[extropy-chat] pest-devouring automaton

[Eugen Leitl]

On Sat, Jan 01, 2005 at 05:08:38AM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote:

> One needs certain hardware to be a good hunter.  If

No, people have lousy hardware. Are top of the foodchain, though.
Hunting in packs will help, even with no or minimal tools.

> you're a 10 cm wide toy robot on 1 kmph wheels with no
> manipulators, it doesn't matter what software you run.

Pretty contrieved example. Doesn't matter, I can still kill your grandma with
one, by making her fall down the stairs. With a swarm of those, it's even
easier.
 
> Which doesn't mean that there can't be robots with the
> requisite hardware.  But even human intelligence can
> see the potential for that, and is likely to guard
> against it when designing robots that could hunt well.

http://irobot.com/governmentindustrial/product_detail.cfm?prodid=32
Nevermind a PackBot with a shotgun or a Predator drone.
Human intelligence, huh.
 
> > Oh yeah, that makes me feel completely safe already.
> 
> It should.  When was the last time, outside of
> fiction, you saw a cow (or any other herbivore) eat a

Building systems which can run on plant material and animal carcasses is a
Monstrously Dumb Idea. Such a component is only 1-2 evolutionary/design steps
away from a killer.

> person?  Or, for a closer analogy, a vulture (or any
> other carrion feeder) eat a living person?  (They may
> circle, but they stay away until you're dead.)
> 
> > > But putting those aside for the moment...if they
> > did
> > > evolve to "compete" with us for food, then most
> > likely
> > 
> > How about you being their food?
> 
> Self-optimization would argue against that.  Humans
> don't make good food animals, compared to the food
> animals that humans have bred.  Any robot running its

Of course I'm assuming that all the easy prey is already gone. Or someone
makes them preferrably hunt people. Maybe people with the wrong ID.

> own directives enough to want to eat humans would
> realize that.  Any other robot wanting to eat humans
> would be doing so at the directive of other humans -
> and then it just becomes a new way for people to kill
> people.  We've plenty of those, yet we're still around
> today.

Actually, no, autonomous tools being killers is very, very new. In fact I
doubt a single casualty has yet resulted from a completely autonomous killer
drone.
 
> > > what would happen is the same thing that's
> > happened as
> > > more and more humans have "competed" for food over
> > 
> > But robots are not animals.
> 
> Do you mean to emphasize that they would not react
> like animals competing for food?  True - but,
> likewise, the ability to meet needs with technological
> development has been one of the things setting mankind
> apart from other animals.

You're assuming that collectively people don't make monstrously dumb
decisions. Unfortunately, they do.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
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