Computersight -

Moore’s law states that computing power doubles every 18 months. This is not an aggregate result reflecting the increasing use of moderately efficient computers on a worldwide scale, it is a literal statement concerning the rapidly growing computational power of individual machines which are commercially available to anybody with the means to acquire them.

Since its inception, the this law has proved to be true in most respects and even exceeded on occasion.

As computing power increases, more complex tasks are able to be undertaken by these machines, ranging from simple computation to complicated prediction modelling, all in the hope of making our lives easier or more fulfilling.

Artificial Intelligence is one branch of computer science which is emerging as a leading goal of many computer scientists and specialists. Most A.I. systems aim to take knowledge from human experts in particular fields and use that knowledge to achieve similar results/conclusions that the human expert would achieve when faced with identical problems to be solved. Already, some success has been achieved by using these systems in certain areas – mainly medical diagnosis of many human ailments – of the human condition.

Another A.I. area being developed is the quest for Intelligence for intelligence sake.

How intelligent can a machine become. Can a machine ‘learn’ from experience?. Can it then use what it has learned to become more intelligent?

The final question must be; Can a machine ever become self aware?

Our society is at present using these systems with increasing dependency. Today, if every computer or ‘thinking machine’ suddenly stopped working, our whole society would collapse within hours. Our dependency is almost complete.

These machines can, at present, be disabled by human interference, software glitches or wear and tear of physical components. There is no other way, excluding natural disasters, that breakdown can occur.

As these systems become more complex and begin to intrude into even the most basic of human activities then the greater this risk becomes.

Eventually, scientists may produce a system which can be integrated into a mobile hardware environment. The shape and size of this hardware depends only on the ingenuity of the people involved in the research and development. It is possible that the hardware could closely resemble a human being. If we put the two fields of research together then we could end up producing a viable ‘Mech’ as seen in the feature film A.I.

The production of such a machine would pose great social and philosophical debate.

At the start of the Industrial revolution in the 19^th Century the great mechanical inventions in Great Britain were causing so much concern amongst the working population that groups of disgruntled workers took matters into their own hands, fearing the loss of jobs on a phenomenal scale. These ‘Luddites’ began a campaign of sabotage and disruption which cost employers huge amounts of money in lost production.

The law came down on the side of the employers and eventually the rebellion was ended. Ironically, the development of these mechanical inventions in the workplace allowed production to proceed at a pace never before achieved in the world and increased the need for workers in those same factories vastly.

Some people today have the same fears and in some industries, especially Motor vehicle Manufacturing, these ‘Robots’ are being used in place of human beings at an increasing rate. At the moment though, increased capacity in the Service Sector is offsetting the reduction of manpower in the manufacturing industry.

The main concern then, in the development of ‘Mechs’ remains on a purely social and psychological level.

If a Mech was produced to a level that made it difficult to distinguish between it and a human being, how would the human race cope with this development?

The first question Mankind would have to answer would be the one of rights.

What rights would this being be entitled to?

This would depend on the level of ‘Self Awareness’ that the Mech had achieved – a difficult issue in its own right – How do we measure self awareness? There are some very basic rules laid down at present but not one is uniquely sufficient to yield a proper result. It will perhaps require many different ‘tests’ to determine when self awareness occurs.

Given the problems Mankind has in determining the level of self awareness in animals such as Dolphins and some Apes, we are a long way from setting out even the criteria and format of such questions.

Let’s pretend that these problems have been ironed out and we have created a race of mechs. Will they be thought of as machine slaves, as they were in the film A.I.? or will they be considered some kind of sub species to human beings?

Even if they are thought of as ‘Alive’ how will we treat them and perhaps more importantly, how will their introduction effect society as we know it?

Will they take on purely menial tasks/jobs or will they contribute to the advancement of mankind and reap the benefits and respect that comes with that?

Another area of development that we are increasingly dependent on ‘robots’ is Space Exploration. At present we are able to launch robots into space and send them to places that Mankind could not survive. They gather and send data back to waiting scientists and researchers back on Earth. We send them on journeys that can take years to complete. Obviously we would not send a self aware entity on such a lengthy journey. The psychological issues that affect human beings during such isolation would also affect the entity. Would it be right then, once we have the ability, to create a mech with reduced mental awareness, to satisfy this type of demand? If we did, how could we be sure that the awareness of the mech would not grow. What sort of checks and balances would we have to include in its programming to ‘Limit’ its neural growth?

Have we the right to do this?

The questions always pose new problems. Each step we take on this journey will reveal new dilemmas and quandaries. Every time we reach a threshold we will need to ask the same question.

Have we the right to play god?