Why have all robots the urge to kill humans?

I mean, there are so many documentary films that clearly show, that robots hate us. Just watch The Terminator, Matrix or take a look at Battlestar Galactica.

That proves that robots are not good and mean death to mankind, so it is not logical to build our own killers or it'd be suicide.

Reply to
Gerry Lintonice
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Ah, yes, like Galxy Quest, Terminator, Matrix, and Battlestar Galactica are fine "historical documents." Why these shows are on the SciFi Channel instead of the Discovery Channel, I'll never understand.

-- Gordon

Reply to
Gordon McComb

I am a huge fan of Science Fiction novels. It is interesting to read some of the old books, because they predicted future technology, state of the earth, and state of society.

SciFi shows robots being murderer, mean, greedy, scary because these are human traits. If the past is any indication, a "thinking" invention of a human being is likely to eventually possess these characteristics. A creation reflects the creators mind.

Reply to
aiiadict

Are you suggesting that my mind likes to malfunction, drive off the table and fail to respond to commands of any kind? Hang on, come to think of it...good point.

Reply to
Tim Polmear

You are forgetting Asimov's R. Daneel Olivaw, probably the most benevolent robot ever to have not really existed.

Reply to
Mike Ross

Robot stories have tended to be negative, especially post 19th century. The movie Metropolis shows robots as a menace. When taken in context of the times, it's not hard to see why. The movie was made as the country (the world really) was shifting toward industrial automation, led by the likes of Henry Ford. Workers were already rebelling against "the machines." The fact that the bad robot in Metropolis took the appearance of an attractive female is also not an accident. The idea was that even dressed up and pretty, mechanization threatens the working class.

The play R.U.R., which is often cited as creating the term "robot," was also about dehumanization through mechanization, though not as subtle as Metropolis. To this day, factory unions still fight over the ratio of people vs. robots. I suspect there will always be a love/hate relationship.

During the Depression robot stories in the sci-fi pulps were particularly negative. It wasn't until writers like Eando Binder and Isaac Asimov wrote about a "kinder, gentler" robot did things start to turn around, and then only in written literature. The berserk robot was still a favorite of the movies, because -- well -- they're more interesting! I still think it's cool a robot got the hots for Farrah Fawcett in Saturn 3.

-- Gordon

Reply to
Gordon McComb

What about Asimov's robots, or even the Star Wars robots? They weren't evil. Both sides of the coin were shown in "The Black Hole" Data from Star Trek, the "Lost in Space" robot, these were good robots.

I'm still debating about Furbys though... They were much more fun after judicious applications of a 9iron. :-)

Reply to
Eljin

You missed Saturn 3, Demon Seed, Screamers and Moonbase. Human beings lie, cheat, steal and rape. It's quite reasonable that any logical, rational, sane entity would want to kill them off before they spread through the galaxy like a viral plague. It's called pest control.

Sig: "The cat was once revered as a god. They have never forgotten this" - Anon

Reply to
Rotes Sapiens

Well, to be fair, their programming seems to reflect their masters desire for homocide more than their desire to commit suicide.

Mark

Reply to
Mark VandeWettering

Why have all trolls the urge to post inept messages on newsgroups?

Reply to
Guillaume

Machines have no mercy basically. Contemporary usefull Robots like Washing machines generally provide us with more life quality, but used incorrectly...

...so it is the incorrect extension of the human psyche in the first place which makes them dangerous. Physicists make physics!

Reply to
Ashley Clarke

I find that this is usually caused by ground loops.

Reply to
The Artist Formerly Known as K

Robots dont kill people.... people use robots to kill people...

Reply to
Dean Burell

So do Decepticons.

George

-- "Tell me what's on your mind or I'll splatter it on the wall and see for myself." BlitzWing

Reply to
George Neuner

But the AutoBots prevail with heavy artillery and better strategy.

It helps having a supreme leader, Automus Prime.

Reply to
aiiadict

Human beings lie, cheat, and steal because we are the product of Darwinian Evolution, and our ancestors that lied, cheated, and stole, were more successful than those that did not.

But robots don't evolve by Darwinian Evolution. They don't reproduce from other robots, they are manufactured. Their progress is more akin to Lamarckism, where (despite the patent system) good innovations tend to be widely copied, not restricted to a single product line. In such a system, attributes such as greed, lust, deception, and even individual survival, confer no special advantage. There is no reason to expect these traits to evolve in robots, unless they are intentionally designed in.

Reply to
Bob

Reply to
Donald

Debatable...there are evolutionary arguments for altruism. In fact, if you think about it for a second, which will last longer: an ordered society of honest, hard-working people, or a society where nobody trusts each other and everybody is purely selfish? Pretty clearly the former.

Of course, that society is vulnerable to "cheaters"...people who profit by cheating honest folk. In game theoretic terms, there is a mixed equilibrium where some people cheat but most are honest. A fair representation of the way things are.

Well they don't evolve...yet. At some point its not unreasonable to think they will.

Reply to
Mark Haase

Would you care to provide some historical precedents? The Chinese are some of the most honest, hard-working people on Earth and their history has been one of getting conquered by one gang of thieves after another. Eventually the gang of thieves gets assimilated and right about that time another one comes along. And all those thieves rape any woman they feel like raping, so they achieve greater reproductive success than the honest, hard-working people.

In any case, evolution doesn't care about "society" except to the extent that it has some relation to reproductive success.

And which have the greater reproductive success? The honest people who have one sex partner in their lives or the scoundrels who have hundreds?

If they do, it will be by engineering, not by random selection.

Reply to
J. Clarke

I wasn't arguing that real societies resemble the ideal model -- but a society of cheaters and backstabbers will slowly kill itself in the long run. Biology and selection pressure encourage certain forms of altruism. How else do you explain insect colonies where most individuals don't even possess sexual organs? Or monkeys who use verbal signals to warn other monkeys of nearby predators?

Like you point out, however, the payoff for being a cheater in an honest society is much higher than being a cheater in a dishonest society -- probably because there is a bigger pie overall in the honest society.

My response to your china example is that china has been crippled by "cheaters" -- people who gain authority unfairly and then wield it to meet their own ends. This is why China is way behind the industrial leaders of the world. The same principle applies to most of the former USSR, middle east, and africa.

Why are western and east asian countries (well Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan) countries so far ahead of the rest of the world? Because those societies are largely honest.

I'm not saying they are more honest by nature, either...rather it's more likely that the legal framework which prosecutes cheater behavior makes it more profitable to be a law abiding citizen.

Of course, lest I confuse economic development with a progressive society, let me also include India, specifically the state of Kerala. Kerala is very poor in economic terms, but a very advanced society: low birthrate, high literacy, low crime, etc. It all comes down, IMO, to legal frameworks, and how effective they are at encouraging people to "play fair". It might also have something do with a "cultural philosophy" that all denizens share.

The better question, which offspring have greater success? The ones raised by a pair of loving parents or the ones with an absent parent?

Hmm.. not sure what you mean. Are you saying its impossible to engineer machines that can reproduce and compete for limited resources? I doubt that its really impossible, but I wonder what purpose such machines would serve.

I still can't tell if you are supporting the original, cockamamie post, or if you are rejecting it.

Reply to
Mark Haase

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