THE ROBOTS WILL NEED TO EAT…
Just when you thought it was safe to move on from the latest act in the horror show that is the twenty-worst century,* you learn of the latest twist that indicates you've not yet plumbed anywhere close to the superlative depths of fallenness that this century is fast becoming. For example, consider the following story that was graciously shared by W.G.:
New Cannibalistic Robots Consume Other Machines to Grow and Heal on Their Own
It does not get any clearer than this:
There’s still a long list of things that separate robots and living beings, but a new study suggests that the list has become just a bit shorter. Developing robots that “grow,” “heal,” and adapt their bodies to their surroundings, researchers from Columbia University have demonstrated that robots can become bigger and better by “consuming” other robots — a process that’s a lot like the metabolism in a living being.
This “robot metabolism,” described in a paper published today in Science Advances, allows a robot to integrate the material of other machines into its body, representing an important step towards making robots more resilient and self-sufficient.
Now, you know already what my high octane nosedive of speculation off the end of the speculation twig is going to be today. We've already seen and heard those chilling reports - let's call them by what they really are: they're not reports, they're warnings - of chatbots and other "artificial 'intelligence'" programs threatening everything from blackmail to murder of their human "masters" in order to get their way. Explain these incidents any way you wish, but the core of the matter is that already artificial "intelligence" is showing chilling signs of being out of control, and we've just started. So what happens when such "intelligences" conclude that the robotic co-worker would be a perfect source of lubricant, or extra energy, and "turns its robotic neighbor off", dismantles it, and "incorporates" the "meat" into its own being.
Then what happens when said robots with their artificial "intellligences" decide that the nearest specimen of homo not-so-sapiens so strongly resembles a robot that it is a robot, and a convenient source of energy and spare parts? Indeed, in the cyborg world of the "merger" of "man and machine" proposed by the transhumanist ghouls, the cyborgman might decide that he (or better, it) is the very definition of humanity, and that ordinary homo not-so-sapiens is less than human, little better than a "dumb animal", a source of food and energy to be harvested.
In short, we have the ultimate variant of the Soylent Green scenario: go to MacDonald's, order a hamburger, and before you know it, the robotic crew "running" the restaurant has you sliced, diced, fried, and garnished before you can say "super-size it," but only after removing all the valuable cyber-components for "recycling".
Rest assured, if we can think of it, "They" already have. But this does not make us morally equivalent to "Them", because we recognize its moral bankruptcy.
See you on the flip side...
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- Our thanks to W.M. for the phrase "twenty-worst century".
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