Science
published in January 1, 2021 |
by Steve Hanley
January 1, 2021 in Steve Hanley
The convergence between robots and humans is happening, albeit slowly. Science fiction writers like Issac Asimov and have been creating novels on the subject since the 1950s. TV shows like Black Mirror and Humans explore the darkness that can exist on the other side of the human / robot interface. Films like I, Robot, starring Will Smith and based on the book of the same name Asimov, focus on the moral and ethical puzzles that will emerge as robots become more sophisticated. What if machines with advanced artificial intelligence turn out to be more intelligent than humans? He remembers the lyrics of Sting’s Brass Around Your Finger: “I will turn your face to the alabaster when I discover that your servant is your master”.
People at Boston Dynamics – founded by Alphabet – have been pushing robotics and AI for years. Alphabet sold the company to SoftBank, which in turn sold it to Hyundai in 2020. Despite the change in ownership, the company continued to showcase its talents in several videos. From October 2018, he introduced a mechanical dog called Spot dancing to Uptown Funk, sung by Bruno Mars, and a humanoid robot called Atlas running and jumping over obstacles. A twerking dog may not be at the top of your wish list, but Atlas can play a useful role in the real world – running into a burning building to rescue people, for example, or replacing warriors on the battlefield. The 2018 videos are shown below.
Two years later, Atlas developed further and gained a twin brother. Boston Dynamics’ latest video features a pair of Atlas robots dancing with Spot The Wonder Dog until the 1962 hit, Do You Love Me? sung by The Contours, a successful Motown group.
Some will watch the most recent video and discuss: “Yes, it is a dancing robot. It only runs programs written by humans. Big deal. “But these people may be missing out on the big picture. In 2021, robots and AI will become more sophisticated. Artificial intelligence has already advanced to the point where it can write its own programming. A dancing dog may be just a novelty or a harbinger. of what is to come – a brave new world, so to speak, in which machines adapt to a warmer planet better than humans.
While we are busy celebrating our ingenuity in building robots that can dance, we may be ignoring the evidence that our time on Earth is rapidly ending. Literature and popular culture assume that humans will always win against impossible odds, but this may be the ultimate science fiction. When the next species to inhabit the Earth arrives, several thousand years from now, when the Earth cools down again, the only record of human existence may reside in the digital paths of robots like the Atlas that we are creating in our image today.
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About the author
Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability in his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else that uniqueness can take him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platform run by evil lords like Facebook.