Me Robot
Isaac Asimov's Three Rules Of Robotics is a brilliant idea, even if it is silly. I mean, the concept behind the rules are really cool, philosophically speaking, and make for good stories. (The Zeroth and Minus One rules are stupid add-ons that make his robots less interesting.) But they're silly because even though you might expect basic safety measures to be used for appliances, why would these particular rules be used and how could they be implemented?
But then, part of the fun of science fiction is guessing how things will work out, not whether you're accurate. I was thinking about that when re-reading the first story in his I, Robot collection, "Robbie." It's not the first one he wrote, but it's the first chronologically in the life of protagonist Susan Calvin. It's fascinating that Asimov's early robots are able to manage the tricky calculus that the Three Laws engender, before anyone had come up with the technical solution that allowed robots to talk.
But fine, he loves the Three Laws, so they're always going to be there. The other thing that Asimov figured would be licked easily is the devilishly tricky business of designing robots to physically get around and do various tasks in virtually any setting. Back in the 40s and 50s, I suppose people were noticing so many mechanical problems being solved, while computing as we understand it was in a primitive stage. It would have been great if someone sat down the top sf writers in 1950 and asked them in what order will these three events happen? 1) The invention of a machine that can walk around your house picking up after you. 2) A spaceship that takes us to the moon and back. 3) A small machine that can beat you at chess.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:06 AM
10 Comments:
1) A machine that can play back a dream. 2) A principle that can explain why brain/sleep-science will forever fall short of the above. 3)Any AI contraption that, as a result of sleep-pressure, sleeps and dreams.
Is this the order you expect these things to happen?
1) An A.I. which can pass the Turing test. 2)A machine capable to interpreting brain-waves into realistic symbols. 3) An inexpensive molecular fabricator.
I'm not a profession SF author and this isn't the order I necessarily expect, but they're three biggies I'd like to hear thoughts on.
All three of Broklynite's ideas are in very different areas, yet I'd guess they'll happen in the order in which they're mentioned. We keep increasing computing power, so the Turin Test, once deemed so important, will become passable. Next, we'll learn enough about brain science, which we're already getting from MRIs, so that we can "read" minds. That's not really computing, that's something else. And finally, taking the molecules in the air and turning them into some other type of molecules, so we can make whatever we want, like on Star Trek--once we can do that, we can practically do anything.
Hm. Darned if I can remember, but there was a short story I read some years ago which dealt with molecular duplicators. Russel? Piper? I don't remember whom it was. But the upshot was that human society devolved into people feeding things into the machines and losing all of the skills for how to do the most basic things. Then again this isn't necessarily the newest idea- essentially it's replaying the Eloi vs. the Morlocks from Wells' The Time Machine.
I realize that those were fairly different areas, but I tried doing things I could see at least a significant approach made in the next 50 years. The last one is already at work as the first self-duplicators have been invented (and destroyed by FAA security...) and atomic-scale manipulation and fabrication has been going on for a few years now in nanotech research. I've always been of the opinion that a real true artificial intelligence even vaguely on par with our own will not occur until we can somehow create a true random number generating algorithm.
No mention of Dyson spheres yet ::grin::
1) The successful cloning of a wooly mammoth from frozen remains.
2) A permanently manned Moon or Mars base.
3) Fully robotic cars in ordinary traffic.
I'm glad we're getting all these comments. I'd guess this post has been linked somewhere. Does anyone want to tell me where they heard about it?
Boingboing linked to ya.
Hm, I've been looking forward to mammoth steaks for some time. But I dream of being in a manned moon colony since I was a little boy. What can I say? I'm a fourth generation Sci-Fi fan. Heh, that would rock.
Thanks for the info.
As for large steaks, I wouldn't be surprised if we can grow steaks from tissue that are as big as we want before we can successfully clown woolly mammoths.
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