Are These Robots Conscious And Aware?

[RubySera_Martin]

Totally ignorant here but willing to learn. I better qualify that. My brain can't handle technical details so a discursion of how the things are put together is wasted effort if you're doing it for me. But I understand human and animal and some plant behaviour. There is talk of consciousness in robots. What about conscientiousness where a robot can make value judgments about right and wrong--is that on the agenda? Is it possible to make it? Or is the robot just programed with a million possibilities of which it must choose one response in a given situation? Sort of like rules? For example, would it know not to demolish its own kind depending on how it got insulted? Can it feel insult? I'm getting the feeling I should ask God how he managed to make a human being by just breathing the breath of life into a plaster of paris model.

[Silverbackman]

Originally Posted by RubySera_Martin

Totally ignorant here but willing to learn. I better qualify that. My brain can't handle technical details so a discursion of how the things are put together is wasted effort if you're doing it for me. But I understand human and animal and some plant behaviour. There is talk of consciousness in robots. What about conscientiousness where a robot can make value judgments about right and wrong--is that on the agenda? Is it possible to make it? Or is the robot just programed with a million possibilities of which it must choose one response in a given situation? Sort of like rules? For example, would it know not to demolish its own kind depending on how it got insulted? Can it feel insult? I'm getting the feeling I should ask God how he managed to make a human being by just breathing the breath of life into a plaster of paris model.

Well in actuality we are also programmed a certain way. We are bound and limited to the way our body is and has evolved as well. It is just that currently humans are far more complex than any robot. Perhaps in time there will be a robot with an imagination even greater than us! Hopefully by then we would have merged with machines.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by Silverbackman

Well in actuality we are also programmed a certain way. We are bound and limited to the way our body is and has evolved as well. It is just that currently humans are far more complex than any robot. Perhaps in time there will be a robot with an imagination even greater than us! Hopefully by then we would have merged with machines.

We've already "merged" with machines as far back as 1938 (most likely others can show beyond that). In 1938, a two month premature baby boy was put in a plastic and glass case (plastic was just introduced by the Dupont corporation, as was siliconized rubber), with humid air and a constant temperature of 98.6 *F. This was done in Chicago, IL. It was an experiment, as no one knew if a premature baby could live outside the womb of the mother. He was being "incubated" in a pseudo womb...and he survived, to marry, raise 5 children, and see 10 grand children (so far). He is about to be a great grandfather, and is still kicking and well.

Sling shot to today, we can put on "skull caps" and literally make our computer do what we want (move the cursor, click on a program icon, surf the internet, dictate a letter). We have gun ships that fly by the sensors attached to our scalps, we can move the guns with thought and head and eyes, and voice. We have "prosthetics" that read the impulses in the stump of our extremities and operate by our mind, with surprising agility, dexterity and strength (I watched a man write his name with his "bionic hand", not print, but a cursive signature).

Dr. Jarvic gave so many patients a few more precious moments in life, by giving them bionic hearts (one lived an additional astounding 14 months).

Printers (yes printers), are being used to make "skin" for burn patients. This isn't cadaver skin but cells grown from the victims own skin, at an excellerated rate. Same goes for bladders, and I believe stomachs, as well as small intestines.

Now we have microchips that can be implanted in the brain to stop epeleptic seizures, before they start. We can download pseudo memory patterns from a brain, to a computer. though far from perfect, the science is moving on.

As far as computer brains with "imagination". Chess champion Kasparov was stalemated by a computer (and beat once), and the programmers don't know how the computer did it, only that it did not follow all logical programming (they allowed random algorhythms, I suppose). Big Blue, made seemingly "illogical moves". Insight? Intuition? Imagination?

What we don't want is for machines to take over...

v/r

Q

[flowperson]

I believe that we're already in the beginning throes of that process, sad to say. The world is becoming just too complex for us to manage on our own anymore. We may have no other reasonable choices.

flow....

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by flowperson

I believe that we're already in the beginning throes of that process, sad to say. The world is becoming just too complex for us to manage on our own anymore. We may have no other reasonable choices.

flow....

I doubt it. See, machines can emulate the mind, but can not yet compensate for the unknown. They can learn, but can not leap to an answer based on intuition. There is no algorythm for that.

If it happens, then we'd better be the benificient, as opposed to the "slave owner", of such an artificial, when and or if it becomes sentient.

Babies remember what they first take in...tend never to forget it either...

my thoughts

v/r

Q

[flowperson]

Hmmmm.. I run across lots of things like this these days. A company in California (where else ?) by the name of Affymatrix has been putting DNA on chips for at least the past seven year to use in diagnostic devices.

I guess the real question is where does one draw such a line these days ? In my way of thinking it's all just a matter of degree anymore:



Brain Cells Fused with Computer Chip
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 27 March 2006
11:36 am ET



The line between living organisms and machines has just become a whole lot blurrier. European researchers have developed "neuro-chips" in which living brain cells and silicon circuits are coupled together.

The achievement could one day enable the creation of sophisticated neural prostheses to treat neurological disorders or the development of organic computers that crunch numbers using living neurons.

To create the neuro-chip, researchers squeezed more than 16,000 electronic transistors and hundreds of capacitors onto a silicon chip just 1 millimeter square in size.

They used special proteins found in the brain to glue brain cells, called neurons, onto the chip. However, the proteins acted as more than just a simple adhesive.

"They also provided the link between ionic channels of the neurons and semiconductor material in a way that neural electrical signals could be passed to the silicon chip," said study team member Stefano Vassanelli from the University of Padua in Italy.

The proteins allowed the neuro-chip's electronic components and its living cells to communicate with each other. Electrical signals from neurons were recorded using the chip's transistors, while the chip's capacitors were used to stimulate the neurons.

It could still be decades before the technology is advanced enough to treat neurological disorders or create living computers, the researchers say, but in the nearer term, the chips could provide an advanced method of screening drugs for the pharmaceutical industry.

"Pharmaceutical companies could use the chip to test the effect of drugs on neurons, to quickly discover promising avenues of research," Vassanelli said.

The researchers are now working on ways to avoid damaging the neurons during stimulation. The team is also exploring the possibility of using a neuron's genetic instructions to control the neuro-chip.
• Microbe and Machine Merged to Create First 'Cellborg'
• Scientists Make Bacteria Behave Like Computers
• Brain Power: Mind Control of External Devices
• Study: Your Brain Works Like the Internet
• Monkey's Brain Runs Robotic Arm

flow....

[ETS2K]

Why don't you just rage again'st the machine man, Gilted generation style...

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by ETS2K

Why don't you just rage again'st the machine man, Gilted generation style...

What good is raging against that which does not care (is incapable of any emotion, let alone concern)?

[ETS2K]

Machine's are an extension of the human mind, in IT they speak of garbage in & garbage out, if you look at the bigger pick we are part of a system & I guess if we keep on feeding it with garbage how can we expect not to get garbage out, logic God = logic china or girl not to sure were you fit in & I guess we try to be logical but are human anyhow rage yes, revolt yes bring it down who knows perhaps then the reboot universe command would occur & the whole thing starts over again...