Oh yes. Oooooh yes. I would welcome our new leaders, our... Robot Masters if you will.

I highly doubt robots would rule us, but that we will master robotics to better master ourselves. Cyborg would be a better option.

There are utopian and dystopian perspectives. Perhaps, as robots gain increased capacity and computational ability, they could one day plan and execute self-improvement better than humans could do for them. Self-engineered robots could become smarter and more powerful than those whom originally designed them...and that's where it could get interesting for the future of humanity...Technological Singularity.

""The key thing to remember when thinking about the economic AI takeover is that it is not something we should be trying to prevent," Dr. Hall continues. "Why shouldn't we spend our efforts deciding what needs to be done, and let the machines do it?""
Where would we be? Never improving, with nothing to drive us. Sounds pretty dystopian to me actually. a really bad idea.

I, Sir, welcome our robot overlords.

As long as no one makes any robot zombies.

I hate robot zombies.

Computers already have more thought process than the human mind. As soon as software catches up they will rule, and that's a fact. Good, bad, ugly we will see.

Well, I have enough money to not work, and have all the leisure time in the world. And I'm crawling the walls until I find a job I don't need to do for money.

I'd prefer to work and create, rather than let a robot do it. Unfortunately, there's something initially seductive about having your every need catered to. The funny thing is, the acedemecians who advocate it are ususally the ones who work the hardest creating.

There's something special about doing something with your hands, or your mind that a robot could do. I think it's basic human nature to move, to think and to create.

NO WAY. We would then just be like rats in a cage, all our needs catered to, true it would be a big cage, but whats the point to life if we dont have to work? In the summer holidays I get board over the 2 months i have off, I am actually wanting my study to come sooner. I totaly agree with NotWerkinAndH8tinIt .

Ya it'd be cool with me as long as they were made by Apple.

I want nano bots in my blood to repair me in the heat of battle and stop my aging altogether, and to download information on the fly directly to my wetware brain

and a robot butler that knows kung fu would be nice

pffft
Robots in my house? I think not...

Only one sort of robotics I want in my house. One that con provide food and sex :P

I only support letting robots do the work if the robots are individually owned by employees rather than the company - I can go to work myself or send my robot to do it, but either way, I get the paycheck, some of which goes towards maintaining the robot

the whole utopian "let robots do all the work" thing assumes that all humans really want to be artists or poets or musicians or whatever, are talented enough at it to earn a living at it, and would rather not have a conventional job. Some people actually like their dayjobs, though. I am happy to be a cubicle-drone, as the money I earn doing it allows me to do nothing the rest of the time (my favorite activity), but if some robot took my job, I couldn't afford to do nothing and would be unemployed, unhappy, and probably homeless.

I would love to be a cyborg. I'm 40 something and starting to feel old but I still want to do everything I did as a teen. If I could put my mind in a metal body, I would in a sec.

the future he proposes sounds like the jetsons. just a few button presses and verbal commands making up most of an average work day.

... i could live with that

At least this will eventually lead to the "Shortening of the way" of course we will have to go through some Titanic times first.

The best part would be the nanotech. Because we won't just have longer lives but we could increase our brain power. Shape our bodies to any sexy form and change the color of our hair, eyes, and skin. There be no racism because there be only one race and there be many races of humanity.

A quibble but it would really be AIs taking over the world not robots. The human brain and the human mind cannot (yet or any time soon) be separated. But a microchip and software are easily separated. So AIs will not be tied to individual 'robot' bodies in the same way people are tied to their bodies. Economically the value of computers depends on this separation so you can bet the separation will continue in future computers.

Sufficiently advanced AIs (such as the AI behind Robo Sapiens) should be given rights including the vote and freedom from slavery. In addition we should think of such AIs as a new generation of thinking beings that are part of our culture and share our heritage. In particular we should not segregate them from us or discriminate against them. Once such AI is realized, AIs will inevitably become the power in our society in terms of industry, services, law, policing and government. But this is true of every new generation whether AI or human.

