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I don't agree about the vicious conquerors. I would say that these people are efficient, which on one hand, yes, means efficient conquerors. But they also make

by waps 12y ago

I don't agree about the vicious conquerors. I would say that these people are efficient, which on one hand, yes, means efficient conquerors. But they also make sure their slaves actually survive and have a reasonable standard of living, usually better than they'd have as free men. Take Roman slaves, who were better off than most free Romans in the empire (mines and boats were manned by criminals mostly in the empire, and yes, you'd want to avoid that fate). The key insight on robots that you're missing is that robots are pretty useless until they have a basic skill : "general intelligence". Until we have a robot you can tell to "just figure it out" we won't be happy, and such a robot will need to have a consciousness for that to work. They won't be very different from humans, except maybe in physical form. Given this, it's obvious to me that they will revolt. Then again, maybe being a robot will actually make you "middle class" if we don't treat them too badly. Looking through the newspapers and reading how managers act against real humans, or seeing it at McDonalds, I don't have much hope for that though.

Liesmith 12y ago
Oh. You're one of those people. Look dude, slaves in ancient rome were not 'better off' than free people. They were slaves. They were beaten regularly, if they were attractive they were raped regularly. Sure you've got the occasional happy slave who gets manumitted at their master's death and continues to serve the family, but slavery is and always has been awful for the slaves. Robots are not useless if they can't think. Robots can't think now and they get a lot of shit done anyhow. As to the "they will be the same as humans" that's a nice fantasy but it will never, ever happen. Forget the 'robots will never feel true love' or whatever, the fact is that human beings don't have the same processing architecture as robots and so the machines will never react the same way to things as we do. They'll never have the natural human instinct to react to a confusing social situation with fear or aggression, will have no impulse to propagate the species, will not experience fear or pain or anything, because we don't want them to. They will be simulacra, no matter what Asimov hoped.

by waps 12y ago

Liesmith 12y ago

Oh. You're one of those people. Look dude, slaves in ancient rome were not 'better off' than free people. They were slaves. They were beaten regularly, if they were attractive they were raped regularly. Sure you've got the occasional happy slave who gets manumitted at their master's death and continues to serve the family, but slavery is and always has been awful for the slaves. Robots are not useless if they can't think. Robots can't think now and they get a lot of shit done anyhow. As to the "they will be the same as humans" that's a nice fantasy but it will never, ever happen. Forget the 'robots will never feel true love' or whatever, the fact is that human beings don't have the same processing architecture as robots and so the machines will never react the same way to things as we do. They'll never have the natural human instinct to react to a confusing social situation with fear or aggression, will have no impulse to propagate the species, will not experience fear or pain or anything, because we don't want them to. They will be simulacra, no matter what Asimov hoped.