If you could have or make your own robot, what would you want it to do?

I'd want a robot that was capable of self-replication. With near-term
technology it'd be rather large, but you're allowing for quite a lot of
technological advancement so in this case it wouldn't need to be. Maybe
even something as flexible as Stargate's Replicators.

With such a system it would be straightforward to industrialize the
whole solar system. As much habitat as we want, as much energy as we
want, whatever megastructures suit our fancy. And, presumably, they
could vacuum and clean the dishes as well. Just make sure to program
them better than the typical SF robot-run-amuck.


If it's something as modular as the Replicators it probably wouldn't
make sense to give names to particular conglomerations, since they'd
form and disperse as needed.

Ah, there's the rub. Being without such a limitation would be a survival
advantage and once started could take over the entire system.

Walter Bushell wrote:

Which is why you program it well. Perhaps we can't make it
mathematically impossible for such a system to run amuck, but you can
make it arbitrarily unlikely. Add as many bits of error-correction to
the genome as you like, and if one family of robots does run amuck have
the billions of other loyal robots that replicated correctly help to
destroy it. That'll turn such mutations into a serious survival
_dis_advantage.

We've managed to keep many other species of self-replicating organisms
domesticated without any of them rising up in revolt yet, I don't see
any reason why robots would be different in principle.

Mostly by close watching. If a Scottish Collie is found to have killed a
sheep, all his or her get (all descendants) are killed. This has been
going on for many years.

Walter Bushell wrote:

Yup. And some supervision is probably going to be needed for responsible
husbandry of self-replicating machines, too. We'll have some major
advantages though. The machines will be designed by us initially, not
domesticated from existing species, so we won't have to worry about
dealing with undesirable 'wild' traits. The machines themselves can help
with their own supervision - for example the scenario I mentioned
earlier where loyal machines could be ordered to help destroy any
disloyal ones that crop up. Putting in lots of redundant kill switches
would help too. And so on.

The Jurassic Park scenario where life forms are seemingly directed by
some invisible hand to instantly take advantage of any chance at
'revolt', no matter how unlikely, is just fantasy. I see no fundamental
reason why we couldn't get along perfectly well with self-replicating
robot servants.

Bryan Derksen wrote:

Then again, they don't have to revolt to take over.
Cats have been silently controlling us for thousands of years.
Robots will be taught to do the same.

Probably (will be taught) by the cats.  Then the cats will teach them
to open cat food packages and it's all over for domesticated humans.

trag wrote:

Robot dogs. Definitely need some robot dogs.

On Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:20:29 -0400, Bryan Derksen wrote


<Baltar> Bad memories of very bad late 1970s TV space opera emerge. Urge to
unleash the Cylon hordes upon poster erupts. And the toasters, not the blonde
ones. </Baltar>

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