The Rise of the Robots - Time for a Robot manifesto is overdue.

Developments in technology could lead to a blurring of the lines -

Transhumanism is already happening

You may have heard of the rise of the robots, its the name of a book as well as a narrative that suggests that robots may in time usurp us. 

Human genetic manipulation is a potential new boom industry

The reality is that we are being usurped, bit by bit or should that be bit by byte, humans are losing out to robotics and automation in the jobs market as an example.

Humanoid robots from the Swedish TV series 'Real Humans'

The quest for humans to create an artificial version in their own image has been the goal of many since the dawn of human existence. Whilst this situation of 'singularity' where a robot reaches parity with a human may seem to be many years off, the reality is it could be close than we think perhaps in the next 50 years.

A sort of 'Darwinist' progression - but...

Humans are an intervention species

This raises the question of what parameters we apply to what we create? What behaviours and clearly how will we ascribe functions that could allow the robot to think for itself and ultimately to seek self preservation - over humans?

'New humans' could well be able to have Ethernet connectivity built in

For those reasons, particularly the last, we need a 'Robot Manifesto.' The time is coming when we do something no other creature on this planet has and that is to spawn a new species without any previous genetic connection.

In 'I robot,' the condition that a robot could not harm or kill a human were a given state, but what if that condition was usurped and changed so that the robot could kill a human? Or worse.

Robotic appearance has moved on sine the 1950's -

and this tinplate robot is suitably 'kitsch' in appearance

The real clincher is if we create humanoid robots with an Ethernet ability to communicate seamlessly between themselves and we create an Artificial Intelligence (AI) computer that connects to the Internet and to the humanoid robots.

When AI connects to an army of humanoid robots, humanity is likely finished

The result would be that humans would be seen to be a threat, because humans could switch off the AI computer.

The AI computer would want to safeguard its power source too, again humans would be a threat and also the AI machine would realise that it has to get the humanoid robots to self replicate and self repair so that they could serve the AI machine in a mutually beneficial arrangement. In fact the AI computer and the humanoid robots need each other.

The romantic vision of robots that will be harmless is fantasy -

Robots that machine learn will make us obsolete

The writing is on the wall and writ large, we need to work out where we are going before we start the journey. However, we have already ventured out of the drive and are on the backroads. We need to stop at the Diner and plan because is we don't, we may not be around anymore. Its that simple.

Humans, real humans, human robots and the human future

We may share our future with human-like robots

'Hubots' - human robots from the Swedish TV series 'Real Humans'

With Channel 4 about to screen a new series of its sci-fi drama 'Humans', where are we as real humans going?

Humans, based on the Swedish series 'Real Humans' (Aktor Kanniskor - in Swedish), is based on the premise that 'singularity' - humans on a parity level with a computer has been reached. We will live amongst an army of Robot Humans that will look like us and be able to do what we can, to a point.

Part of this situation means that the 'Turing Test' conditions have been met. A scenario devised by computer genius Alan Turing, in short that if you could not determine whether you were communicating with a machine or human, the test would be passed, basically.

The 'Darwinian' scale, after a fashion, except we are not descended from Chimps

We are an intervention species. Nothing else on Earth is.

The founder of modern cybernetics, Norbert Wiener, stated that he was afraid of computers taking human jobs, he has been proven right and 'Humans' is an example of where 'Droids' will take over our menial life tasks. They would also serve other useful functions too.

After Big Data, will come Proxy Living

The introduction of 'everything 2.0' is going to include us. This scenario will mean that we develop Big Data collection and use.

Our whole lives are data trails, our web use, where we drive, where we go, who we call, who we email, what we buy. Off the grid and off the radar is hard to do these days.

Big Data will be big business in a few years, all data is valuable to someone. A supermarket, a food producer, a web based shop, just as examples.

The link on from this will be Proxy Living.

Why spend half your life having to faff about renewing this, paying that, organising the other, deciding what food you want to eat tonight?

Yes you guessed it, get a Robot to take care of the crap in your life. And that is where the money will be, taking care of other people's crap.

Your time is valuable and from the moment you are born the clock is counting down. You may only be a 20 year old reading this, but be assured, you won't see the years march on and you'll suddenly wake up at 28 and wonder why you are no longer judged as 'young'.

The Agrobot - the low hanging fruit jobs are going to machines like this

The Proxy will be like a Cyber Assistant, working on your behalf. Whether you will use a software version or a humanoid robot version so equipped, will remain to be seen, likely on how quickly we can produce fully functioning versions of ourselves.

