I saw this article and I know that Martin believes robots will one day take over the human race. I just wanted to know what others thought about this http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/05/0511_050511_robots.html
It isn't doing anything special - it's not like it's giving birth to a new robot. It is assembling one just like itself. This is no big jump from where we already where, robots creating other machines. I'm not reading anything into this, atleast not yet. When these suckers can start having offspring then I'll get worried.
Exactly. The key word here is assemble--not create. Somebody created the cubes and put them there for the robot to assemble. There may be some interesting new control software that uses artificial intelligence instead of a series of specific instructions, but it is still just a robotic assembly machine. Much like the one that assembled the keyboard you're typing on. Or the ones that assembled electric switches 75 years ago. They are just programmed to assemble machines identical to themselves.
The machine that futurists talk about that has my attention is known by the interesting moniker of "The Santa Claus machine". It has been reported in the press recently that there would be a Santa Claus machine to make toys, circuitry, etc. http://www.ananova.com/business/story/sm_737424.html?menu= That's NOT the one that I'm talkin' about. The one that I am referring to is all-encompassing. This Santa Claus machine would be able to replicate ANYTHING, including itself. It would be the perfect companion for a trip to say, Alpha Centauri, Polarus, The Orion Nebula... Talk about wild theorists... :shock:
