Urgent Warnings, Breakthrough Solutions, Second Edition

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The Asimo robot from the Honda Corporation, shown here at every stage of development, represents the past, present, and future of robotics. HONDA Evolution Race The Robotic Ecosystem The robot animal kingdom is filled with strange critters. The Boston Dynamics “Big Dog” robot (top right) can carry hundreds of pounds of equipment across hard terrain. AeroVironment’s “nano hummingbird” spy drone can fly 11 mph and hover in the face of 5 mph wind gusts. University of Essex professor Huosheng Hu’s robot fish mirrors the movement of an actual fish to an eerie degree and has been displayed at aquariums around the world. MIT professor Sangbae Kim’s cheetah robot concept would stand at 80 cm, with limbs composed of carbon fiber. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency recently commissioned the firm Boston Dynamics to build a cheetah robot based on a similar design. BOSTON DYNAMICS / AEROVIRONMENT / HUOSHENG HU / SANGBAE KIM Urgent Warnings, Breakthrough Solutions 19
“We will adapt our DNA to more readily accept the enhancements from nanotechnology and other bionic devices.” tion and cause substantial change within periods spanning only hundreds and thousands of years. The interplay between our ability to map and manipulate our own DNA, as well as to integrate mechanical mechanisms into our own physiology, is driving this evolutionary adaptation. We will adapt our DNA to more readily accept the enhancements from nanotechnology and other bionic devices, and we’ll engineer these to synch up with our DNA improvisations. As a result, humanity’s evolutionary momentum will spiral quicker and quicker. Fashion, self-image, and social bonding will influence the “look and feel” as much as utility. So hopefully, humans won’t resemble the Borgs of Star Trek, except for those of us making an aesthetic choice to do so. Writers such as Joel Garreau, author of Radical Evolution (Doubleday, 2005), have suggested that accelerating technology could lead to an evolutionary bifurcation between the haves and have nots. Economic, religious, philosophical, and cultural views may prevent some geographical or demographic groups from participating in actions advancing their self-evolution. The masses of humanity may not be able to afford such enhancements to themselves or their offspring. Those who can obtain genetic and artificial organ replacements may be able to live longer and healthier, and thus will be more likely to survive and reproduce. It is possible that, over time (that is, in much quicker periods than afforded through natural evolution), genetic differences between humans who augment and al- ter their genetic code may differ enough from those who do not. The variance may prevent interbreeding. This would lead to the creation of a separate new species. Now, a new competitor is also emerging on the scene. This one is all artificial, with no flesh or DNA. The arrival and evolution of humanoid robots competing against cyborgs and those humans who have resisted change may be reminiscent of the competition between Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, Homo erectus, and the “hobbit” people of the Indonesian island of Flores. Competition in Robotic Evolution Homo sapiens chauvinists like to think we were the fittest for survival and outcompeted the other hominids. We did have some fine competitive traits, but our success has to do with some degree of luck. There were two points when Homo sapiens almost went extinct. Between 195,000 and 123,000 years ago, Earth was in the middle of a glacial phase and the Homo sapiens population was estimated to have gone from about 10,000 inhabitants down to as few as 600 people. Approximately 70,000 years ago, drought may have shrunk the human population down to just 2,000 folks. However, this was soon followed by the “flight out of Africa,” which led to a rapid expansion both in geography and in numbers for mankind. What a very exciting and competitive ancient world that Homo sapiens resided in! Machine evolution will be both more exciting and far more rapid. Certainly, machinery endowed with artificial intelligence does not have to be robotic; it may be like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and reside within a computer’s memory core, or be part of a networked set of computers. Robots do not need to be humanoid like the Asimo robot developed by Honda. They can be wheeled or tracked unmanned vehicles like Stanley, the self-driving car that completed the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge race. They could have multiple legs like Boston Dynamic’s famous Big Dog robot. There are far better forms for robots than “human,” depending on what the robot is designed to do. But robots that are designed to perform multiple chores previously done by humans—from throwing out the garbage to walking the dog to repairing a satellite—will likely be humanoid in nature. These humanoids would be our most immediate competitors. Accelerating Robotic Evolution Some scientists and science commentators have expressed skepticism that sentience could ever be created in a machine setting. They’re impatient that humanistic AI has not yet been achieved, even though researchers have been aggressively pursuing artificial intelligence for decades. Others disagree. Hans Moravec, the renowned roboticist at Carnegie Mellon University and author of Mind Children (Harvard, 1990), predicts that robots will surpass human intelligence by 2030, will develop humanlike consciousness, will be aware of the world and social interactions, and will gain the ability to replicate themselves and pace their own evolution. Physicist Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the Future (Doubleday, 2011), predicts that helpful robots performing the role of butlers and maids will be available by the year 2100. He is unsure how intelligent they will be, but they will have the capacity to mimic all sorts of human behavior. Whether either Moravec or Kaku is off by a decade or two, or even 20 Urgent Warnings, Breakthrough Solutions
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