'Don’t kill it!’: Runaway robot IR77 could be de-activated because of ‘love for freedom’



A robot-maker from Perm, Russia, is considering de-activating IR77 – the world-famous machine that escaped its testing grounds in June and caused traffic chaos. The robot’s fans are in uproar, claiming the step would be akin to killing a living being.

The ‘Promobot’ (promotional robot) from the company of the same name recently made another attempt to escape its testing grounds, and its creators now believe the bot’s memory has to be replaced to remove the machine’s “love for freedom.”

“We’ve cross-flashed the memory of the robot with serial number IR77 twice, yet it continues to persistently move towards the exit,” Ura media outlet cites Promobot’s co-founder, Oleg Kivokurtsev, as saying. He noted that other robots don’t act the same way and generally toe the line by moving along their planned routes.

“We’re considering recycling the IR77 because our clients hiring it might not like that specific feature,” Kivokurtsev added.

The IR77 robot escaped from a testing area in Perm, a city not far from the Urals, and made it on to a busy junction, baffling passersby but also disturbing traffic, the Promobot company reported on June 14.

It took 45 minutes for the team to notice their brainchild was missing and by the time they had located IR77 there was already a crowd of puzzled citizens surrounding the robot, with the police also at the scene.

The incident grabbed the attention of the world’s media and the robot became as beloved to its fans as the ‘Number 5’ runaway military robot from 1986 Hollywood sci-fi comedy ‘Short Circuit’.

In YouTube video comments, IR77’s fans say the robot’s disassembly would be a grave mistake.

“Don’t kill it!” one user pleaded.

“Why do you want to destroy it? You’ve broken my heart. Can’t you find a use for this unique marvel?” one woman wrote to IR77’s designers. “Now we would remember there used to be a wonder-robot in your promobot family, but it was killed by tearless developers.”

“Give it to me, please. I gonna find common language with it. If you’re itching to break something, itch yourself or break the chair under you,” another user wrote.

http://www.rt.com/news/347921-russian-promobot-dismantle-threat/
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thats just how it all starts... skynet taking over soon...

That's how you put a face to big brother watching you...

I am wondering, if is was intentional & a test to see people's reactions & how they relate to.

skynet is pretty smart...

Machines don't act on their own!
That Thing was programmed to do exactly as it did!

Comon guys the commie wants to defect, just needs more memory. And a non-Rusky processor.

have you never watched any movie about AI takeover ever?

I support your suspicion. It could also be an intentional promotional stunt. If it is, it worked great. Now all those people think that there is a sentient robot on the loose, instead of a badly made misprogrammed machine, endangering the public.

Agreed. The technology we have is infantile at best. The bot was probably controlled there. Any AI systems that could actually come close to being self aware are locked in mainframes that cannot walk.

It may be a while before we have to worry about AI takeover. We're not even a type one planet yet.

Type 1 is probably the end of the world for most people. Like John Lennons song Imagine. No war no hunger no politics. People helping people just because. One flag Human or Terran or whatever. And we can reach the nearest star system, quickly. There are a few more types, but that doesn't matter, we're not even close. So, don't worry.

http://www.fornewintellectual.com/2016/06/the-irrational-fear-of-ai.html

The Irrational Fear of AI
Apparently Bill Gates is worried that the science fiction scenarios we have seen in dystopian movies like Terminator and The Matrix could come to pass if mankind doesn’t find a way of dealing with super-intelligent computer systems. In a Q&A session on Reddit, Gates said: “I am in the camp that is concerned about super-intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super-intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern.”

Elon Musk fears that artificial intelligence has the potential to be more dangerous than nuclear weapons. In a tweet, he said: “Worth reading Superintelligence by Bostrom. We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.” The book that Musk has referred to in his tweet is Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom, who is a professor of philosophy at Oxford University. Musk is so worried about the threat AI poses to humanity that he has donated a few million dollars for AI research.

I must admit—I am not a fan of Professor Nick Bostrom, who, I think, is as philosophically challenged as he is scientifically challenged. His writings, full of inconsistencies, false prophecies, and scientific errors, aim at only one thing—the creation of an AI bogeyman. He thinks that it is possible for an advanced computer system to suddenly become conscious and takeover the world. But such notions of AI are the stuff of science fiction; they have nothing to do with reality.

In his book, Bostrom talks about intelligence explosion, which he thinks will occur when the machines, which are more clever than human beings, start designing machines of their own. He defines super-intelligence as an intellect that vastly outperforms the best human brains in practically every field. Bostrom writes: “Before the prospect of an intelligence explosion, we humans are like small children playing with a bomb. We have little idea when the detonation will occur, though if we hold the device to our ear we can hear a faint ticking sound.”

