Evil Machines and Takeover Fantasies


“It will no longer be optional for machines to have ethical systems.”
-         Gary Marcus

The common theme in Hollywood movies like Terminator and Transformers is a world where (man-made) machines have taken over the world. And turned on us in a battle for world supremacy.

So why do people assume that such super machines would necessarily turn evil? Or at the very least, prove to be bad for us humans? I used to think it was just Hollywood’s choice to pick the machines-turned-on-us option (after all, who wants to see a movie where the super machine is benevolent, right? How boring would that be).

Until I read 2 different articles with 2 different reasons of why that may not just be a Hollywood doomsday scenario:
1)      How does a programmer code morality in a machine? After all, as Nicholas Carr wrote:
“We don’t even really know what a conscience is, but somebody’s going to have to program one nonetheless.”
And without a conscience, the machine can easily become evil.
2)     It’s a jungle out there: As Huw Price and Jaan Tallinn wrote:
“…just ask gorillas how it feels to compete for resources with the most intelligent species – the reason they are going extinct is not (on the whole) because humans are actively hostile towards them, but because we control the environment in ways that are detrimental to their continuing survival.”

I am not very optimistic about solving Reason #1. Conscience is a very fuzzy, touchy feely topic, not at all like the 1’s and 0’s that software translates into.

Reason #2 sounds better: It means the machines won’t turn on us because they are evil: instead, it’s just a competition for one or the other resource. Which is a good thing for us: after all, you can reason, negotiate or threaten mutual destruction with enemies that want to survive (think of the Cold War era). But how do you deal with enemies that are suicidal (like Islamic terrorists v/s pretty much everyone else)?

And therein lies our hope: It is far easier to program machines to want to survive than it is to program a conscience in them!

Comments

  1. KumarJanuary 28, 2013 at 12:27 PM

    At any rate, machines are yet to be built with the ability to feel, in any way closer to humans. The scientists are working on building emotions on the robots, but as yet what they have achieved is very primitive. It may be ages before machines can feel in the real sense of the term, as understood by us.

    Since machines are incapable of feeling, the thought of 'evil' ways on their own volition need not be the cause of fear for us. But we have to fear the human beings who program these machines to suit the self-centered ambitions of individuals or nations! Understandably human beings have great capacity for evil.

    The 'evil' machines will continue to be money winners because the Holly and other Woods would like to utilize human imagination to produce fearful concoctions capitalizing on the human desire to tread into controlled fear in the theaters, for the heck of it. And pay for it too! If only we don't so easily fall into the "willing suspension of disbelief", most of us would be declaring Terminators, Predaters and their equivalents to be idiotic non-sense! Instead, if people declare the same, that would be termed idiotic non-sense, along with "he hates entertainment, fellow must be a serious bore"!

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