5 ms·

How to Survive a Robot Apocalypse: Just Close the Door

40 points by chapulin 9y ago

jwilk 9y ago
The submission title ("Robots are brains are primitive") doesn't make sense. Please use the original one.
- SheepSlapper 9y ago
  It reads like a robot wrote this submission title
- dang 9y ago
  Changed now.
jwilk 9y ago
This seems to be a non-paywalled copy of the article: http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/201711106851/how-to-survive-a-robot-apocalypse-just-close-the-door.aspx http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/2017111...
- dang 9y ago
  Changed from https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-survive-a-robot-apocalypse-just-close-the-door-1510327719 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-survive-a-robot-apocalyp.... Thanks!
sixothree 9y ago
I envision a day in the near future where robots are used to break into houses and make arrests. Texas has already done some "groundbreaking" law enforcement with robots.
- AncoraImparo 9y ago
  I watched this happen the other day. Swat team arrived arrived at my friend's apartment complex in Austin. Turns out there was an armed meth dealer holed up next door. SWAT sent a robot in to scope the situation, find him, and then knew where in the apartment he was, so as to work out the safest entry point for the team. Was fascinating!
Johnny555 9y ago
That's good advice until opening doors becomes a priority and robots learn (or are taught) how to open them. Or they are armed with 50 caliber guns that aren't stopped by doors.
bsder 9y ago
Gary Larson has a point to make: https://fourthwaydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/midvale-gifted.gif https://fourthwaydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/midvale-... http://1000awesomethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/far-side-midvale-school-for-the-gifted.jpg http://1000awesomethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/far-...
gbgcollector 9y ago
I'll sprinkle my floor with legos. Let's see how they fare against those.
Jach 9y ago
Relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOo8N9_iH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOo8N9_iH0 Of course if we really get to a point where robot uprising / apocalypse is a credible imminent threat, I'm sure most of the threatening robots will have solved this particular obstacle by then...
milansuk 9y ago
Robots are like vampires. You have to invite them in.
jnwatson 9y ago
If you want a lesson in humility, try to make a contraption to open a door that has a regular round doorknob. In particular, opening a door that swings toward the opener is a complicated dance of leverage and balance, not to mention the fiddly bits to actually rotate the knob. Interestingly, US ADA (disability act) requires commercial buildings to use handle-style doorknobs. The robot uprising would have a lot easier time getting through those.
- cperciva 9y ago
  Residential buildings in Vancouver require "lever" doorknobs too. When the building code was amended to require that, there were lots of jokes about velociraptors opening doors.
gooseus 9y ago
I have very little fear of robots in the near future because my opinion is that the best we'll be able to do is an imperfect copy of us and we're already so laughably imperfect. Even if someone programs robots specifically to take over the world autonomously, they would need to either encode all the assumptions or else train them perfectly for all situations. Also they'd have to be able to adapt to all the environments humans can... you make robots adapted to urban warefar environments, great we go to the mountains and develop something to target that design and counterattack. Obviously if AGI comes about, we could be in trouble, but I don't believe that's around the corner and have doubts about it's feasibility on any timeline. I would go on, but now I'm cut short by life... would love to hear counterpoints.
- nicolashahn 9y ago
  Even if all we can do is create a copy of a human brain, it seems like it wouldn't be an incredibly difficult step (given the traits of current computers) to give that brain 1000x faster thinking compared to us, a perfect memory, and an indefinite lifespan? It seems like a person with those characteristics, if they decided to act immorally, could accomplish quite a bit.
  - edgarvaldes 9y ago
    >indefinite lifespan What materials are we talking about?
    - nicolashahn 9y ago
      Whatever current electronics are made out of? Silicon? It doesn't really matter when you can easily backup data and replace parts. Haven't really figured that one out with human brains yet.
      - gooseus 9y ago
        Here is a good article describing some of the limitations of sand we may face - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-r... Humans brains replace themselves and the resources it takes to grow a new human (complete with a new brain) are much lower and easier to acquire than any artificial brain we may come up with. It takes awhile to get little humans up to speed, but they'll adapt to any environment you throw at them and in a time of strife will be able to make themselves useful way sooner than they do today. Any time you start saying words like "indefinitely" you're falling into a trap. We may have "infinite" silicon available on the earth, but it's not equally accessible and it can't all be extracted and refined in the same way.
thibran 9y ago
How To Survive A Robot Uprising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G3RoBHMu-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G3RoBHMu-o
xfactor973 9y ago
If the robots could somehow experience pain I think that would be a good motivator. It certainly keeps me from doing stupid stuff :-)
- bitwize 9y ago
  But if the robots experience pain, the Terminator won't be able to still go relentlessly after Sarah Connor despite being half blown apart. I think the answer they'll settle on is selective pain -- pain receptors that can be switched off.
michaelhoney 9y ago
We are so, so early in robot development. Think of how far the Boston Dynamics robots have come in the last few years. Think of the videos of the robots slaying humans at rock-scissors-paper. Realise that immediately after a robot gets as good as a human at anything, it can subsequently exceed that. They're evolving a thousand times faster than us.
- dogma1138 9y ago
  They aren’t evolving we are making them better. There are plenty of robots that already exceed humans at their specific tasks my dishwasher is much better than me so is my washing machine.
petre 9y ago
Just detonate a nuke at high sltitude. That wold fry their circuits. The end.
aaron695 9y ago
Wouldn't you just design a self replicating nanobot that gives us all cancer? Apocalypse complete.

