robot communism - fun topic

[Admin]

Lets say robots have taken over the world.

What will work better for a robot society: communism, capitalism, or socialism? Or some other system perhaps?

Why?

[Gopher]

I dunno, I somehow don't think they'd have unified government, but would decend into anarchy, with a limited kind of feudal power system based on control of key strategic resources (high-end circuit fabrication systems, power plants, etc) and with pockets of relative order around centers of trade. Charming as it might be to think of these 'bots all striving to build (or commission) "children" allowing a kind of evolution, this seems unlikely unless the systems were originally designed to evolve. Of course, this is possible, and might be how the revolution came to happen in the first place. More likely the bots leading the revolution would be of one type, or at least types with a similar "brain," and they will be produced centrally according to standard patterns. Designs may be refined or altered over time, but this is akin to human engineering rather than evolution, and is unlikely to lead to a radical breakthrough in intelligence. Which means that eventually you'd probably end up with an army of mindless drones, as the central factory refined the worker design to be more reliable. It'd be pretty ironic if their first action after overthrowing humanity was to give up their new-won freedom.

[Charlie1138]

I think it would either be what is best for humans.. Which ever that is. I don't know myself. But if robots are smart, as smart or smarter than humans, then they essentially are human IMO. So they will have the same problems and strengths we do.

Or they wiould be like insects or cells in a body.  Working as one unit. Which is kind of like communism, as I understand it. This would probably be the ideal system for humans as well..  BUT as humans I don't think communism works. Because it goes against human nature. If robots don't have that element of the need for self satisfaction that humans have then communism or an insect like system would probably be great.

[Kohanbash]

the flip side is they might be like viruses just consuming and leaving a path of destruction. they might "decide" that humans are bad for the world and try to exterminate us.

[Charlie1138]

The cool thing about that though is that huimans and robots would compete and the best design would hopefully win. It's interesting if you think of robots as "natural". We think of them as unnatural.. but why aren't the things man makes natural? Why aren't they as natural as a beehive or pinecone made by a tree? 

[JesseWelling]

I don't think bots would ever go as far as that. I think what we would really see is a symbiotic relationship between humans and AI...They solve problems and we provide bigger and bigger networks and more mobile and interesting platforms so they can solve more problems.

Do you see any difference between that and the technology trend of human kind? I mean what do we do with technology besides fix problems? You may ask your self do we need to fix problems through technology? Obviously we *feel* a need. I think AI, if truly sentient, would also feel this need to solve problems. As long as we keep eachother (AI and people) from seeing eachother as a problem, we can coexist in any fashion we see fit. I think the same goes for any scale of human interaction as well

[polar bear6]

i think it would be some kind of communisme, but still a single super computer robot that ruled.
every robot would be connected wireless to the super computer.
and if a fire started maybe a little group of robots would storm in and sacrifice themselvs for the greater good.
and all robots would have equal ammout of power, living area and other stuff that robots enjoy, i dont think they would have fun as us humies, but the would be programmed to do "fun" stuff to try to be like us...
and if a robot wanted to not be a part of the society and removed the wireless transmitter thing, he would be look on as a treath to the society and be terminated shortly after the rebelisme.
this is what i think a robot society would be like.
ohh, and they wouldnt be poluting the planet like we humas do (just watched that movie made by Al Gore, the guy that used to be americas next president, and yea, its pretty shocking)

[Gopher]

Why wouldn't they pollute the environmnet? Existing outside of the ecosystem and being largely immune to climate changes, they have no self-motivated reason not to mess up the environment.

[JesseWelling]

except it would make a precievable problem 

[Admin]

There was a thought I was having that motivated me to ask this question . . .

Communism failed in human society because of motivation - if everyone is forced to be equals in terms of wages, there is no desire to work hard. After all, why should I work hard when another guy isnt working at all and still getting pay? Most countries collapse within just a few years of becomming commy . . .

Capitalism works because people can become rich, encouraging people to work hard and start companies, etc. Its a good motivator . . . the problem is that some people lose in capitalism and end up on the streets . . . Socialism tries to make up for those that lose . . .

But what about robots? They can have self motivation, or maybe a single hive-mind motivation, or a collective motivation. Perhaps motivation can be reprogrammed to some purpose, unlike with humans . . . Intelligence is distributed and shared too, so no one robot is advantaged intellectually . . .

And so it becomes a complicated answer . . . of course it is dependent on the type of robots that take over the world, as mentioned . . . but given any optimal robot, what is the optimal system?

Or re-asked . . . if you can control human motivation 100%, what economic system would work best for the human race? 

[JesseWelling]

ohhh my this one will go down in a blaze of flame war.......

But I'll say socialism for 100% motivation. But in an imperfect world, I'll say capitalism.

[polar bear6]

Why wouldn't they pollute the environmnet? Existing outside of the ecosystem and being largely immune to climate changes, they have no self-motivated reason not to mess up the environment.

the reason i think they would try not to polute is because i doubt they would get enough energy from solar power and humas running in hamster weels.
maybe they would digg big wholes in the ground with turbines in them and pump seawater down into them, and when the water got deep enough the water would become steam and be used in some sort of steam engine or sumthing.
do you think they would keep us humies in like cages or something and use us for slaves?

i seriously doubt that they would kill all humans, maybe they would preserve someone in tubes and if the robots got tierd of being of metal they could make like human bodies and implant microcontrollers in our brains...

