Tuesday, December 01, 2009
Asimo and human deletion.
As we saw in class, Asimo is a robot developed by the Honda motor company. According to Honda, Asimo is the first humanoid robot which can independently walk and climb stairs. As great as that is, that does not make it revolutionary. What does make Asimo special is it's ability to understand pre-programmed gestures and spoken commands. It also has the ability to recognize voices and facial expressions.
Sure, he is cute. That is not by mistake. His designers developed it this way on purpose. It has a "like able" build which is not dis-similar from a child in a space suit. Are we meant to feel emotional attachment to Asimo? The team behind the mechanized nano human sure hope so. They want you to feel like it is real, like it can feel and understand.
So, i ask the question, is this the first step toward human deletion? Computers are developed and designed to be as efficient as possible. If a computer reaches the stage where it becomes self aware and that it does exist, could it decide that having humans around is less efficient? Imagine if when you went to delete a program, it fought you tooth and nail for survival, deciding that it should not be destroyed and instead you should be destroyed. Right now, it is only science fiction, however Asimo and similar projects are all working toward advancement in artificial intelligence.
