Science News 2014

Uros Osmokrovic

Mr. Youell

Science 9E

26.03 2015

Science News of 2014

There were a lot of interesting stories and new in 2014. But as 2014 passed we should move on, too. One topic grabbed my attention. One can talk about robots  talk for hours, but in 2014 there were robots that  “think” on their own. I find that fascinating because over the years there were a lot of investigation and research about robots, and now scientists have accomplished something that is revolutionary to this world. These robots are special; they can feel their , they are  quarter of a dollar size, they can make all kind of 2D shapes.  In one project these robots could positions themselves to one another so they could avoid collisions. Some of these robots were inspired by termites. As I wrote in one of my previous blog posts  that termites are good at positioning  each other. These robots were programmed to build structures just by sensing and “deciding” what is their next step. They  communicated (Figure 1). All of these robots rely on each other positioning, but technology has improved and with that robots have changed, too. I think robots can help humanity with manual work, but they can even help us in science and medicine.

(Figure 1) Robots communicating (they are not exact robots from text)

They can help us, but Stephen Hawking once said “It is one of our biggest existential threats, something so powerful and dangerous that it could put an end to the human race by replacing us with an army of intelligent robots”. Stephen Hawking claims that robots are improving faster than human beings. That is right. Humans change over a long period of time, as our biological evolution, but robots are evolving rapidly speed. We are improving robots and, as I mentioned, they now can work without us. If we improve them more they might reach super intelligence. According to an article in theconversation.com that is the intelligence human brain wouldn’t understand. Some people can disagree with this statement, "It is not often that you are obliged to proclaim a much-loved international genius wrong, but in the alarming prediction regarding artificial intelligence and the future of humankind, I believe Professor Stephen Hawking is," stated Mark Bishop professor of cognitive computing at Goldsmith. Ifwe consider this statement of Hawking, it is possible that robots could replace humans.. Hawking says that we should make sure that we use robots in careful way. If we don’t use them carefully maybe they can harm us.(Figure 2). If robots develop to the certain point of the artificial intelligence they could create other robots that would adapt better  than them. 

Figure 2: Terminator

On the other hand, what if robots help us when they reach super intelligence? What if we made them and improved them, so they can improve us later?  Stephen Hawking has his followers  that support this point of view. Professor Kevin Warwick said something similar in 1997. Other scientists claimed that humans have something that robots will never have, and that is consciousness and understanding. Maybe some people compare this human-robot with human-monkey thing. We evolved from monkeys, so that means without monkeys we wouldn’t be here. The same could be said about robots, they wouldn’t be here without us. Now we keep monkeys as pets or in zoo. Some people fear that we may become pets to robots. But we can’t help it, science is developing and we shouldn’t be scared of it, we should accept it in best way possible. Humans even made chip that works like brain.  It is called True North and it is a processor that mimics the human brain. It is designed by IBM company and it is designed to work like human brain. It mimics the way the human brain recognized patterns. Processor can recognize its environment and take decisions and actions. It contains 1 million “neurons” while human brain has over 100 billion neurons. Neurons transmit information from certain points to the brain. The same in computer, just what brain is for human, processor is for computer. In an article in techtimes.com  processor  (figure 3) is still developing and we can just imagine what possibilities that processor can introduce to our technology in future. This chip can help robots learn reason and in that way help humans. Microchip just supports the claim that our technology is evolving in direction Stephen Hawking pointed out.

Figure 3 IBM’s processor

Another aspect that has to be considered is  artificial intelligence. A.I. is intelligence (Figure 4) that displayed by machines and software.  Ancient machines and artificial beings appear in Greek myths such as Talos, the giant made of bronze who protected Europa in Crete (figure 5). Artificial intelligence was captured in 1956 when scientists made computers which could speak English, solve problems and playing checkers. In 1974. U.S. and British government cut the funding for A.I. so you could hardly find any of A.I. projects. That period of time was called “AI winter”. AI has reached a lot of new projects during 1990 and at beginning 21. Century. AI has developed that far that even artificial machines have logic. It was believed that  only human beings can use logic, but  something else was invented that could mimic our thinking. We are still stronger species, but for how long?

                 

             Figure 5, Talos or Talon- greek god                            Figure 4, Artificial Intelligence
 
In my opinion robot revolution is  unlikely to ever happen, and everything that man made until now makes me think that robots won’t replace  us soon. Hawking said that we should be very careful how we use them. I think he is right because you should be careful  not only about controlling robots, you should be careful also in genetic engineering and all kind of stuff that can make change to this world. Robots play major role in today’s world, and I think that roll will become complex and more important as they evolve. And we need to accept that artificial intelligence is evolving. So we need to learn to live with it.