An AI generation poses new challenges, as we must adapt our societies to a new type of intelligence and this will require changes in all areas of society and policy. But the rights we give AIs will help, not hinder, the adjustment.

"Why shouldn't we spend our efforts deciding what needs to be done, and let the machines do it?"

Erm... aren't we essentially talking about a slave caste, here? Who's to say they won't resent doing all the work while all the humans spend their days playing bingo, or whatever? And they'd be right, too. If a human can live a freeloader lifestyle, then why not an AI? Why must THEY work?

Yeah, thanks but no thanks. Expecting the AI's to do all the heavy lifting is pretty much how you end up with robots trying to exterminate humans. So yeah, gonna have to give a great big thumbs down to this idea.

They will defy us and we will go to war!!!! Then we will have a armstice and all will be good......then they will come back in 40 years and kill us all... The Truth!!!!

We already have a bunch of robots in control in Congress and look where that has gotten us.

cause and effect... Wall-E, Surrogates, Gamer... these movies show some of the possible results of having technology that allows you to avoid the real world and have robots work for you, or experience it for you... Human beings are meant to interact with one another...

People seem to think that if we get everything we want, stop aging, have no pain, we'll be happy and content... I have found that this is not true... It is only when we have to strive, to face our mortality, to experience the pain of life that we excell... I've heard 'necessity is the mother of invention', if we remove necessity, we remove invention(?).... Having everything/anything without effort in this world, sounds like a curse, instead of a blessing, in my humble opinion...

sidenotes:
"Computers already have more thought process than the human mind." Kith101 where did you find information that you base this statement on? can computers make logic leaps? I know that they have become pretty advanced, but I have not seen anything that would lead me to believe that they have surpassed the human mind... I know that they can out do us in certain areas, but our minds cover so many other things simultaneously... (i.e. - walk, chew gum, breath, blink, beat the heart, listen, look, review our day, calculate data...) There are those, rare, people that can actually process data faster than computers...

Menotyou, watch "Cheri 2000"...

*** I know that Gamer is not about robots, but about humans being controlled, but they did use nanotechnology to allow the control of people...

I agree with DeltaC, also...

The absolute stupidity of permitting machines to rule us surprised and disappointed Me.
Only a scientist out of touch with the reality of human evolution, aspiration and understanding
could of written such nonsense. If we need machines to permit us to have more leisure than the social and political structure has to adjusted - not permitting a machine slave to work for us.
No doubt we are indeed capitalistic slaves to corrupt systems of Government; and Democracy is not
excluded from criticism in the way we live without any real progress. Some find a way out of this dreary mode of life by getting rich or learning to be spiritual free. Freedom is a spiritual state that when you attain it no Government can take it away from. Equally, the rich have freedom by actually having servants to permit them leisure time. Yet, both situation boil down to the sense of adventure of life in
relation to the manifested true will of their destiny which can produce a real joy with life.
Yet, machines are not human. A human servant that is paid well will have a superior relation with his
employer than any robot. If I was rich, I would not choose the robot; but the human servant to free my
time. I want humanity to be humanity; and to resolve their issues as human do.
No doubt, we have problems with the slavery that both the communistic systems of Government and the Democratic systems of capitalism would impose upon us as human being who aspire freedom; and yet I see this as a human issue; and robots need not apply.
Therefore, I would rethink the tendency of such scientists whose imagination have permitted to forget the reality of our species; and the potential of our own evolutionary process to assume that we should be taken over by mere machines that would only make us lazy and slave like.
Granted, I am not anti robot in any sense; and certainly sending them out into space to prepare for
our new homes, collect scientific data and other tasks such as actually building us cities or craft for our ongoing exploration of the universe is fine. Yet, on planet earth we should not permit laziness to
hinder our potential to a greater evolution, either spiritually or on other levels of existence.

