AstroBoy Online Forums

I came across an article this morning that made me think that Tawashi and Drake/Lamp (as in the 2003 anime) would indeed exist, and have plenty of followers.

Here is a quote from the article (a link follows)

Should humanity sanction the creation of intelligent machines? That's the pressing issue at the heart of the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's fascinating new book, Superintelligence. Bostrom cogently argues that the prospect of superintelligent machines is "the most important and most daunting challenge humanity has ever faced." If we fail to meet this challenge, he concludes, malevolent or indifferent artificial intelligence (AI) will likely destroy us all.

http://reason.com/archives/2014/09/12/will-superintelligent-machines-destroy-h

Couldn't you just envision Dr. O'Shay running to the media shouting "But Astro would NEVER behave that way!!"

For my entire life (well, since I first saw Astro Boy in 1964) I was enthralled with the idea of a benevolent, super-intelligent robot like Astro. And yet, I have to be honest . . . just like nuclear energy . . . super-intelligent AI could be a double-edge sword.

I have a feeling Dr. Tezuka had this thought, too when he created "The Omega Factor" and had Atlas built as, essentially, a "twin" of Astro -- but able to possess the capability of committing evil acts, and harming humans. What an incredible futurist/genius he proved to be . . . because here we are, on the brink of entering the world he envisioned a half-century earlier, with all the difficult questions we now have to face.

Personally, in my heart, I still want to see an "Astro" -- and I still maintain that such a being could already exist (at least in intelligence, if not in physical abilities). But would his existence also indicate that an "Atlas" or "Pluto" or "Bora" would also inevitably come to exist? And is this reason enough to never create an :astro

I wonder how Dr. Tezuka would answer that!

I also have a feeling we may - instead of traveling down the "artificial" intelligence route -- could focus instead on developing our "organic" intelligence to a higher level, like the mentats in Frank Herbert's "Dune" books. In my own Astro Boy head canon, I envision Dr. Boynton/Tenma introducing Astro's "AI" to a clone of his predecessor's human body.

I doubt we humans will ever stop trying to expand our abilities and knowledge, but I can see that robots as "final destination" are probably not going to be the outcome, but a way in which we can better understand how to maximize our innate physical/metaphysical abilities as humans.

Still . . . I wanna see an ASTRO BOY!!

No one has mentioned Asimov in this article. The great SciFi writer clearly saw the problem of robot AI going wrong and had all robots ingrained with the three (later four) laws of robotics that governed their behavior. Specifically 1: a robot must never cause harm to a human being 2:a robot must obey all commands given to it by a human unless doing so would violate the first law (so a human can't order a robot to commit murder). 3: a robot must protect its own existence, unless doing so violates either of the first two laws. (so a human can order a robot to self destruct).

The zeroth law was added later: 0: a robot must protect humanity, and the first law now carries the exception that it may be disobeyed if following it violates the zeroth law. I guess that means that if a mad scientist was about to destroy the world a robot would be able to execute him.

Even if/ when robots destroy all human life, all I can say is "I can't blame them".

"Must kill all humans" -Bender

Here's a video on current humanoid robots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_3936032327&feature=iv&index=5&list=UUIup_mBthX8oUFOJUkPPtkA&src_vid=g6wQP2qaaEk&v=JGuMjl51py4

I think it would be kinda cool to have AI robots.

"AprilSeven" wrote:I came across an article this morning that made me think that Tawashi and Drake/Lamp (as in the 2003 anime) would indeed exist, and have plenty of followers.

Here is a quote from the article (a link follows)

Should humanity sanction the creation of intelligent machines? That's the pressing issue at the heart of the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom's fascinating new book, Superintelligence. Bostrom cogently argues that the prospect of superintelligent machines is "the most important and most daunting challenge humanity has ever faced." If we fail to meet this challenge, he concludes, malevolent or indifferent artificial intelligence (AI) will likely destroy us all.

http://reason.com/archives/2014/09/12/will-superintelligent-machines-destroy-h

Couldn't you just envision Dr. O'Shay running to the media shouting "But Astro would NEVER behave that way!!"

For my entire life (well, since I first saw Astro Boy in 1964) I was enthralled with the idea of a benevolent, super-intelligent robot like Astro. And yet, I have to be honest . . . just like nuclear energy . . . super-intelligent AI could be a double-edge sword.

I have a feeling Dr. Tezuka had this thought, too when he created "The Omega Factor" and had Atlas built as, essentially, a "twin" of Astro -- but able to possess the capability of committing evil acts, and harming humans. What an incredible futurist/genius he proved to be . . . because here we are, on the brink of entering the world he envisioned a half-century earlier, with all the difficult questions we now have to face.

Personally, in my heart, I still want to see an "Astro" -- and I still maintain that such a being could already exist (at least in intelligence, if not in physical abilities). But would his existence also indicate that an "Atlas" or "Pluto" or "Bora" would also inevitably come to exist? And is this reason enough to never create an :astro

I wonder how Dr. Tezuka would answer that!

I also have a feeling we may - instead of traveling down the "artificial" intelligence route -- could focus instead on developing our "organic" intelligence to a higher level, like the mentats in Frank Herbert's "Dune" books. In my own Astro Boy head canon, I envision Dr. Boynton/Tenma introducing Astro's "AI" to a clone of his predecessor's human body.

I doubt we humans will ever stop trying to expand our abilities and knowledge, but I can see that robots as "final destination" are probably not going to be the outcome, but a way in which we can better understand how to maximize our innate physical/metaphysical abilities as humans.

Still . . . I wanna see an ASTRO BOY!!

(Pardon my random entrance everyone, I'm new here )
A friend told me that a computer was invented that TEACHES ITSELF to play games. If people can push this further, they could create a 'boy robot' like Astro Boy is, and use the 'teaches itself' factor to make it teach itself things about real life events and what a kid would do everyday, reactions, etc, and eventually teach itself emotions.

I mean, it'd seem like a far stretch to imagine it teaching itself emotions, but imagine someone giving it the power to have an 'opinion' in it's 'mind' about things it tells itself. I dunno, kinda confusing, but it could be VERY possible for a 'boy robot with emotions' to happen someday. And if this happens someday, I hope someone out in the world considers the idea of making this 'boy robot' look like Astro.

I think that they have already got the facial expressions of emotions licked, though it will be a while before real or simulated emotions are here.

Astro: I want real hair! Someone finally give me some real locks for once?