My wife woke up the other morning wanting to share with me an episode of a TV show she had watched with her brother. It was an episode of Netflix's scary series Black Mirror titled "Metalhead." It concerns the plight of Bella, Anthony, and Clarke as they flee robot dogs whose job to protect society has gone a little overboard. These three humans are considered threats and must be eliminated by the cyber-canines.
A frightening enough premise, given our traditional "man's best friend" ethos. The watch dogs will protect us. Which got me to thinking about the new robot deadbolt I put on our front door. And all the robotic elements of our current web of technology. The web that controls our light, our heat and our security. And our television.
But I have worried plenty in this space about a future where robot overlords consume and destroy us all. I have been worried about Artificial Intelligence taking over where our our own imaginations fail. I have winked at Skynet becoming self-aware.
And now what I am going to say is, "Maybe all that isn't such a bad deal."
I have taken a look around at our current human-sponsored and maintained civilization and I wonder why we think that robots could do any worse.
Instead of arguing about the existence of the threat of global warming, machines would shut down the parts of the system that are making poison. Instead of sending troops into danger, let the drones do it. Civilian casualties would be impossible if machines continue to work under the framework of Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. I understand that getting into the weeds of such rules make for good fiction, but wouldn't it be interesting to apply those same laws to the human beings in charge.
Ultimately, we are victims of our own construct. Whether it is the machines we build to serve us or the systems we create to keep us all safe, pretty soon those dogs are going to look at us like we were the problem.
The scary part is that it's inevitable.
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