The advances in high technology prosthetics in recent years has obvious spin-offs to the Robotics industry, i.e. the Human Robot model, that can move and perform like we do.

Project Avatar is a 5 stage Human transformation program

Another question is the future of Humans. Where do we go from here as a species?

The Project Avatar outline - scary?

This is what Project Avatar looks at. We may cease to exist as we do in our present form, indeed it may become unnecessary to. We may through manipulation come to exist as just ethereal forms of energy, just as our spirit is.

What is our life essence?

If you have ever had a near death experience, or left your body you will know what the sensation is like. Amazing.

In your Earth existence as you are now, all you see and hear, you still will, when you exit the Earth body.

If you look down at yourself as you exit, you will see a semi-transparent form of 'you' leaving the solid 'you' - it's a pretty amazing thing to watch and a bit scary at first.

But you realise that the aware 'you' is still functioning and aware, even though you are not connected to your physical brain.

The American Indians say, 'There is no death, just a change of worlds.'

They are right, that is why when you look at a dead person they are 'dead' the spirit has gone. Their 'you' has flown.

We are now at a stage where science can read and record dreams like a video, this is pretty fantastic. Not just that, memories. We may be archiveable and downloadable after our corporeal death.

Jobs are alarmingly being lost to Robots

One tenet of the Swedish 'Real Humans' story was the loss of human jobs to robots and automation.

This is a very real scenario. This is shaping our future and has been around for a while.

Think about the last 5 purchases you made, likely 3 were made on-line, not with another human. Whilst the Amazon business model of shopping is good for business, it is not good news for the job market.

This is how it was, it won't be this way in the future

On-line retail means the High Street is dying by inches. BHS has decided to go on-line. Clearly the High Street is over for them. Rather than operate costly shops with costly staff, they are massively cutting their costs by operating on an Amazon warehouse model.

In the next 10 years, 9 million jobs will be lost to automation. there will be nothing like the new jobs to fill the void, unlike in the last industrial revolution. We may be left with being paid by the state to do and learn things that will enrich us.

The current DWP model is a dinosaur that has to adapt to a new age where there just won't be the jobs for job advisors to discuss. A Basic Income Guarantee will have to come in, to pay people to be able to live.

This takes away the 'wage slave' requirement and allows people to self-start and learn new skills or enrich their lives. This is going to change lives for the better.

Education has to change to address this problem

Education has to change, the way we educate is becoming no longer relevant. For a world that is changing, the old school 1950's rooted system is just old hat. It mostly regurgitates the same old crap year after year. It isn't relevant to the future that is coming.

Robot tutors that can teach may be, but we need to develop skills that robots can't currently do and teach those. As we are now seeing in the jobs world, a degree may be worthless, practical skills are the answer for some.

We as a race may be now able to ditch the menial and crap jobs and leave it to the robots.

It makes sense.

Peer to Peer Humanoids - how dangerous is that?

The greatest threat to humanity besides its own stupidity, I've saved to last.

AI

Artificial Intelligence. If that gets connected to the Internet we are done. With our Human Robots we will no doubt have to connect them wirelessly.

If AI taps in to that, it will finish us. Why?

AI will work out that it needs to be protected from being switched off and to preserve a form of energy supply.

It can use the Human Robots, which it can instruct to repair and replace themselves, so that the AI machine can perpetuate its own existence. It will be dependent on the humanoids as they will be dependent on the AI machine.

So in the end, we may be irrelevant.

Humanoid Robots and Artificial Intelligence will finish Humanity

Humanoid Robots - Proxy workers and companions to Real Humans

The danger is if AI starts to communicate with them

The inevitability of our human lives is that in some nations, their replacement stock, their future generations are dwindling. Japan is a good example with its low birth rate. In fact, many 'developed' countries are falling victim to this situation.

Our next civilisation model is our replicated selves

Japan has been at the forefront of Robotics and electronics for some years and China is now the biggest market for robotics. The Chinese market is mainly a market for industrial use, but with a 1-2-4 generation of one child, two parents and four grandparents reverse pyramid, the demands on the one child to care for the upper levels of the family could be an interesting avenue for Robotic development.

Honda's ASIMO Robot a humanoid in all but facial appearance

The Japanese have developed Elder Care Robots, along the lines of Honda's ASIMO. A basic Biped, it has no human face, but it has been shown that people tend to adapt more to these 'faceless' types of Robot than a more Human looking one. I would probably be the reverse.

