quotations about robots
It is curious, too, that though the modern man in the street is a robot, and incapable of love
he is capable of an endless, grinding, nihilistic hate:
that is the only strong feeling he is capable of;
and therein lies the danger of robot-democracy and all the men in the street,
they move in a great grind of hate, slowly but inevitably.
D. H. LAWRENCE
"Robot Feelings", The Complete Poems
The appearance and abilities of a robot will affect how people communicate with it. If you make a robot extremely human-like, the expectation will be that it is essentially a strong AI, that it can understand everything you say, not only the words themselves but the meaning. That is a very, very dangerous game to play right now because technology is just not that advanced.
DON ROWE
"'Right now, we are all Truman': how robots are changing the way humans talk", The Spinoff, October 27, 2017
You went and flipped the switch and turned me positive
When I was negative
I've been stumbling around like a metal man
On the graveyard shift
I am your robot, and I'm programmed to love you
My serial number is 44357
ELTON JOHN
"I Am Your Robot"
The risk of a robot invasion on the Devon coast might sound fanciful, but there's a serious message for younger workers, whether they're looking for their first job, or are comfortably in a career: if you want to remain relevant in the workplace, you need to develop skills that cannot be easily automated.
DOUG MONRO
"Robots are coming to take your jobs away", IT Pro Portal, February 17, 2016
Whether it's in our cars, our hospitals or our homes, we'll soon depend upon robots to make judgement calls in which human lives are at stake. That's why a team of researchers is attempting to model moral reasoning in a robot. In order to pull it off, they'll need to answer some important questions: How can we quantify the fuzzy, conflicting norms that guide human choices? How can we equip robots with the communication skills to explain their choices in way that we can understand? And would we even want robots to make the same decisions we'd expect humans to make?
KRISTEN CLARK
"How to Build a Moral Robot", Spectrum, May 31, 2016
Because salaries are likely to stagnate as minimum-wage hikes will stimulate the use of more robots. Corporate profits will balloon. Labor unions may disappear or be forced to make wholesale changes, as unemployment is likely to rise. And because robots don't pay taxes, the government must discover additional revenue streams.
GREGORY CLAY
"Robots are poised to reshape war and the workplace", Las Vegas Sun, June 5, 2016
The world of the future will be an even more demanding struggle against the limitations of our intelligence, not a comfortable hammock in which we can lie down to be waited upon by our robot slaves.
NORBERT WIENER
The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society
We've all heard the predictions: robots are coming for our jobs. And not just factory work, service jobs, or deliveries--we're talking white collar jobs as well. One of the industries the World Economic Forum predicts will take a hit across the world's biggest economies is the legal field. While on the surface it might seem impossible to automate a job that requires problem solving, critical thinking, and persuading judges and juries, when one considers the mountains of paperwork and research involved in lawyering, it's easier to see where machines might have a leg up, so to speak.
JOELLE RENSTROM
"Robots Are Taking White Collar Jobs, Too", The Daily Beast, June 4, 2016
I think the concept of fluid robots is exciting, [but] we are a long way off from addressing the tough challenge of designing a fluid that is able to think and act autonomously.
MICHAEL TOLLEY
"Researchers Are Developing Shape-Shifting Fluid Robots", Inside Science, February 24, 2016
Younger generations of children have more experience with robots than senior citizens, whether that experience comes from having a robotic cleaner in the house or being involved with the increasing number of robotics programs in schools across the nation. This could probably explain why younger generations tend to have less fear of robots becoming overlords one day.
MATT COLEMAN
"Penn State Researchers Find Old People Are Terrified Of Robots", Onward State, February 24, 2016
When you have a single large robot that does everything, if that robot breaks down, you lose your ability to do anything.
KELLY & ZACH WEINERSMITH
"Soonish", Popular Science, October 27, 2017
Now what our research has shown is that people are perceptive to group pressure, even executed by robots. If robots change their language, they change the language of the people, and that changes the valence that people have -- the attitude they have -- towards a certain word. They change how you will think about something.
DON ROWE
"'Right now, we are all Truman': how robots are changing the way humans talk", The Spinoff, October 27, 2017
Conventional robots are made of rigid parts that are vulnerable to bumps, scrapes, twists and falls. In contrast, researchers worldwide are increasingly developing robots made from soft, elastic plastic and rubber that are inspired by worms, starfish and octopuses. These soft robots can resist many of the kinds of damage, and can squirm past many of the obstacles, that can impede hard robots.
CHARLES Q. CHOI
"Researchers Are Developing Shape-Shifting Fluid Robots", Inside Science, February 24, 2016
Let's start with the three fundamental Rules of Robotics.... We have: one, a robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Two, a robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. And three, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
ISAAC ASIMOV
Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942
Robots can be used either to replace or complement human labor. And in the decades ahead, we will see lots of both happening. In some settings, there may be new kinds of jobs for human beings to tend to our increasingly intelligent machines. Or otherwise keep human decision-making in the loop. But it's generally agreed that the number of such machine-tending jobs will be much smaller than the number of jobs eliminated.
GREGORY CLAY
"Robots are poised to reshape war and the workplace", Las Vegas Sun, June 5, 2016
Robot girl, robot girl
Move your arms a few degrees north
Robot girl, robot girl
Now gently back and forth
Robot girl, robot girl
You know just what to scratch
Robot girl, robot girl
We're such a perfect match
WAS (NOT WAS)
"Robot Girl"
The cuteness of domestic robots may make us lower our guard and forget questions of privacy and security.
CHERIE LACEY
"Super cute home robots are coming, but think twice before you trust them", Cosmo, October 8, 2017
There are two big threats posed by an automated future. The first -- that we will irritate the robots and they will dominate and swiftly obliterate us -- is for Hollywood to worry about. There is not much apparatus we can build in advance to make ourselves less annoying. There will undoubtedly be those who believe our obliteration is so inevitable that every other anxiety is a sideshow. If you can hold your nerve against that, the critical question becomes: in a world without work, how do we distribute resources? It is a question articulated precisely by Stephen Hawking last year, when he noted: "Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution."
ZOE WILLIAMS
"If robots are the future of work, where do humans fit in?", The Guardian, May 24, 2016
First machine kicked man's ass physically, then machine started taking over the left-brain when Deep Blue bested Kasparov in chess, and then finally the machine fully took over the left-brain when Watson beat the great Ken Jennings on Jeopardy. And now these terminators are coming after right-brained activities too--the creative and emotional side of the brain. Pretty soon we'll all be driving cars with bumper stickers that say, "Robots make better lovers."
JAROD KINTZ
Gosh, I Probably Shouldn't Publish This
A lot of my robots have this comfort and discomfort element to them. They lure you in with intimacy and at the same time, help you zoom out to see, what am I doing with this thing and what intimacy really is.
DAN CHEN
"Can humans ever feel truly intimate with robots?", Quartz Media, October 27, 2017