36 replies to this topic

[CyberMisterBeauty]

Androids will begin to appear in society in the late 21st century and they will convive with humans just like we interact with each other.In the early 22nd century,mind uploading will enter mainstream society,offering humans the ability to discart their natural brains in favour of cybernetic ones and putting it in a fully robotic body,and these people will be androids and will have machine like abilities,like never need to sleep,never feel pain or tired and have super strengh/agility.


Do you think these transhumans and androids will suffer prejudice from biological humans,even though they will be physically indistinguishable from them?Or the biological humans will be jealous for not having the abilities that only androids will have?Do you think there will ever be a war between humans and androids/transhumans?

[SG-1]

I don't think they will be jealous. When humanity gets to the point where we can upload our minds to an android that looks indistinguishable from a biological human, then people will already be at least partly bionic themselves, or they wouldn't care for it.

At first there would be jealousy like when the next generation phone comes out, but more than that. Not enough for a war. It wouldn't really be a war it would just be racism and the ones who try and harm any transhumans would be charged criminally for attacking another citizen.

Androids are not the same as a transhuman, and a transhuman would still be a human being and a citizen of their country. They would still be protected by their country's laws.

Realistically society would be more fit for a transhuman. They would be able to download information faster, they could have all the benefits of a computer and in an era where there is already now so much information you couldn't possibly read all the material or watch all the videos just on YouTube in your life time, that will be more extreme in that time and it will be very helpful. Transhumans could go out onto other planets like Mars, the Moon and do spacewalks without worrying about any oxygen or other temperature, toxic hazards.

People will be jealous, but within those jealous people's life the technology to become transhuman themselves will be available to them at a price they could afford, most likely.

[truthiness]

Indeed - androids aren't the same thing as a transhuman - unless, of course, we're talking about a human mind inhabiting a robotic body. An android is just a robot that happens to look like a man. These would be treated as what they are - devices. Tools. Oversize gadgets. I doubt they'd be granted human-equivalent intelligence (including emotions, independent ambition, fear, dreams, and so forth). They may be AIs in the sense that our smartphones are gradually developing toward becoming AIs - a brain full of clever predictive software capable of accessing the internet to bring any little nugget of knowledge or entertainment to its owner's attention at his leisure. In this case, with a capable bipedal body, these devices could go out into the world and retrieve physical objects, or perform remedial maintenance that are undesirable for its owner. These would be slaves - but not really slaves any more than our phones, computers, or cars are slaves to us. I doubt there would be issues of human jealousy toward androids any more than there is jealousy today toward cars for being faster than we are, or toward Wikipedia for being smarter than we are.

[CyberMisterBeauty]

No,you are wrong,androids aren't just machines,they are artificial people,just because they are a non-biological lifeform it doesn't mean you will call them "things",I'm sure when they will enter society they will be treated as citizens,they will be just another race conviving together with humans and transhumans...

[GNR Rvolution]

Depends on society's definition of a person, and what exactly any 'android would' be capable of. It may be that by this time technology and AI is so widely accepted that they would not bat an eyelid at the prospect. On the other hand the road may be a lot bumpier than this and people may be wary, intimidated or outright hating of androids, particularly if they are used in law enforcement or take work away from 'real' people...

[Alric]

If an AI is as smart as a person is it alive? If you upload a cockroaches brain into a computer and then it becomes as smart as a human, is the cockroach alive? Obviously a cockroach is alive yet when we talk about an AI at human level intelligence we some how think it may not be. The cockroaches brain isn't really adding much, so if you remove the cockroach part and leave behind the human intelligence you see there really isn't much of a difference. I think as we get the human level AI we will start seeing robots and stuff as equals to humans.

I think there might still be religious people and stuff who reject technology, and will not want to enhance them self but I think it will only be small groups. I don't think a war will happen, because it would be to one sided. It would be like the Amish going to war with the US. It isn't going to happen, and if it did it would last about 30 seconds. People who reject technology are not going to be able to inflict harm on what are basically super humans.

