Robotics In The Future

Genetic, Robotic, and Nanotech
By Robert Baird

Decision Time: Genetic, Robotic and Nano-Opportunities:

There is an abundance of technological threats and/or opportunities that mankind has before him. Whether or not there is an ethical basis upon which we might effectively utilize these technologies is something that worries many serious students of our species. The head of the Club of Rome says we do not even have terminologies for common concepts or words that cross ethnic and cultural borders. (1) Hobbes and other Platonic hierarchy types throughout history would argue that there is no good reason to think mankind can be responsible enough to get over ‘beating his chest’ in headlong pursuit of his ego driven or Machiavellian ‘appeals to base human urges’. (Il Principe)

We can wirehead the masses and make them all quite happy but we seem more interested in giving them pharmacological lobotomies according to Breggins and Cohen. We could do what the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still showed alien species had done with the robots to enforce peace. We could ensure free access to gene therapy and extend the life of all people till they can live to be as old as nine hundred years without parts replacement. According to some researchers this goal will be achieved by the year 2070 but it would necessitate changes in reproductive rights unless we are to make a concerted effort to start colonizing space soon. The decisions carry many downsides as well as upsides but the discussions don’t seem to be happening and we continue to train people for harmful or soon to be outmoded jobs. This article cannot address all the facts or factors but we must start the process.

Bill Joy the Killjoy:

The March/April 2000 issue of Wired Magazine article by the noted expert in technology who developed Java and was a founder of Sun Microsystems made more than a little impact in the editorial coverage for a few weeks in my local newspaper. He warned us about genetic engineering that could end life on earth without pointing out that the Israelis are trying to target their enemies with a genetic ethnic bomb. Perhaps he was not aware they are working on that but he was a part of the SALT talks. The most important thing he brought to the attention of readers was the prediction that by 2035 humanity will be redundant in the performance of most jobs.

He quoted experts in many fields of endeavor and I agreed with him that the dumping of human memory into sentient robots will not include the soul as people like Gary Hillis think. His sometimes debating partner Ray Kurzweil goes further (2) and speaks of even more rapid acceleration of technology. Not long after Joy’s article hit the stands we had NEC labs in Princeton, N. J. tell us they measured 300X light speed in a cesium chamber. Then came the US Army letting out faster than light information transfer contracts through Mr. Everitt in Durham, N. C. by November of that year. (3) The European attempt to reach Mars includes Ion Propulsion which can accelerate infinitely past the speed of light. Quantum Teleporting was a cover story in Scientific American around the same time and yet the uninformed so-called ‘experts’ often deny many possibilities that relate thereto. I personally believe that a combination of Virtual Reality technology, Holography and nanotechnology will allow a form of time travel for complex systems despite what Hawking said. Hawking said they know time travel exists in small particles.