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WE AINT SEEN NOTHING YET - Robotlovers by 2050??

By editor ⋅ June 15, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅ Post a comment

Get yourself a robot lover - solve overpopulation??

-lectures and workshops on sustainability and new technology.

Is this part of a sustainable development or not? Most will say no, but I personally dont think the answer is that simple. We need to acknowledge that technology has “come to stay”. We wont be able to live with the commodities we have today if we did not have technology. Obviously there are parts of technology we simply ought to avoid developing, we are simply not mature as human beings to handle some of the very sophisticated technologies being developed - if you ask me. We are still amazed by technology and hardly asks any critical questions - and thats not healthy. However developing robots and robot lovers is pretty innocent compared to what we are also developing in terms of new technology when it comes to fx. nano technology. The problem is that there are a lot of fusions in the new technologies and it will in the long run become extremely complicated to find out what is what and why its developed and for what. Virtual worlds similar to those seen in The Science Fiction movie The Matrix could according to Fx. Ray Kurtzweill (see next chap) become reality within very few decades. We already now see very real virtual worlds where humans from all over the planet are buying land, products, services etc. and living together in virtual worlds - see second life fx.

Its not at all unlikely that we will be suspended in chairs and live for possibly long periods in virtual worlds. we might even go on holliday laying in a chair and getting nutrients pumped directly into our veins though an automatic system. Yes brave new world is just round the corner.

The entire robot development is expected to become BIG BIG BIG business and therefore billions of yen, dollars euroes etc. are put into research and further development. Honda who is one of the big commercial developers of Robots and expects a market worth hundreds of millions in the near future.

Robots will become more and more relevant due to the further development of AI - Artificial Intelligence, which is getting embedded in more and more products, software etc. everyday. One of the fathers and also extremely interesting and charismatic scientists in this field is Ray Kurtzweill whom I read material from basically everyday when his newletter arrive.

Kurtzweill has developed RAMONA (find a link - open, depending on whether you are on Mac or not - Ramona will chat with you). RAMONA is as far as I know the first virtual pop artist also. She performs still only virtually but mind you it might not be long before she will perform live on stage - and there might be many of here - same version (could save lots of jet fuels transporting popsingers around ;-).

Ramona is certainly not stupid and she is learning every split second - thats how AI works. So there is no doubt that Ramona will become “something” in the future. Ask her how many she can chat with and she will tell you a 100 at the same time - I have before experienced much bigger figures (maybe its because its sunday ;-). No matter what Ramona is here and she will be even more helpful in the near future with numerous things. We will all have avatars who will help us doing all sorts of things from restaurant bookings to controlling our health. In some more totalitarian systems this might be enforced on us simply due to make us not spend the state budget on healthcare - and this might not be the way to go at all, but this is maybe also an extreme. However there will lost and lots of extremes in the world of tomorrow.

What we ned to do is to get things under control and develop with appropriate ethics. I personally dont see anything really evil in fx. having a robot taking care of me when I grow old. It might actually be a fantastic solution - HOWEVER still not a simple one, since what kind of status will a very intelligent robot have - a being which due to its access to fx. the entire internet will be able to access and be able to appear as super intelligent, and also having been developed using AI and having learned fx. from me - my Robot-oldie-nany will probably have personality and character that will be so much alive that it will be really hard fx. to “turn it off” or destroy it when I die - also it might be difficult to hand it over to someone else. Complex issues and just to mention few of them.

Im always in my lectures and workshops dealing with new technology from various points of views. If you are interested in a workshop specifically in new technology and sustainability Id be happy to discuss. Otherwise the lecture and possible workshop to follows RADICALLY RETHINKING DESIGN AND THE WORLD - AND NEW TECHNOLOGY will cover many perspectives on new technology and sustainability from AI to new alternative energy technologies - WE AINT SEEN NOTHING YET.

IF YOU WANT TO TO BOOK ME FOR LECTURES OR WORKSHOPS PLEASE CONTACT US VIA THE CONTACT PAGE WHERE YOU FIND PHONENUMBERS, EMAIL ETC.

NIELS PETER FLINT