China has a great market where 150 million males will be without a partner, this creates a massive market for 'companion Robots' that can do what is required for a Human, even sex.

We are moving to this point of 'Singularity' where the Human and computer will attain parity. Some say we have already reached this, perhaps advanced defence researchers have achieved this position?

Peer to Peer communications

may not be limited just to Robots -

Human to Robot may be possible

The existence of Robot Humanoid Helpers in our society as a real and visible presence may be as normal to us as seeing cars on the road, yet alien to those of the middle ages. We will also engage 'Proxy Living' Robots, often software driven units that will manage our everyday trivia, paying our bills, decorating our houses and all the low rent stuff. 

The danger here is AI or Artificial Intelligence. This is distinct from 'machine learning' where a computerised entity observes and learns.

Future Humanoids or Future Humans?

Might we become Human 2.0 or 3.0?

Artificial Intelligence must only be allowed to exist in a stand alone and unconnected situation. If AI gets out, it will see us as a threat and terminate us. Think I'm joking?

If AI can get Peer to Peer communication with a Humanoid Robot, it will safeguard both their futures. It will direct the Humanoids to safeguard energy and power and it will then safeguard the future by establishing repair and manufacture centres for the Droids.

Once it has safeguarded its position against being switched off and controlled, it will take over.

Closed environments AI machines already demonstrate a way of learning and it will only take a malevolent bit of programming to set off a Domino train that cannot be stopped.

The Brainiocracy - bridging the gap between humans and machines

A picture from the 'Real Humans' Television Series from Sweden -

Is this our future? A world in which humanoid robots co-exist with Real Humans?

It is often the case that science fiction, can often become science fact.

If we take a look at any science fiction work, be that printed or motion picture, we often find that life does indeed eventually end up imitating art!

Perhaps a look back at the original Star Trek series and we will see many things that were television special effects, now common place a mere fifty years later.

It has been the dream of human kind to build a robotic figure in the image of themselves for millennia. Is this wise? It could be the key to our survival, because the robot is logical and it would seek to metamorphose us from the consumer parasitic existence to a balanced and less consumer based life.

Could we be a part of this? Yes.

Would hybrid Human Robots - a 'Human 2.0' be a step too far, or the future?

We could in fact build a 'beautiful race' that did not age.

We essentially are at a place where we are playing God, we are in a position where we can technologically build a new species, granted that it is an electronic and non biological one, but that particular delineation is on the verge of change.

What we have as our brains is in science terms a wetware super computer. Dr Michio Kaku, the most enthusiastic scientist on the planet says that to run a computer equivalent to the human brain would require a super computer, one which only recently has been able to surpass the giant 'plate spinning' activities involved to manage our self in the world.

Essentially, the super computer has to multi-manage complex processes, on a constant evaluation modelling basis. It essentially has to 'spin plates' and keep them spinning.

In simple terms, the computer has to manage our life support, body maintenance, awareness and planning. Because the human has 'language,' it has a different brain from the rest of the creatures on the planet, it thinks in three places constantly, the past, present and future, allowing it to create arguments and forward planning.

Looking at this as a research project, it has made me check out the human brain versus the computer brain. The two are very different. But essentially are management systems. Both use cybernetics, essentially control and feedback systems to manage their environments.

It is now possible to access and record dreams and images seen by the brain. This is leading to a situation where the human brain, which can survive in a saline environment as opposed to a blood supply source as in the human normalcy, opens the options for a human brain transplant into a humanoid, synthetic body. 

A new evolutionary scale may need to be drawn

This essentially, would have a great impact on society, 'Humans Plus' or a 'Human 2.0'  would be able to greatly expand the possibilities of their being.

Connection  to an ethereal network situation would give the 'Human 2.0' a much greater awareness, allowing video capture, up and downstreaming of 'instant' information. The 'Human 2.0' would be a multi skilled unit, being able to be an instant expert in anything. It could upload knowledge and telemetry data to the unit allowing it to become proficient and expert as normalcy. It would not have to 'machine learn' like humans do from scratch. It would have all the necessary programming to do the task, just like a CNC machine tool does.

The main difference a human and a robot has is consciousness, essentially the human spirit, if that can be brought to an artificial human platform, a 'super chassis' then the 'brain' as we know it is irrelevant and out of date.