[SG-1]

I guess if androids, which are not humans just like an intelligent alien is not human, achieved a consciousness, not just intelligence than they would probably have to go through a revolution like the civil rights movement.

No one will be jealous though unless some law such as "you cannot have non-biological enhancements until you are 18 or 21", but after that it's up to the person to get them. Envy, maybe, of the newest thing if middle class or lower cannot afford it yet but not to the point of racism, as they would want it to themselves.

[Alric]

Consciousness is probably just a side effect of intelligence. There are probably computers around now that have a consciousness at the level of really stupid animals. A person can make an bad guy in a video game run around and interact with objects and have enough self awareness to react to different events. It is extremely limited, but it is no different than low level life forms that move around based on light and just eats whatever is in front of them.

It is all a matter of where you draw the line. At the moment it is pretty arbitrary. Some thing may or may not have a consciousness depending on where you put that line. If you set it low then some computers may already be there. If you set it high, it is still just a matter of time before a computer reaches it. You just keep increasing the complexity of the computers 'brain' and eventually it will come around.

[Raklian]

The phenomena of consciousness is extremely complex, at least it appears that way to our existing knowledge about the brain and science in general.

Today, we throw around the word "consciousness" as if we already know exactly what it is. But we don't!

What we are doing right now (in the scientific discourse) is defining what consciousnes is and what the sub-components are to make this work. We are not even close to declaring that with 100% statistical confidence we know how it ticks.

Ask yourself this - would you retain your consciousness if you lose all of your five senses and are still alive? Probably because you still have the memories of all the senses you experienced before losing them. Now, how about if you were born without them? Would you think you have a consciousness, a sense of the self?

I thought about this for a while and was inspired by the revelation.

[Alric]

Well I think some computer AI already show consciousness. If you look at AI in games, they have a sense of awareness for their surroundings, they have a sense of self preservation, they can reproduce, they can even have emotions that change depending on world events and their actions will change depending on those emotions. They are capable of thought, and can even adept to knew situations.

Granted this is all in a limited setting, but is it really all that limited if you were to compare it to say a rat stuck in a cage for all its life? I think everything probably has a consciousness, its just a matter of to what degree it does. At the moment mainstream opinion is if you are human you have a conciseness and if you are not human then you don't but that probably isn't true.

A person could have half their brain missing and be severely handicapped because of it, and we usually say they have consciousness. We also say that babies still in the womb has it as well. Humans are way smarter than all other animals on this planet, but some animals are smarter and more developed than babies in the womb and people with half their brains missing.

[CyberMisterBeauty]

No,this is stupid of course a videogame console or a pc don't have any consciousness,you see these things you said happening in the game,but they are just a programation(lign of codes),that they put inside te machine,but obviously a computer don't even have self-awareness.The machines will only achieve consciousness and self-awareness when they do that by their own flops(quantity of operations per second),without any programation left...

Even the supercomputers don't have self-awareness,they only show a little sign of human intelligence,like understand language,sight and hearing...


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-06/danl-rsp061208.php

[Raklian]

To Alric, not cybermister.

How can a consciousness be limited in any way? We don't even know its properties, let alone where it begins and ends.

And no, the computers/AI you're talking about do not show any semblance of self-awareness. Not even close. Just do some research and you'll see why. HINT: the conscious state of one's own awareness AND receiving sensor input data, the process of storing data as memory, encoding and processing data before producing an output command to perform a specific task, are two separate things.

About the brain trauma victims, often times their loss results in various neurological problems such as memory loss, loss of temporal awareness, loss of body functions, etc. Can you say they are the same people as they were before the trauma? No, you can't because simply they aren't the same. What about their self-awareness? You can bet that it is altered as well. A major portion of what makes consciousness work is memory (both working and long-term) as it is necessary to retain experiences in some capacity or otherwise you can't function at all (like staring at nothing forever). So if it is affected then the self-awareness is as well.

