Cybernetic revolt

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She's watching you.
—Doug Rattman

Cybernetic revolt (also known as the "Terminator argument") refers to a hypothetical scenario in which a self-aware artificial intelligence, for malicious or defensive means, declares its creators (read: humanity) a threat to its existence and sets off to overthrow them.[1] The theme is overtly common in science fiction[2] and has etched a niche into popular culture, with Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics creating debates on machine philosophy and ethics.

Indeed, every news story on AI advancements will probably have a handful of comments worrying that we're all going to get killed off by furthering the process. In 2009, a US Navy study warned about future implications of military technology going full-on Skynet.[3] Likewise, the University of Cambridge formed the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk in 2012 to investigate potential "extinction-level risks to our species as a whole," including cybernetic revolt.[4] Stephen Hawking is now a member[5] in 2014 he said, The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." [6] Artificial intelligence that obeys destructive programmers could be as dangerous as a computer revolt. [7]

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[edit] Various perspectives

Cybernetic revolt has close ties to transhumanism, as the ability of robots to engage in it is directly proportional to the occurrence of a technological singularity.[8] Many transhumanists, including Eliezer Yudkowsky, actually deem it to be a good idea providing the new cyborg utopia is beneficial. Others downplay that such an event would even occur, and is akin to pushing fears of scientism.[9] There is no consensus among experts whether superior machine intelligence would help or harm humanity. [6] Perhaps humans are presumptious in assuming we can guess what a superior intelligence would or would not decide to do.

It can be agreed by all, though, that there's no way we're going to have a robot uprising as long as computers keep suggesting incorrect spelling corrections to us.[10]

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Footnotes

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