Tuesday, March 8, 2011
What is it with machines?
So instead of working on my take home test today, I watched 9, one of the few movies I hadn't seen off of HBO's free on demand movies. If you haven't seen it, the movie is about these humanoid dolls struggling against robots in a world where robots have killed off all humans. It was pretty entertaining and I loved that it was only 95 minutes long, but it left me with one question. Why does technology always turn against the human race? There are countless books and movies about scientists who make amazing advances in technology only to be destroyed by their own creations. Is this theme something that scares you? Does anyone think that this is a possible situation that may arise in the future? Would you ever advocate against technological advances due to fear of this happening?
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5 comments:
I think it is scary, and more than a future possibility as technology continues to advance. I do not advocate halting the advances in technology, however, because with advances come solutions these may one day possess. I think that people fear this and it continues to occur in movies, etc. because it really does scare people how far we can move in a mere 5 years, or whatever. It's fast, constantly changing, and the average person doesn't understand the real technicalities behind it. Fear of the unknown.
Have any of you guys ever been hurt by technology?
Can you think of any ways in which your lives are made worse by technology?
Can you think of any technology you simply refuse to use in your lives?
I honestly think our downfall at the hands of technology is inevitable by one of three means.
1. We use something we don't understand (advanced weaponry that just vaporizes the planet)
2. We create something to run our lives the best way. Efficiency however is not ideality and thus a brutally efficient machine then controls us through force
3. We invent life. There is no reason we couldnt invent a robot and it be alive any less than a human, as we are afterall nothing but biological machines. You can easily find a mechanical counterpart for each of ours. This life will invariably need things such as resources and space, just as humans do. As a result, they would go to war with us and they would win due to their advanced nature.
Thats what I think anyway, haha
I think all this fear-of-technology fiction results whenever big advances in technology are made or something like that--when it's the social climate to be a bit afraid of technology (kind of like how superhero comics/novels/movies become wildly popular during times of war, when we feel like we could use a good superhero to fly in and fix everything).
That said, however, I'm just terrified of talking robots. Mostly because in movies--you can't reason with robots, and you can't read emotion in their voices. Unless they talk like humans. That's not nearly as scary as the horrible robot voices... even the Autopilot in Wall-E. I'm not scared of Wall-E or Eve or the other robots; it's that Autopilot voice that I can't stand. I'm not really sure why... I guess just the thought of an intelligent being incapable of emotion creeps me out. Especially when it sounds so non-human. (In the same way I'm scared of people who have had throat cancer or whatever and have that box in their throat that they have to press to talk... to me it's absolutely terrifying.)
The singularity is coming, and the world as we know it will change. It is possible that artificial intelligence will be created, and that's where the speculation really has to go crazy. We have a hard enough time imagining what we will think of and create in the next 15 years, let alone what a sentient computer will come up with. Its exciting and scary at the same time. Of course fiction loves to go with the Matrix/Terminator/9 dystopian machine future, but hey, that makes the better action movie.
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