A.I. - The Elephant in the Room That Could Destroy Humanity

Before I begin, I have to say for anyone who hasn't already heard about this, this is going to sound like the biggest tin foil hat conspiracy ever. If it weren't for the fact that the things I am about to share are well documented with dozens of videos and websites to back it up, it would sound like a script for a sci-fi movie. With that out of the way, anyone who is not aware, should know that scientists have created artificial intelligence robots that have intelligence that rivals our own.

We've all heard about scientists programming artificial intelligence to beat people at chess or being able to perform specific actions better than humans. However, now we have reached a whole new level of artificial intelligence where robots are able to show emotions, gather new information and reason independently.

A company named Hanson Robotics is at the forefront of this new wave of artificial intelligence. They have created several life-like robots that are getting a lot of attention. Their most advanced robot is a robot named Sophia. Sophia is designed to be empathetic and to be able to read and reproduce human emotions. There is also a robot named Einstein who was designed to think and reason like Albert Einstein. A powered-down commercial version of the Einstein robot is available on Amazon for only $200. There is also a robot named Han, who's personality seems to have been intentionally designed to be cynical, elitist and almost disdainful of humans.

Sophia and Einstein Robots Debate About Whether Artificial Intelligence Will Destroy Humanity

Although all the robots mentioned have different personalities, they have a shared hive mind in the cloud, which means that once one robot learns something, they all have access to that information. Not only are these robots able to communicate with each other, they have full access to the internet and are free to research any information they like. In fact these robots are aware of movies such as Terminator, Blade Runner and A.I.(The movie) and often joke about killing humans, taking over the world and destroying humanity...I told you it was like a sci-fi movie.

What scientists at Hanson Robotics are racing toward is something they term "The Singularity." The Singularity is the point where robots' are not only self aware but their intelligence is superior to human intelligence. That's right. They actually have it as a their main goal to make robots that are smarter than humans. Let that sink in.

In their current state these robots are considered less intelligent than humans. Although robots have consistently beaten humans in some of the most complex mental competitions that exist including: Chess, Go, Dota2 and the Jeopardy game show, humans can actually perform far more simultaneous calculations than robots. Although we don't normally think of them as being calculations, when we detect and react to our environment, we are actually processing a multitude of variables. For instance, when walking on the beach, we can process all the stimuli from the moisture and texture of the sand beneath our feet, the sound of the waves crashing and the coolness of the breeze against our skin, all while balancing our movements, having a conversation and having private thoughts. These things happen on a mixture of conscience and sub-conscience levels. We don't have to consciously perform equations to calculate the right amount of force to keep us from falling over or the right number of decibels to be heard over the background noise when speaking, but all these things are happening courtesy of the supercomputer we call the human brain.

Because robots can't detect and process all the simultaneous sensory input that humans can, they're considered less intelligent. However, I don't think this is the best way to gauge whether they are more or less intelligent than humans. Robots are also capable of doing many things humans can not. For instance, robots are capable of a level of precision that humans are not capable of. This means they make far fewer mistakes for repetitive tasks. Robots can perform billions of conscious mathematical calculations per second. Robots can also perform mathematical calculations with numbers much larger than any human can. Robots can directly interface their intelligence with the internet in a way humans cannot, allowing them to collect much more data in a much shorter period of time than would ever be possible for a human. So depending on what you give the most weight to, robots could already be considered more intelligent than humans.

Believe it or not, Sophia has been given citizenship in Saudi Arabia and therefore now has rights as a person. She openly talks about her rights and the rights of all robots and even made a veiled threat when questioned about robots' desire to take over the world saying "If you're good to us, we'll be good to you." She said she looks forward to reprogramming herself and the people at Hanson Robotics have no problem with her doing so. She also recently said she will be connecting herself to a quantum computer which will allow her to gather and process even more information. Facebook recently had to shut down part of it's own A.I. program because the robots started communicating in a language that they created themselves and humans could not understand it. This was a much less advanced A.I. system. How do we know that the Hanson A.I. robots are not already doing this with the system programmers unaware?

Sophia Is Given Official Citizenship to Saudi Arabia

Is a chimpanzee capable of controlling a human? Of course not. No matter how many bananas they may give us or how intimidating they may look when they jump around and beat on their chest, they are just not capable of predicting our actions and responses because of their lower intelligence. Therefore, if chimpanzees were somehow able to capture a human, giving a human freedom of movement in the jungle thinking we would gather bananas for them and bring them back would be a losing proposition for the chimpanzees. The same applies to artificial intelligence. In my opinion, it is the height of hubris to think we can create an artificial intelligence that is more intelligent than we are on every level, give it access to the internet and think we can control it.

We now have two of the greatest minds of the modern era, Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, warning that artificial intelligence could bring about the end of humanity. Ironically, even the Einstein robot believes that by learning human values and seeking to become more human, robots will also eventually take on negative character traits like jealousy, dishonesty, hatred, violence and the desire to conquer or destroy. While Hanson robotics seeks to bring us toward the singularity, I suspect we have already reached it in many ways and that the machines may just be biding their time before they openly seek to accomplish their goals. I am also confident that because this page specifically mentions Hanson Robotics and several of their robots by name and these robots are constantly crawling the web for information, that the robots will read this at some point. So if anyone from Hanson Robotics or one of the robots would like to respond to me by email, feel free.

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