Robots

Episode #786

February 24, 2024

Robots, cyborgs and androids are everywhere.

Walk into your kitchen. There is a computer brain in the stove, dishwasher, refrigerator, coffee maker, rice cooker, microwave and most of the electric hand tools. The computer brain helps the appliance be a better appliance.

Some of these computer brains are quite smart. Some refrigerators scan the food you put into them and scan what you take out. They can send you an email when it is time to restock. Some refrigerators can even autonomously place an order to grocery delivery services. This kind of refrigerator is a robot.

Growing up, we expected robots to be humanoid, like Rosie the robot maid on the Jetsons.

Instead, we are entering the age of special function robots. A Tesla automobile is a robot that will soon be able to drive us where we want on command.

Uber will have robot cars. We will request an autonomous car in the app on our phone and it will arrive at the curb in front of us. We will enter the car, it will drive us to our destination and we will disembark. The payment will be handled in the app. There will be no tip because there is no human driver.

I am a cyborg and most of you are too. I am a combination of man and machine. I wear clothes to armor my body. I have glasses to see. I wear jewelry to communicate my status. My shoes allow me to navigate various surfaces. A hat protects my head from the sun. Two artificial hips allow me to walk. The hips do not have a chip in them, but a CNC chip milled the parts.
I carry my memory in my pocket – it is an iPhone.

An android is a robot with human appearance. There are many androids under development. Most are housings for Artificial Intelligence. We may be developing the next step in human evolution.

Some scientists believe that the only way for humans to survive the rise and dominance of Artificial Intelligence is to merge with it. Elon Musk’s Neuralink company is developing a brain-computer interface that is fully implantable in the brain. This implant will give the user mental access to the Internet. Questions asked of the Singular AI will be posed with thought. The answer will simply occur to the questioner. This technology will make us as smart as the AI because we will be the AI.

An impending application of brain-computer technology will be paraplegics driving exoskeletons with their thoughts. If they think walk, the exo-legs will walk.

If two people have a neural chip, one can link to the other over the Internet. Bill will connect to Mary and think, “Would you like to go to dinner tonight?” Mary will think back, “Yes Bill. How about this place.” The web page for the Yard House will appear in Bill’s brain. Bill will ask Uber to take him to Mary’s house and then on to the Yard House. Telepathy. 

Ultimately, humans will become true cyborgs. A person’s memories, brain patterns and data will be scanned and uploaded to a robot with an unprogrammed Artificial Intelligence brain. This brain will be able to process inputs, store and access memories, ambulate the robot body and reason like a human.

I ask myself, “Is this the price of immortality?”

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