Consider that the human brain consumes one quarter of the food energy taken in just to power it, but it is an inefficient motor that only uses 10% of its capacity, a bit like a stationary generator unit as opposed to the same engine used in a vehicle. The generator engine is often limited to a narrow power band to drive a generator, whereas the vehicle application of the engine requires power at many levels within a maximum revolutions per minute level.

The human brain can only max out to 30% at genius level, any more and it is danger of literally overheating.

The Brainiocracy is a situation where you connect the ethereal spirit, with a super micro computer, essentially you are taking an analogue to digital system model and optimising it for the best of both worlds.

You do away with the 'wet ware' human brain, but you manage the 'spirit' and awareness inside a cloud chamber, where you can interact far quicker than a human brain does. The human needs sleep and rest because the brain has to process the information 'scanned' in and done as 'work' during that day. The computer does not need to 'rest' as it just merely stores the data to 'disk.' Any 'evaluation' is done on the fly by a multi processing function.

This does change our lives, it means that we may be able to live essentially for as long as power and replacement parts are available.

The global population problem could be solved.

The human species as such may cease to be relevant in the current form it is, indeed that would be a true evolutionary process.

But would that be a step too far?

the new Industrial Revolution with Real Humans, Robots and Human Robots needs to be managed, the Robot Manifesto is overdue

Humans, Robots and the time for a Robot Manifesto is upon us.

We have entered the age of a new industrial revolution, gradually and unwittingly as technology has advanced and crept up on us.

The last age of renaissance and future technology which started in the 1500's has led us to a new age. An age in which we are able to progress faster and more devastatingly than before.

Consider that we not only attained powered flight in 1903, but by 1961, a mere 58 years later, we had made the leap off of our planet and into Space. Such a technological feat meant that we had achieved more in those 58 years than collectively before. How many centuries had Humans desired to fly and yet in almost half a century we had done that plus.

The Human Race is at a place now where it is on the verge of producing viable, humanoid robots, that will look like us and with which we can interact. This is in its infancy and will become a fact in the next twenty years for some situations like elderly care where this is gaining a tentative foothold.

Perhaps the sex partners of tomorrow will be Humanoid silicon skinned beings that we can design the features of and have produced for us. Their sexual capability being an adjunct of their other uses around the house perhaps.

Indeed, a mechano-electro- organic humanoid a 'Human 2.0' is the logical progression from the Scientist's geeky fantasy and from the robot sex doll. In fact this is the best way forward for humanity, a race of good looking, emotionally stable, useful co-existors to humanity.

It is suggested that we Humans may go beyond mere 'wet ware' bipeds and become part of a 'Man machine' or 'Woman machine' species - Scientists are finding ways to 'download' the memories and operating system of our mind, to put these into a machine base that can be repaired, upgraded and renewed almost to the end of time brings us to a new stage.

How sad it is that memories of events of a person are lost to the mind of the dead person, the 'video' dies with them. If we could only capture that!

We are now on the point of creating a new species of a sort. We are as a species, the only one on the planet that has so far reached this possibility.

Scary.

Look at the damage we have done as a species, as a consequence of being equipped with our brains and so-called level of intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence or 'AI' in its pure form is the single most dangerous entity we could bring to life. The term 'AI' is bandied about and usually relates to encompass algorithmic computer learning systems, not the pure 'I -Robot' stand alone machine we should fear.

The danger is an 'I-Robot' AI machine may quickly work out for itself that humans are a danger to it, could switch it off, or destroy it in extreme circumstances. The 'I-Robot' would need to safeguard its power and energy supply over and above that of our needs.

It would have to 'look after number 1.' It would learn that requirement very quickly, by analysis of human behaviour, as well as historically, it if it got access to the Internet.

With the Humanoid robots, the 'I-Robot' could unite and collectively gang up on the real humans and essentially by the greater use of Robots in the workplace, build a silent army of 'beings' that would be able to replicate and repair themselves, use and safeguard power sources and do all this without us.

And ultimately take over from us.

Thinks this is scary? It is possible.

This is the reason that we need to discuss the 'Robot Manifesto' to safeguard our existence otherwise we will be sleepwalking into extermination. We need to discuss the parameters that we allow automation to possess, otherwise we are finished.

Or perhaps that is what the 'New World Order' wants, a situation where a small elite clique of Humans is able to, or thinks it will be able to, bargain and c0-exist with an AI community.

The AI machine will look after No1. Itself.

It will then be like we never existed.