and They Are US!
Artificial Intelligence, the scariest words out there! Google and Amazon are constantly work to make machines that we can talk to which will provide for every need. SIRI, Cortana, Amazon’s Alexa and more are doing more and more.
Even the well-intentioned attempts to keep haters off social media is now based on the use of primitive, but <gulp> ever-evolving way use of AI. Paranoia may turn out to be perceptive prediction in the war of man versus “machine.”
Who hasn’t seen the Terminator movie franchise and had just a little fear in their heart about androids? And when you add in The Matrix, with its depiction of the war between The Machines and the humans, weren’t you just the tiniest bit twitchy?
Man translated into another body? remember The Fly with Jeff Goldblum with its mantra “Be afraid, be VERY afraid?”
In the 1927 film Metropolis, Director Fritz Lang gave us the image of a human being transformed into a metal being. Now the world of robotics has progressed so far that people are excited about having their entire consciousness, personality – maybe even souls digitized and downloaded into more and more realistic and lifelike “shell bodies.”
It’s been said that the porn business created the internet as we know it by pioneering websites, streaming video, online payments.
Nowadays, the sex robot business is generating the use of AI to chat, sing and flirt. With that development, the media is fixated on the possibility of having a new (naturally good-looking) body available for “an old person’s soul. (Seen to the right – is one of these smart playmates, with the Matt McMullen, the man driving the industry)
The Bruce Willis movie Surrogates showed how attractive that could be. Even respected scientists like theoretic physics genius and TV rockstar Michio Kaku get enthusiastic about the notion – as they age and face the possibility of no longer being alive.
So, take THAT, Dr. Frankenstein! Your 19thcentury story seems almost naive when compared with today’s possibilities. And, those possibilities are more than likely to happen. Cloning is an interesting but very expensive way to stay alive, but it is expensive and prone to lots of failures. Downloading your being into a machine is actually much more practical.
Some TV shows have even suggested that this is just a natural development, building on the Transhumanist movement, which advocates for the transformation of the human condition by developing and making widely available sophisticated technologies to greatly enhance human intellect and physiology.
The fact is – if it’s possible, and it certainly seems to be – it WILL happen. It won’t take centuries either. Current predictions are that 2030 is a very reasonable date for the next age of man – Homo Mechanicus.
With most societies around the world becoming more and more authoritarian – and violent – maybe the pending evolution isn’t a bad idea.
At any rate, like most current theories – driverless cars, purchasing only online with no shopping centers or stores, and robot-diagnostic “doctors” – it remains to be seen how this would work.
But beside the possibility of human beings being replaced by superior mechanical models, there is another issue that needs to be considered – What’s the point? There seems to be little thought being given to the creative part of life. Symphonies and physical, humor and wisdom, having babies and watching them grow up – that all seems to be a little more fun that being downloaded.
(Andy Chiodo is President of Charisma PR, which has a deep background and understanding of modern marketing and learning processes and works successfully with organizations of all sizes and types on everything from selling to education and training.)