Look up the story "I, Robot". From memory, I believe it is also an Isaac Asimov
story
-----Original Message-----
From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On Behalf Of
Joel C. Ewing
Sent: Monday, May 11, 2020 10:12 AM
To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
Subject: Re: Colossus, Strangelove, etc. was: Developers say...
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I've greatly enjoyed Asimov's vision of future possibilities, but when I step
back to reality it occurs to me that his perfect laws of robotics would have to
be implemented by fallible human programmers. Even if well-intentioned, how
would they unambiguously convey to a robot the concepts of "human", "humanity",
"hurt", and "injure" when there have always been minorities or "others" that
are treated by one group of humans as sub-human to justify injuring them in the
name of "protecting"
them or protecting humanity? And then there is the issue of who might
make the decision to build sentient robots: For example, who in our
present White House would you trust to pay any heed to logic or scientific
recommendations or long-term consequences, if they were given the opportunity
to construct less-constrained AI robots that they perceived offered some
short-term political advantage?
Humanity was also fortunate that when the hardware of Asimov's Daneel began to
fail, that he failed gracefully, rather than becoming a menace to humanity.
Joel C Ewing
On 5/11/20 8:43 AM, scott Ford wrote:
> Well done Joel....I agree , But I can help to to be curious about the
> future of AI.
> a bit of Isaac Asimov ....
>
> Scott
>
> On Mon, May 11, 2020 at 9:25 AM Joel C. Ewing <jcew...@acm.org> wrote:
>
>> And of course the whole point of Colossus, Dr Strangelove, War
>> Games, Terminator, Forbidden Planet, Battlestar Galactica, etc. was
>> to try to make it clear to all the non-engineers and non-programmers
>> (all of whom greatly outnumber us) why putting lethal force in the
>> hands of any autonomous or even semi-autonomous machine is something
>> with incredible potential to go wrong. We all know that even if the
>> hardware doesn't fail, which it inevitably will, that all software
>> above a certain level of complexity is guaranteed to have bugs with
>> unknown consequences.
>> There is another equally cautionary genre in sci-fi about society
>> becoming so dependent on machines as to lose the knowledge to
>> understand and maintain the machines, resulting in total collapse
>> when the machines inevitably fail. I still remember my oldest sister
>> reading E.M.
>> Forster, "The Machine Stops" (1909), to me when I was very young.
>> Various Star Trek episodes used both of these themes as plots.
>> People can also break down with lethal side effects, but the
>> potential damage one person can create is more easily contained by
>> other people. The only effective way to defend again a berserk lethal
>> machine may be with another lethal machine, and Colossus-Guardian
>> suggests why that may be an even worse idea.
>> Joel C Ewing
>>
>> On 5/11/20 4:54 AM, Seymour J Metz wrote:
>>> Strangelove was twisted because the times were twisted. We're ripe
>>> for a
>> similar parody on our own times.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
>>> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http:%2F%2Fmason
>>> .gmu.edu%2F~smetz3&data=02%7C01%7Callan.staller%40HCL.COM%7C87d9
>>> 89082f374f96610c08d7f5be19cc%7C189de737c93a4f5a8b686f4ca9941912%7C0%
>>> 7C0%7C637248069162560622&sdata=ZnMqmL1CJJ4Ndpc9HLcl%2FYWR%2FpnSo
>>> zSoLcU13aVX8NI%3D&reserved=0
>>>
>>> ________________________________________
>>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU] on
>> behalf of Farley, Peter x23353 [peter.far...@broadridge.com]
>>> Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 11:39 PM
>>> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>>> Subject: Re: Developers say Google's Go is 'most sought after'
>> programming language of 2020
>>> For relatively recent fare, I agree 100% - "Person of Interest"
>>> leads
>> the pack. My favorite oldie -- "Let's play Global Thermonuclear War . . .
>> " (War Games), right after Dr. Strangelove of course, simply because
>> it was so twisted.
>>> Mutual Assured Destruction indeed. Is SkyNet far away?
>>>
>>> Peter
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List <IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU> On
>> Behalf Of Bob Bridges
>>> Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 10:21 PM
>>> To: IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU
>>> Subject: Re: Developers say Google's Go is 'most sought after'
>> programming language of 2020
>>> I've always loved "Colossus: The Forbin Project". Not many people
>>> have
>> seen it, as far as I can tell.
>>> The only problem I have with that movie - well, the main problem -
>>> is
>> that no programmer in the world would make such a system and then
>> throw away the Stop button. No engineer would do that with a machine
>> he built, either. Too many things can go wrong.
>>> But a fun movie, if you can ignore that.
>>>
>>> ---
>>> Bob Bridges, robhbrid...@gmail.com, cell 336 382-7313
>>>
>>> /* The only thing UFO aliens deserve is to be ignored...and when we
>> finally develop the right missiles, to have their smug, silvery
>> little butts shot down. Not a single reported UFO sighting -- if
>> true! -- describes the behavior of decent, polite, honorable visitors to our
>> world.
>> -David Brin in a 1998 on-line interview */
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List
>>> [mailto:IBM-MAIN@LISTSERV.UA.EDU]
>> On Behalf Of scott Ford
>>> Sent: Sunday, May 10, 2020 11:38
>>>
>>> Like the 1970s flick , ‘Colossus , The Forbin Project’,
>>>
>>> Colossus and American computer and Guardian a Russian computer take
>>> over
>> saying ‘ Colossus and Guardian we are one’, or better yet My favorite
>> show, ‘Person of Interest’.....
>>> ...
>>
>> --
>> Joel C. Ewing
>>
>>
>>
--
Joel C. Ewing
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