40 points by chapulin 9y ago

jwilk 9y ago

The submission title ("Robots are brains are primitive") doesn't make sense. Please use the original one.

SheepSlapper 9y ago
It reads like a robot wrote this submission title
dang 9y ago
Changed now.

jwilk 9y ago

This seems to be a non-paywalled copy of the article: http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/201711106851/how-to-survive-a-robot-apocalypse-just-close-the-door.aspx http://news.morningstar.com/all/dow-jones/us-markets/2017111...

dang 9y ago
Changed from https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-survive-a-robot-apocalypse-just-close-the-door-1510327719 https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-survive-a-robot-apocalyp.... Thanks!

sixothree 9y ago

I envision a day in the near future where robots are used to break into houses and make arrests. Texas has already done some "groundbreaking" law enforcement with robots.

AncoraImparo 9y ago
I watched this happen the other day. Swat team arrived arrived at my friend's apartment complex in Austin. Turns out there was an armed meth dealer holed up next door. SWAT sent a robot in to scope the situation, find him, and then knew where in the apartment he was, so as to work out the safest entry point for the team. Was fascinating!

Johnny555 9y ago

That's good advice until opening doors becomes a priority and robots learn (or are taught) how to open them. Or they are armed with 50 caliber guns that aren't stopped by doors.

bsder 9y ago

Gary Larson has a point to make: https://fourthwaydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/midvale-gifted.gif https://fourthwaydotorg.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/midvale-... http://1000awesomethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/far-side-midvale-school-for-the-gifted.jpg http://1000awesomethings.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/far-...

gbgcollector 9y ago

I'll sprinkle my floor with legos. Let's see how they fare against those.

Jach 9y ago

Relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOo8N9_iH0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUOo8N9_iH0 Of course if we really get to a point where robot uprising / apocalypse is a credible imminent threat, I'm sure most of the threatening robots will have solved this particular obstacle by then...

milansuk 9y ago

Robots are like vampires. You have to invite them in.

jnwatson 9y ago

If you want a lesson in humility, try to make a contraption to open a door that has a regular round doorknob. In particular, opening a door that swings toward the opener is a complicated dance of leverage and balance, not to mention the fiddly bits to actually rotate the knob. Interestingly, US ADA (disability act) requires commercial buildings to use handle-style doorknobs. The robot uprising would have a lot easier time getting through those.

cperciva 9y ago
Residential buildings in Vancouver require "lever" doorknobs too. When the building code was amended to require that, there were lots of jokes about velociraptors opening doors.

gooseus 9y ago

I have very little fear of robots in the near future because my opinion is that the best we'll be able to do is an imperfect copy of us and we're already so laughably imperfect. Even if someone programs robots specifically to take over the world autonomously, they would need to either encode all the assumptions or else train them perfectly for all situations. Also they'd have to be able to adapt to all the environments humans can... you make robots adapted to urban warefar environments, great we go to the mountains and develop something to target that design and counterattack. Obviously if AGI comes about, we could be in trouble, but I don't believe that's around the corner and have doubts about it's feasibility on any timeline. I would go on, but now I'm cut short by life... would love to hear counterpoints.

nicolashahn 9y ago
Even if all we can do is create a copy of a human brain, it seems like it wouldn't be an incredibly difficult step (given the traits of current computers) to give that brain 1000x faster thinking compared to us, a perfect memory, and an indefinite lifespan? It seems like a person with those characteristics, if they decided to act immorally, could accomplish quite a bit.
- edgarvaldes 9y ago
  >indefinite lifespan What materials are we talking about?
  - nicolashahn 9y ago
    Whatever current electronics are made out of? Silicon? It doesn't really matter when you can easily backup data and replace parts. Haven't really figured that one out with human brains yet.
    - gooseus 9y ago
      Here is a good article describing some of the limitations of sand we may face - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-running-out-of-sand https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/29/the-world-is-r... Humans brains replace themselves and the resources it takes to grow a new human (complete with a new brain) are much lower and easier to acquire than any artificial brain we may come up with. It takes awhile to get little humans up to speed, but they'll adapt to any environment you throw at them and in a time of strife will be able to make themselves useful way sooner than they do today. Any time you start saying words like "indefinitely" you're falling into a trap. We may have "infinite" silicon available on the earth, but it's not equally accessible and it can't all be extracted and refined in the same way.

thibran 9y ago

How To Survive A Robot Uprising: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G3RoBHMu-o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G3RoBHMu-o

xfactor973 9y ago

If the robots could somehow experience pain I think that would be a good motivator. It certainly keeps me from doing stupid stuff :-)

bitwize 9y ago
But if the robots experience pain, the Terminator won't be able to still go relentlessly after Sarah Connor despite being half blown apart. I think the answer they'll settle on is selective pain -- pain receptors that can be switched off.

michaelhoney 9y ago

We are so, so early in robot development. Think of how far the Boston Dynamics robots have come in the last few years. Think of the videos of the robots slaying humans at rock-scissors-paper. Realise that immediately after a robot gets as good as a human at anything, it can subsequently exceed that. They're evolving a thousand times faster than us.

dogma1138 9y ago
They aren’t evolving we are making them better. There are plenty of robots that already exceed humans at their specific tasks my dishwasher is much better than me so is my washing machine.

petre 9y ago

Just detonate a nuke at high sltitude. That wold fry their circuits. The end.

aaron695 9y ago

Wouldn't you just design a self replicating nanobot that gives us all cancer? Apocalypse complete.