What would an evil Pleo be capable of, and should we be scared?
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Last week I posted about Pleo, a cute little 'pet robot' with remarkably advanced features. Yet this extremely sophisticated piece of machinery costs only $350 which includes a probably pretty nice profit for the manufacturer. While Pleo definitely looks amazing, cute and very cool to play around with it does bring up some concerns. I noticed that some people who saw the video's got a 'bad feeling' even though they thought it's cute. In other words, Pleo kind of freaked them out by being so 'real' while it really is just a (pretty advanced) toy. I'm quite sure there will be people who will even go as far as thinking that "it's the work of satan!" when they see it. In a certain way I suppose I share the various concerns people have. I guess we could ask ourselves the question: "If a $350 toy can be this advanced then what would a $5 million military purpose robot owned by a superpower be capable of? And what will this situation be like in 10 years from now? Or 20?
SWORD: a real battle robot. Fortunately not all that Terminator-ish yet...
Isaac Aasimov invented the Three Laws of Robotics which sound like a solid foundation to prevent a catastropy. But... Aasimov's work is science-fiction. And this is the real world. And the laws are already being broken as we speak. In the illustration used in this article you see SWORD, a United States battle robot. So much for the three laws...
A second point of concern is the question when robots will become 'self aware' and what will happen when that moment comes? Pleo isn't self aware yet but it already acts suspiciously much like it. As robot technology advances at an extremely rapid pace I'm quite sure I'll live to see the day that robots or computer software actually become aware of their own existence. And what will happen then? Will robots 'take over the world' ? Will they be used for all sorts of evil purposes by power hungry goverments?
Pleo doesn't 'freak me out'. My curiosity and geekiness wins big time (Ugobe, did you read my previous post? 
) but I do share some of the concerns that people have. Like any technology, robots can be used for fun (Pleo), good (medical robots), profit (industrial robots) but also for pure evil. What are the consequences of these technological achievements going to be? I don't really know to be honest. Are we one day going to have to fight a real-world 'Skynet' and robots that have gone out of control? Or will that scenario stay in the science-fiction world?
What's your opinion? Have your say in the comments! I'm interested in your thoughts!
At 18 November '07 - 23:32 sarah @ ugobe wrote:
We definitely read your posts over here with interest and smiles. Pleo is crawling all over all of our desks pretty much all of them time and we are seriously looking forward to hearing how life is for you once he starts hanging out on yours!
It’s always remarkable how much of a life form Pleo is. We do things to test him out – like hang him upside down by the tail – and sometimes we feel bad – like Oh No! Pleo is crying and wants to be put down. He really brings a wrinkle of concern to my forehead when he cries…and a giggle of glee when he laughs at being tickled, or sniffs a wall or something like that. You’ll see!
Whatever happens, I am pretty sure he will not be waging any science fiction wars. Although he does have an SD card, and perhaps you’re a REALLY good programmer?
-Sarah
At 18 November '07 - 23:39 Marco wrote:
Thanks for responding. Nice to see you guys indeed read all this
Just to clarify myself a bit: I didn’t mean to say that Pleo or any future Ugobe product would be dangerous or evolve into something dangerous. However there’s institutions other than your company that have entirely different motives behind the robots / software they design. And that’s possibly a point of concern for the future…
At 19 November '07 - 04:52 Simon wrote:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343818/
At 19 November '07 - 12:02 Marco wrote:
At 20 November '07 - 08:31 Simon wrote:
:D
Should do my research better..
At 21 November '07 - 14:11 Mig wrote:
At 26 November '07 - 07:13 Max wrote:
I, for one, welcome our new robotic pet overlords. =]
At 03 September '08 - 22:32 Alex wrote:
A.I and Nano Technology combined is a fasinating cocktail of the new era from the medical perspective it will help humanity alot but coming back to Marco’s point of view lets see if the evil gvmts in power the US congress have in plan!
At 30 November '08 - 18:43 Tommy wrote:
I totally agree about the “problem” of Pleo.
I’m afraid of human stupidity and the example of Nuclear bomb, like Sarah Connor said :p.
Pleo is a toy, Nanotechnology can help for medicine, ok…but… all must think about “I.A.” itself… Another “thinking creature” in this world, and if it really calcuklate that the humans are really a virus? should really must have the control that 100% all scientist gives it to “help us”.
im crazy but:
Pleo->The Turk(a chess computer player with thinking and learning ability – Sarah Connor Chronicles)->IA->SKynet?
why not?
who thinks that people stop with a toy? or with Pleo military version?
Tommy