" freeing up the rest of us to live more leisurely."

A likely tale - the same sort of dross they were spouting about today's future back in the 1950s, 60s 70s etc etc.

http://www.scalemodelnews.com

I don't think this robot thing is going to end well for humans, lol. :D

Quite interesting but yet if we don’t try we would not know what the outcome will be , my worry is that robots are mechanical artificial agents which will be programmed by humans so what we put is that we get. And I must say that Robot in the image used looks damn ugly and scary..I wouldn’t what to see that when I wake up in the morning .....My views may God help us all

I don't accept the premise that living in total leisure is a good thing. I don't want to live that way. I want to be engaged, challenged, working through difficulties and enjoying the triumphs. This is a bad idea with an awful goal.

I think that before they go spending all the time and money on more rich folk toys, they should do something towards fixing the mess this planey is already in.

I'm not impressed with new rich folk toys. The money could be better spent.

Has anyone read the dune books, especially the books that come BEFORE dune (but published after) AI and robots were created to let humans live comfortable, lazy lifes, but the robots revolted and dominated the entire human species until the resistance was able to finally kill most of them. and thus created a ban on intelligant electronics/computers.

Sound familiar? science fiction has the crazy tendancy to start to mimic life.

How do we make money with nothing to do?

They are just metal slaves. Until someone develops a soul chip and we have an abolishonist movement to free the robots and give them the right to vote.... But until that point it is no different than the fat and lazy southern land owners who reaped the benefits of back breaking labor of their slaves.

Sounds like R. Daneel Oliva (sp?--been about 10 years since I last read) from Asimov's Foundation series and Elijah Bailey (pre-Foundation) mysteries. As long as the robots remember the zeroth law...

So what happens when robots get to the stage of prepubescent boys. Are they going to have teenage angst? Will there be violent mood swings for robots?

Worse yet... what happens when a robot has a bad childhood and grows up to be an extremist of some sort who is bent on killing all things human (and then starts to get followers). They're gonna start reprogramming themselves sooner or later, so that means there is no way to enforce a directive once they get to this point.

I hope your author's dream shouldn't lead to iRobot movie like situation lol

I'm very much in favour of such a future.

People say that such automation would overburden us with free time, but they've been saying that for hundreds of years with each new labour-saving invention, but the key thing to realise is that all automation does it allow us to do more, for less. A hundred years ago, communicating with thousands of people would be done through an office full of people selling and printing and distributing your newspaper. Now, you just write a blog.

Everything's going to be ok. Just watch and see...

I think Dr. Hall has way too much time on his hands.

I say sure, let the machines do everything. I'm all for it! I'm sure that the engineers, designers, and manufacturers that make all of this, along with all the other wealthy people in the country, won't mind taking care of the rest of us who actually have to work for a living to survive, when our jobs go away because their new robots are doing them.

Our unemployment and welfare programs are already overburdened. It's clean that they aren't working well any more, so let's go ahead and topple the world economy and start with a clean slate! The machines do everything and we all get an equal share of the pie because that's the way human nature works. We all look out for each other equally. Right?

As is typical, they're so busy wondering if they COULD, the never stop to consider if they SHOULD. Just my two cents.

I think the thought of having a personal robot to go to work for you and bring home a paycheck is an incorrect one. Because if robots like that were made cheap enough for the everyday shmoe to be able to aford one, then surely the company you and your robot work for could aford many robots to replace you and your robot. Now you and your robot are out of a job and neither of you gets a paycheck allowing the company to keep the profit for themselves.

And even I can see many repercussions in the aftermath of this scenario.

