Once I heard the word 'robot', the first image that shows up in my mind is NS-5, from the movie I,Robot. They are so impressive that even the movie was shown in 2004, as more than 10 years from now, I can clearly recall their strong and vigorous actions. In the movie, they really caused trouble to Spooner, the main character starred by Will Smith, and nearly killed him for several times. Also, nearly managed to control the whole world.
They are invented for serving human, like doing housework or heavy work in factories just same as other movies that try to imagine what will the future be like. It responds the tendency that people is lazy and don't want to do those repetitive work. So they make robot to do it. Nowadays, as the technology is not developed enough to make robot like that, we still have robot arms in factories and space station. However, with most work is occupied by robot, there's a question come out. Since they are not able to think, they judge and make decisions by data. But data is cold, as an example in the movie, Spooner hates robots because the robot that came to help him abandoned a girl and chose to save him due to his higher rate of surviving in an accident years ago. Most human will choose that little girl in the same case, and robots only care about data. The main conflict in the movie that the system which controls all the robot determine to take over human society is also raised by same question. It made this decision because of the wars that people fight with each other, causing large amount of death. It was invented to 'protect' human. So it feels that to take over the whole society will be the best way to eliminate wars and death. When we try to make a robot with the ability of making decisions, calculating without thinking turn out to be a catastrophe.
And how about adding thinking ability to them? There's a robot that can 'think' in the movie and help main characters a lot. It seems more convenient to serve people. But another question come out, what is the difference between them and us? Although they have no 'life', it is the only thing that differ from us. They can't be a tool anymore, but more like a brother or sister of us. Making robots like that is same as making a monster or other creature. It is a challenge of ethic. It will dim the distinction between human and robot.
They are invented for serving human, like doing housework or heavy work in factories just same as other movies that try to imagine what will the future be like. It responds the tendency that people is lazy and don't want to do those repetitive work. So they make robot to do it. Nowadays, as the technology is not developed enough to make robot like that, we still have robot arms in factories and space station. However, with most work is occupied by robot, there's a question come out. Since they are not able to think, they judge and make decisions by data. But data is cold, as an example in the movie, Spooner hates robots because the robot that came to help him abandoned a girl and chose to save him due to his higher rate of surviving in an accident years ago. Most human will choose that little girl in the same case, and robots only care about data. The main conflict in the movie that the system which controls all the robot determine to take over human society is also raised by same question. It made this decision because of the wars that people fight with each other, causing large amount of death. It was invented to 'protect' human. So it feels that to take over the whole society will be the best way to eliminate wars and death. When we try to make a robot with the ability of making decisions, calculating without thinking turn out to be a catastrophe.
And how about adding thinking ability to them? There's a robot that can 'think' in the movie and help main characters a lot. It seems more convenient to serve people. But another question come out, what is the difference between them and us? Although they have no 'life', it is the only thing that differ from us. They can't be a tool anymore, but more like a brother or sister of us. Making robots like that is same as making a monster or other creature. It is a challenge of ethic. It will dim the distinction between human and robot.
On your third paragraph, adding "thinking" to a robot definitely adds a slew of controversy and self-doubt in us as humans. If a robot does have capacity to think, then what makes it different from humans? If the robot has a conscience of its own, is it still morally write for humans to see it simply as a tool? One factor would be it's physical form, in which case it is essentially immortal. If this is true, and humans still used them as tools, then what were to happen if humans that were born suddenly became immortal? Would we still treat them like humans, or would there be so many of them, that we simply think nothing of them but an inflation of human resource. In fact, who's to say that human's aren't treated like tools today?
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