Hmmmmmm?
Is insurance on it's way out? One less added expense?
Could this be the answer to the medicare problem?
A human-like robot nurse or doctor to take care of the elderly in home?
For an initial payment of the price of an automobile, and a few dollars a
month for electrical charging, it would actually be pretty cheap
considering how much a nursing home costs per month and doctor assisted
calls when there is a problem....
Having a "Data" type personna hanging around to do my bidding might not be a
bad idea.
eagle 1
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robert F. Tatman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 6:39 PM
Subject: [CTRL] Robots Rule OK?
> Just *whose* New World Order was that, anyway?
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> -----------------
>
>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/from_our_own_correspondent/newsid_888
000/
> 888059.stm
>
> Sunday, 20 August, 2000, 11:42 GMT 12:42 UK
> Robots rule OK?
>
> Scientists ask: How human do we want to make our robots?
>
> By Peter Day in Pittsburgh
> I went to Pittsburgh to talk to a man about robots. Once a dirty coal and
steel
> town, it is now a centre of finance, medicine and learning.
>
> I went there to meet a remarkable academic whose predictions may make your
flesh
> creep.
>
> In fact, Hans Moravec is the most amiable of men. He has been building
robots
> since he was 10. Talked about for so long, now, he thinks, their time has
come.
>
> By around 2050, predicts Hans Moravec, a computer costing only a few
hundred
> pounds will have the capacity of the human mind - after that, it will
start
> exceeding it
>
> Certainly the little machines were buzzing along the corridors of
Carnegie
> Mellon University's Department of Robotics on the day I was there,
recognising
> their surroundings and edging around them. But that is nothing.
>
> Mr Moravec's thesis is that some time in the next 50 years, machines like
these
> are going to become more intelligent than we are. It is, he says, the way
the
> world is evolving.
>
> Brain power
>
> Currently, he says, men can create machines such as the ones negotiating
his
> corridors with the calculating powers of insects. But with computer power
> doubling every year, or year and a half, robots will evolve from insects
to
> animals to human intelligence - at breakneck speed.
>
> By around 2050, predicts Hans Moravec, a computer costing only a few
hundred
> pounds will have the capacity of the human mind. After that, it will start
> exceeding it.
>
> It may sound like pure science fiction, but it is serious academic stuff.
> Sometimes we non-scientists glimpse the details of it.
>
>
> Human chromosomes - but will robots soon be superior?
>
> The American computer chip maker Gordon Moore enunciated what is now known
as
> Moore's Law 30 years ago, when he noticed that the power and pace of
computing
> was doubling every 18 months or so.
>
> But the roboteer Hans Moravec thinks the evolving change we are now
experiencing
> in computing has in fact been going for centuries in human evolution.
>
> When machines have more intelligence than men, they will be able to do the
> things we do better and faster than we do.
>
> Taking over
>
> For Hans Moravec - and he keeps a straight face here - that means they
will
> start taking over from us. It is not, he insists, a frightening prospect.
>
> These super-intelligent machines will be our children, says Mr Moravec.
Each
> generation of humans eventually learns to accept the idea of handing over
> continuing existence to its own offspring.
>
> Well, the abiding faith in technological progress has long been one of the
> defining features of American life - it is a mainspring of the country's
current
> extraordinary optimism. But even some Americans see a dark lining to the
silver
> cloud.
>
>
> In the networked computer world...knowledge about all these things is now
> readily available to everyone - for good uses or bad
>
> The scientist Bill Joy is an influential man. He is one of the founders
of the
> huge computer company Sun Microsystems. The magazine Fortune called him
the
> "Edison of the Internet".
>
> Last year when I saw him in his think-tank hideaway in Aspen, the ski
resort in
> the Rocky Mountains, he was still one of the optimists.
>
> But now Bill Joy is having second thoughts, about things such as the
advances in
> robotics that Mr Moravec is predicting.
>
> Plagues
>
> Add to them the human genome project, and nanotechnology, the new ability
to
> build minute machines that can replicate themselves, too small for the
human eye
> to see.
>
> The result, says Bill Joy, is the possibility of electronic and biological
> plagues which could threaten the future of the human race.
>
> In the networked computer world he has been instrumental in creating,
knowledge
> about all these things is now readily available to everyone - for good
uses or
> bad.
>
>
> Most of the technology experts dismiss out of hand the idea of reining
> themselves in
>
> Bill Joy first voiced his concerns in a magazine article last spring, and
> because he is co-chairman of President Bill Clinton's Information
Technology
> Advisory Committee, he got a lot of attention.
>
> With genetic codes now cracked by computers, people will soon be able to
choose
> desirable attributes for their babies.
>
> The smallpox genome may soon become very easy for anyone to get hold of.
Bill
> Joy's message to his fellow scientists is: stop and think.
>
> He is so concerned about the misuse of knowledge that he is urging
restraint -
> limits, voluntary or imposed, on where scientists should tread, and what
science
> should do.
>
> Forging ahead
>
> But most of the technology experts dismiss out of hand the idea of reining
> themselves in.
>
> Nevertheless, we have been warned.
>
> A few days later on my summer trip criss-crossing America, I saw one of
the
> wittiest advertisements I've ever seen.
>
> A billboard sign just outside Philadelphia said in huge letters: "Go
Ahead. Pick
> Your Nose". The message was followed in small print by the name of the
> advertiser: Gehry's Cosmetic Surgery.
>
> It won't be long before we're picking more than just our noses. And within
a few
> decades, it is just possible that our noses may be picking us.
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
------
> Robert F. Tatman
> Information Technology Consultant
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Jenkintown, PA, USA
> *Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.*
>
.
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