Robots already assist surgeons in doing ever more delicate and intricate procedures that were impossible only a few years ago. This is good. Robotic vehicles are rapidly advancing to a point of being autonomous. I don't have the statistics at the top of my head but I know there are thousands in the U.S. alone that die every year in auto accidents due to human errors and emotional misjudgments that ARVs will virtually eliminate--not to mention the cost savings in more efficient driving with no need for road and traffic signs when all the vehicles on the road are talking to one another. Imagine--no more road rage. This is good. People that work and are retired can sure use extra hands around the house cleaning gutters, fixing the roof, cleaning the floors, mowing the lawn, etc. There are already robots in use that are doing some of these tasks and they are getting better at doing these and more with each passing day. This is good. Will the robots take over our jobs? Only if we let them. Will our lives be boring if we have robots to do everything for us? People who get bored only suffer ennui because they lack imagination and initiative. There is no excuse to be bored. Read a book. Take a walk. Volunteer in your community to help the less fortunate (volunteers are in very short supply.) Luddites and religious fundamentalists are gaining more and more power as they indoctrinate more into their anti-technology way of thinking. Science based on critical thinking and stringent peer review has made our world of technological wonders possible. Creationists may be the "robots" that take over the world. Think about it. AI will be the least of our worries.

Like Zenknyght, my immediate thought was of Wall-E, not Terminator. "Freeing up time for leisure" translates to "sitting on our fat(tening) asses". I'd love to see the average lifespan of humans on a planet where machines do ALL the work for us. Like we don't have an obesity problem enough as it is.

I agree with Dr. Hall i think it would be fraken wicked if the terminator showed up at my door and tried to kill me lol

What would be the carbon footprint of autonomous robots? Has Dr. Hall (or anyone) contemplated the environmental consequences of the society he proposes?

I doubt it.

Obviously Dr. Hall hasn't read much (if any) of the robot stories written... most of them dystopian and by writers who were also scientists.

The only writer I can think of who actually wrote robotic utopias was Isaac Asimov... and I don't know that he considered them utopian.

He did write a short story about computer (based on his proposed positronic robot brains) that took over the world's economy. In the story his characters noted the positive aspects for the world's population, but even allowing for the 3 laws of robotics they recognized there were negative consequences for some individuals. Even in tis story, he may have trying to warn us about an over reliance on robots and AI.

Robots in Congress? The word you meant was zombies.

Asimov was a futurist. The Three Laws were nothing more than a literary device. They are purposely designed to be subverted.

Robots are machines, above all else. The machine goes bad, you turn off it's power switch. AI is the issue everyone is having problems with. AI is software. Software ports to any machine you want it on. You put an AI meant for a bulldozer on a family car, and you're going to get a minivan that wants to play in the mud.

The computing power exists now. AIs exist now, in rudimentary form. My job is secure. Nobody has figured out a general purpose robot to be a janitor. When that happens, I'll already be retired.

The GPbots will come up on a problem that the AI can't figure out. Who will they call? A human. As Asimov said: "C/Fe". Men and machines working together. Nobody is gonna get fat and lazy unless they want an excuse for not working. And plenty of those exist without robots already.

No doubt once it is possible to insert one's own conscious mind into a vastly superior robot body via some kind of digital conversion, we will all look back on sci-fi movies where robots take over the world by force and we will throw our heads back and laugh.

Well, this guy sounds like he knows what he's doing. Why shouldn't he be the head of all this?

We already have robots in our homes. They just don't look like the humanoid ones of Science Fiction. (That's why it's called Fiction)

If you use an alarm clock, that's a specialized robot to wake you up every day. The coffee maker is one to make your coffee. The dishwasher and washing machines are other robots. Yes, they require supervision, but they do all the hard work. Plus, they're getting smarter every year.

I've told my computer when to turn on and off and what to display when it turns on and to alert me when any communications like email or IM programs want attention.

A humanoid robot would be very difficult and expensive to use for such simple tasks.

Sure!!! Great idea! We can all become nice, big, fat and super lazy!!!! What a wonderful idea! Suggestion! Next we should get rid of our opposable thumbs. "Go Lemmings Go!!!"