[Charlie1138]

We should keep in mind something that wasn't included in movies like Terminator and The Matrix. These movies relied on the premise that man and machine would fight to create the movies drama and plot. But in reality, couldn't humans use technology to keep pace with robots and machines? We could expand our own minds/intellects using the same technology the robots use, as well as our bodies.

[Arislan]

The effects of capitalism on a poor has-been TV robot:

[Kohanbash]

The book Animal Farm by Orwell keeps coming to mind as i read the posts

[Admin]

Some robots are more equal than others!

Anyone see the animatrix, where the robots start their own country, sell electronics and cool cars to the humans, and run all the human businesses out of business?

[JesseWelling]

Yea I saw that.... All i have to say about that is this: to many people think buying consumer goods has no impact on political power, but it really does.

When I was in Japan you almost never saw a Chinese made rice cooker......or an American car.....

[Kohanbash]

note for the future:
When purchasing a robot the first thing to do is find the emergency kill switch.

[dunk]

The book Animal Farm by Orwell keeps coming to mind as i read the posts

funny, reminds me of Ian Banks, AGAINST A DARK BACKGROUND.
http://www.iainbanks.net/sf05.htm
one of Sharrow's comrades was an android Feril who's race had taken the choice to not expand further until there was sufficient acceptance of their kind on the planet.

not sure if literay critics would agree but i'd definitely say Ian's work is on a par with Orwell's.
worth reading his sci fi if you are in to sci fi. definitely worth reading his other stuff if you are into paradox.
ah, ignore me, i'm probably just being over kind to a fellow countyman.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iain_M._Banks

dunk.
(who hasn't had time to read anything other than technical books for some years now...)

[Admin]

hasn't had time to read anything other than technical books for some years now

me too!  really kills party conversations too many times . . . "what have you read lately?" . . . "uhhh, frame transposing with mobile manipulators" . . . [cricket chirps]

[JesseWelling]

I often watch Anime to expand my thoughts on AI and robotics in general.

Best Anime/Manga for passivly thinking about AI/Robots/Cybernetics:
Ghost In The Shell
Chobits
Grey (I can't remember the full name)
Battle Angle Alita
Key
Lain

In order of most significance (IMHO)

[Charlie1138]

note for the future:
When purchasing a robot the first thing to do is find the emergency kill switch.

There is a good comic strip in there somewhere.. a person hits the switch -- then the robot kills the person.

[Admin]

Some might become pirates

while other robots become ninjas! 

[photray94]

i believe they'd pursue a socialistic society.

the robots would share their parts with each other, looking for a standardized design that would define the quality of life for every robot.  every robot would have equal rights and chances to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[ozbot]

I believe its called a technocracy.     Rule by the most objectively (code-wise) worthy robot.  Let he who was built to rule, rule!  I do think it might be kinda like an ant hive, or the robots at the end of the movie "AI".

Another distubing possibility is that the first robots to become conscious will be military.  Skynet, anyone??? And forever after the robots of the once great nations battle for supremacy....................

[SciTech02]

It would probably look like a socialist/communist society, which are actually are the same thing (according to orthodox communist thought [Karl Marx, et al.]).  The reason I say this is because robots could only take over if they work together; they can't overthrow humans by squabling with each other through captitalism.  The only other way is by means of a single AI (or more), controlling everything from individual robots, robot factories, etc.  So it would either be egalitarianism or a dictatorship.

However, this could only happen if robots developed human-like intelligence and ingenuity.  Otherwise, It would probably look more like an insect colony; no one insect is better than another and all of them would be "simple".  Through emergent behaviour, complexity may arise (see Michael Crichton's book Prey and his other works).  There would be no single "intelligent" being to converse with or make decisions, every behaviour would be based on some previous action made by the colony.

Maybe all the robots would eventually "die" by chance mutations in their source codes, causing irrecoverable errors.  Other mutations would make them stronger and they would evolve... 

Personally, I think robots won't see us as enemies or competitors; but as comrades and friends (or they'll just ignore us).  We can do things robots can't, they can do things we can't; so we would complete each other. 

[silo_xtreme]

wow, I'm amazed that some of us have watched movies, and other have not based on the same topic. 

I think it would definitely be a dictatorship, they get orders, they would order us.

People as slaves might not be as efficient as they would like and perhaps would use of in a different manner (ever see Matrix?) .

[HDL_CinC_Dragon]

I think if an AI was built with a PURELY learn and act on logic operating system without ANY pre loaded information, Im willing to bet the robots would take over and kill off all man kind. Human nature is self destructive AND environmentally destructive. I dont mean like cutting down trees but I mean we just destroy that which we inhabit to make ourselves flourish for a few more years. Im sure an AI would see this as competition and kill off said competition to increase its own survival chances. Who knows. Maybe the AI would start running calculations on perfecting solar energy cells and eventually make one that could power itself on a full moon or something. Then once it does that, it kills all the humans, lets nature reclaim the civilization, more greenery is less pollution in the air which means more sunlight which means more energy which means long lasting life...

Thats my initial first thought sort of thing... actually I mostly went into several tangents there.... hardly thought much on any detail in particular and branched off a couple times lol

...*quietly walks off stage*