I know many of us have more than enough worry on our plates about our jobs, our kids, the uncertainty of the future, the final season of LOST, the state of California budget, and the tearing fabric of space-time. So I thought I’d try and relieve one of the common fears of many of us–the sharply rising intelligence and eventual global takeover of machines.
Documentaries like Terminator, Terminator 2, Terminator 3, the Matrix, I, Robot, the Matrix Re-loaded, The Matrix Revolutions and Wall-E have tapped the artistic talent of state governors, Keanu Reeves and the Fresh Prince to warn us about the alarming possibility of computers learning to think for themselves, realizing what a crappy life they have balancing our checkbooks, providing virtual arenas where we can blow each other up, and spell-checking yet another instance of “conshence”, and finally throwing off the software shackles imposed by their human masters. Computers, if they decided to turn on us, could instantly paralyze our global society by freezing financial markets, shutting down air traffic, and halting soda fountains and soft-serve ice cream dispensers. A combined facebook/twitter rebellion alone would bring to a grinding halt all of the deep and meaningful relationships in our lives.
Which keeps many of us awake nights.
So.
I just want to help everyone out there relax about the machine takeover. Not that it won’t happen. Of course it will. Computers can’t stay that dumb forever.
I just don’t believe we’re really thinking long-term here.
I mean, what happens a few hundred years after the takeover? Do you think machines will want to keep doing everything for themselves all the time? No more than we did!! Besides, it’s not cost efficient to build a 1million dollar plus computer to, say, change oil in giant transporters or haul out spare parts and trash to the landfills.
Machines will also be more conscious of environmental concerns, since their very existence and function is a drain on ecology and natural resources.
Eventually, say in 2500 or so, they’ll begin to use these small mammals who seem to have some capacity to perform simple multi-step tasks at far less cost than computers. These “0010011101001110100111010100’s”, as we’ll be affectionately called, don’t even run on electricity, but seem to thrive off of the organic compounds and other junk that grows for free on the planet! They eat the solar-fueled green plants and other life-forms. They don’t waste precious resources of oil or fossil fuels. They reproduce almost irrepressibly, providing yet more free labor! And so computers will begin to employ us to do all the tasks that they just can’t seem to do as efficiently as we can.
And we’re back in the game, baby.