The brain and the state of consciousness is a very intricate piece machinery. We can't just lightly say some computers are conscious in a limited way. It is more complex than that.

Edited by Raklian, 02 May 2012 - 05:58 PM.

[CyberMisterBeauty]

Pretty smart Raklian,but what's your opinion about the title of the topic and my first post?

[Raklian]

It is possible for androids to act very human, even pass the Turing test. A very sophisticated algorithm can do this given enough time and resources; however the question becomes - are they actually self-aware at this point? If most of their behavior is derived from lines of codes in a central processing unit, then they are not self-aware. Just improbable.

But, if we successfully map the human brain, understand how it works (just the relevant parts) and create an artifical brain that functions just like ours (it doesn't have to look like our biological brain - it can be in any shape), yes by then androids can become self-aware.

There will be some initial misunderstandings and resistance to the involvement of sentient androids in the human race. One way or another, we will be more accepting the fact they are just like us, as they have the same feelings and dreams like we do. Humans by nature are sociable, meaning we associate well with others by common hertiage rather than something completely different. Androids and humans share many similarities, so the line separating both will be very blurred.

[SG-1]

Agreed, lines of code = no self awareness

Brain with no code = self aware.
Hopefully we will figure out how to interface memories with the brain so we can increase our memory and intelligence. If we don't do that than the androids won't be much smarter than humans as they couldn't download information. I bet eventually we will get there - and it will be awesome like the Matrix and kung-fu.

[Alric]

My point wasn't really that computers are limited compared to humans, but that humans are just more advanced computers. Humans are just like computers, except we are more complex. Humans have their own lines of code, they just take a different form than what computers use. There is no reason to believe there is any difference between a human, and a computer that is complex enough to learn, and there are computers that can learn today.

Just saying that the original software took the form of a programmed piece of code so it doesn't count, is kind of a cop out. Humans have the same set up, we just have our biological code instead of computer ones.

[SG-1]

We don't have biological code, have you ever made a program before? I get what you are saying and I have heard that 1s and 0s are like AT and CG pairs, and that is why I believe that an artificial brain might work, but not programmed (I guess it still wouldn't be 1s and 0s then)

What I mean is we have physical needs and those are not lines of code or anything like it. The only reason all humans have sex and eat is because it is fundamental to our survival. The reason an AI runs away from a stronger enemy when his health is low is because of simple if statements. They cannot choose to stay and be killed or do something else, they are limited to the code. Just as a movie is not a real person neither is a program.

I still believe that one day computers will be sentient, but by then I hope we don't call them computers anymore than we are as it will take a complete different design than a computer. It will model synapses and neurons just as a human or animal brain does. Ever heard of cleverbot? It's far from sentient, still fun.

Edited by SG-1, 03 May 2012 - 12:51 AM.

[Alric]

Try sticking your hand into a fire and your hand will move away on its own. Your body knows and follow through with a ton of things by itself. I don't want to over simplify things but how is that much different from an if statement? If hot, pull your hand away. Have you tried not doing something your body automatically does? Keeping your hand in a fire when it is burning takes an extreme amount of self control, and honestly most people couldn't do it. There are some reactions that are even stronger than that as well.

[SG-1]

Okay, but I have speakers connected to my computer and I've never heard it say anything no matter how dumb or unintelligent. I program in Java and some of my friends have games they programmed. They have AI and none of them are close. I can choose to destroy my hand if I want and suicide exits in the world, but never have I seen a program defy its programming.

You are talking about illusions of intelligence, they look nice just like movies but they were told to do it. We do things that are not hard wired in our nature such as survive.

[Craven]

Agreed, lines of code = no self awareness

Brain with no code = self aware.

I wonder what will you say once it's determined that brain is prewired with some sort of code. And that's more than likely.
Most likely we are born with code that allows our brain to record memories, to make sense of sensory input, and so on.
Will you say then that humans aren't self aware?