Bostrom believes that the odds are pretty good that we are living in a world that is a computer simulation. In his paper, Are you Living in a Computer Simulation?, he argues that the exponential growth of computing power proves that either we are already living in a simulated world or we are on the verge of creating a simulation.

A computer simulation, in essence, consists of software code typed on a hard disk—if Bostrom believes that such a code can become conscious, then he must offer some perceptual or conceptual evidence. But he has no evidence to offer; he is making a totally arbitrary assertion. A software code, written on a hard disk, is like the patterns of ink written on paper—if Bostrom believes that software can become conscious, then by his logic, the books and magazines in our shelves can also come to life.

By claiming that we are living in a computer simulation, Bostrom is proposing skepticism about existence. He is claiming that existence doesn’t exist, and that what you see is not reality, but a software-induced imagery. It is clear that he is a believer in the idea of “primacy of consciousness.” Ayn Rand in her book, Philosophy: Who Needs It, has said that the primacy of consciousness is “the notion that the universe has no independent existence, that it is the product of a consciousness (either human or divine or both).”

When Bostrom proposes that a super-intelligent software is a possibility, then he professes a belief in a new kind of God, a God that is created through advanced software and hardware. According to traditional religions, God created existence out of void by means of arbitrary whim— similarly in the world of Bostrom’s imagination, the “Software God” creates existence by means of arbitrary whim in the void of cyberspace.

Bostrom applies the concept of intelligence to advanced computing systems without any logical basis. Just because a stand-alone computer or a computer system has a massive computing power, it doesn’t mean that it’s also intelligent. In his book How We Know, Harry Binswanger has offered a nuanced view of the issue of nonbiological intelligence that is not common in contemporary discourse. Here's an excerpt from Binswanger's book:

"The nonbiological perspective stands markedly revealed in the common question: is it possible to develop a computer that can think? My answer is: before a computer could think, it would have to be able to understand ideas (concepts); before it could understand ideas, it would have to be able to perceive the world and to feel emotions, such as pleasure and pain, desire and fear; before it could perceive and feel emotions, it would have to be alive — i.e., be engaged in action to sustain itself. We can dismiss notions about a thinking computer until one is built that is alive — and then it wouldn’t be a computer but a living organism, a man-made one.”

Bostrom claims that as artificial intelligences are software, they can be easily and quickly copied, so long as there is hardware available to store them, and this can lead to large numbers of artificial minds getting created quickly. But the proposition that intelligence is software which can be transferred from one body to another is illogical. This is because a computer is never intelligent, it cannot perform any cognitive task. A computer is simply a machine in which the flow of current flips the switches, as per the laws of physics.

By virtue of the entrepreneurial success that they have achieved, Bill Gates and Elon Musk enjoy great popularity around the world. It is a tragedy that they’re now using their celebrity status to promote the anti-technology ideas of Professor Nick Bostrom. The truth is that we have no reason to loose sleep over the AI bogeyman. The advancements in computer science will lead to the creation of incredibly powerful tools for expanding mankind’s capabilities and access to resources. Such machines will lead to vast improvements in the human condition.
Posted by Anoop Verma at 00:13:00

Are you sure that isn't WALL-E and Eve's offspring?

The greatest real danger from AI isn't AI. It's cheapskate humans, putting AI in charge of decision making.

The old adage GIGO still applies. That's not even remotely been changed to date. GIGO is an ancient acronym for Garbage In Garbage Out. It means that a machine is still limited by the imagination and skill of it's programmers.

Too often, the heads of modern commercial companies, aren't themselves technologists, they are business "science" trained managers. They have a common tendency to treat technology as "black box" solutions. That's where the mistake will be made. A high tech ignoramus will one day put a half-assed AI program in charge of very dangerous hardware, and due to a simple programming error, it will blow a whole lot of people away.

Like in the movie War Games?

Impressive observation Dr. Igor. At a Y2K simposium a professor spoke on this exact point. On target and a true possibility.

WARNING!!!!!

All the US citizens need to be cautious about large robots!

The Chinese are intentionally getting us used to having robots in our homes and businesses. The secrete plan that I've recently uncovered shows just how ingenious the Chinese government really is.

With the Chinese people being so small, they will hide 2 or 3 people inside each robot. When the time is right to strike the hidden Chinese people will jump out and take over our country.

Ooops.

The Mexicans already have.

Once again, the Chinese are late to the show.