Artifical Intelligences, why do they allways go bad?

[Death_Jester]

Greetings everyone,

Sorry I have been away for so long but things do happen beyond the control of even gamer masters.

Recently my wife and I were watching the movie, "I, ROBOT" with Will Smith and it occurred to me, why do artificial intelligences always seem to want to destroy humanity? It seems to have become a whole cottage industry for every AI out there. From the Matrix to the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica all, Artifical people are out to get us.

My question for the board is why do YOU think computers will try to destroy humanity or do you think we can live in peace?

 

[Hellefire]

The most obvious thing that *I* can think of, is that humans 1) try to control everything and succeed in destroying many things and 2) try to program machines with the most perfect logic they can so that they are more efficient. So, if machines get to the point that they have control issues, self-preservation issues or that logic is their prime directive, removing the human factor is vital. Obviously don't leave Terminator out of the main stream, and my favorite, Maximum Overdrive.


Aaron Blair
Foren Star

 

[Wulf Ratbane]

Why do artificial intelligences always seem to want to destroy humanity?

Program machines to think like humans, and it's no surprise they'll act like humans.


Wulf

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I think its more a case of going insane.

The machine could potentially think, say for talking purposes, a thousand times faster than a human. It could concieveably go insane over the course of a week as it sits in a warehouse doing nothing.

 

[D'karr]

My question for the board is why do YOU think computers will try to destroy humanity or do you think we can live in peace?

Since we do such a good job of destroying ourselves it would seem like a natural extension for our creations to try to do the same thing. They would probably much more efficient with their lack of mores.

 

[Mallus]

Off the top of my head...

1) Its more dramatic that way? Stories about machines that just want to be our friends wouldn't be terribly exciting.

2) It's useful as metaphor.

AI's that want their freedom (or who just want to "stick it to the Maker-Man") can stand in for a host of real-world oppressed groups.

Then there's the other common metaphoric tack; the fear of and/or for your creations.

Consider works as diverse as Frankenstein and Village of the Damned (which is, I realize, robot-free). There's an anxiety inherent in creation. A simultaneous fear of the thing thats made (which will do things like outlive you, seperate from you, and possibly supercede your accomplishments, and that's if every goes right), and a fear for them (because you can't protect them from a world that's presumably stranger and more dangerous than the one that nurtured you; the feeling of impotence leading to anxiety and hostility).

 

[Henry]

I don't take such a nihilistic view, as I believe that humans CAN improve over the long term. However, what you see in fiction is simply the manifestation of our fears as human beings over things that we cannot understand, and these fears simply take the form of whatever is "cutting edge" in the public conscious. In the Medieval period, it was fears of godless heathens, or demons and devils that could subvert humans to their will - when in actuality everything from diseases to religious conflicts were the actual culprit. In the 1950's movies about atomic energy experiments going awry were the big boogeyman of the period - before things like nuclear power plants and the true facts about long-term exposure to radiation became commonplace. In the 1940's, artificial intelligence had become a hot button topic among academics, and the two more famous writers of the period, Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, asked the questions that played into those fears. Anything new and cutting edge has the potential to be immensely useful - or insanely devastating, and it's the eternal pessimist in humankind that takes these fears and blows them into some very good entertainment, with the hint of cautionary tale built in.

I guess the old adage, "better the devil you know" is appropriate?

 

[Henry]

Moved to off-topic.

 

[HAL]

I am afraid I cant answer that....Dave

 

[Gilwen]

Because they had to retain compatiblity with MS Windows 3.11.