FATHOMING THE FUTURE OF ARTIFICIALLY INTELLIGENT ROBOTS

The world abounds with massive efforts to further develop artificial intelligence, mostly with hopes of achieving greater benefits to humankind. Not surprisingly, there is relatively little concern about the dangers associated with the, as yet hypothetical, eventual situation where robots might possess humanlike capabilities of cognition, emotional experience, learning, etc. The following five propositions will be examined: 1. Could the most advanced robots ‘evolve’ to truly human-being levels of achievement within a foreseeable time frame? 2. Will robots ultimately take over all the jobs, including the making of robots, with relatively few human owners of robots (and most everything else) in charge? 3. Will humans live much longer and essentially turn into pseudo-robots through receiving more replacement body parts, even involving portions of the brain? 4. What are the possibilities of being psychologically manipulated by authoritarians using Big Data in knowing what citizens care about and how people think? 5. Will humans keep losing not only manual jobs but also knowledge positions with increasing robotic capabilities and the attractions of robotic replacements? The conclusive answers: a ‘no’ to Proposition 1; a ‘maybe’ to 2; possible ‘yeses’ to 3 and 4; and a definite ‘yes’ to 5; will be explained. This subject quite obviously overlaps some combination of at least three of our conference themes, viz., Complex Systems Engineering, Global Issues and Social Systems. The paper’s focus will be on framing the above-described topics in a matrix with two dimensions: holistic thinking perspectives (big picture, operational, functional, structural, generic, continuum, temporal, quantitative and scientific) and journalist questions (who, what, where, when, why and how). Several of the more interesting topics from this milieu will be elaborated upon to stimulate further thought, discussion, and research efforts.