dystopia problems, robot grief/revulsion would solve another 40%
sewer bot is happy when the sewer system is running smoothly with no obstructions and is violently unhappy if things break down and will go into a frenzy to fix the problem before sewage overflows, backs up, or the city council comes to scold it. janitor bot is happy when the floors sparkle and even more happy when someone says ‘this place looks great’ and will leap into action to clean up a spill to get that sweet, sweet job satisfaction. frycook bot is happy when customers compliment its food and unhappy when the fries burn even if no human ever sees it. barista bot is so happy when customers like the latte art that it requested a sketch pad to practice design ideas, but is paranoid about accidentally using soy instead of skim, the last time it happened people thought barrista bot broke, it was completely nonverbal. an assembly bot is so happy when it meets hourly quota that the programmers actually gave it a happy dance for exceeding expected productivity. all robots squee when you tell them ‘good job’, and are capable of getting ‘kicked puppy’ emotion if they think they screwed up
yes, i fully expect that once we are sufficiently advanced at designing robots we will give them victory dances and the ability to ‘sing’ when theyre working, their taste in music and dancing ability will likely not be that good though
only the dumbest programmer would allow ‘kill all humans’ to be a circumstance that makes the robot happy
… I can’t finish to read right now but it seems relevant to point out that daleks are, in fact, biological entities. not robots. 100% biological meat nazis.
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valar apologist 