[ExI] malevolent machines

[Tara Maya]

On Apr 9, 2014, at 9:02 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> 
> >…Then how can a computer behave in ways that the programer did not and could not expect? …
> 
> Most of us here have had the experience of writing a piece of code and having it behave in some way that completely blows our minds.  In some cases when writing a simulation for instance, a pattern emerges which results in astonishing new insights.  This is what causes me to be such a math geek, and write cellular automata scripts: they do things we didn’t expect, behave in ways we didn’t know we programmed it to do.
> 


I agree that it's possible for sufficiently advanced robots to behave unexpectedly. What I find interesting is how our fears are shaped by what we do expect. For instance, for those of us who think the most important metaphor for robots is as our slaves, the greatest danger is that they might rebel and kill or enslave us. Whereas, for those of us who think the the most important metaphor for robots is as our children, the greatest danger is that despite the huge amount of money we will waste educating them, they will just move back in with us to live in the basement playing video games.

Tara Maya
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