There was big news back in mid January, that CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, Elon Musk, donated $10 million to help prevent the rise of an evil artificial intelligence. The news mostly circulated on tech blogs, and magazines, but was eventually picked up by some of the larger media outlets. It is a story that sounds like a basis for a cool SciFi novel, yet, here it is in actual news circulation while I am living. Being subscribed to many of these tech blogs and magazines, I naturally became very curious what the whole back story is here.
From a young age, I have been fascinated with machines and computers. I have built Lego robots, programmed interactive art installations, and today work intimately with machines that build things for me. Seeing how systems work and then putting them into a larger assembly to create a functioning object is a major passion of mine. Naturally, I am drawn to the art and science of robotics. That is not to say that I have a perfect track record of working projects; quite the opposite actually. It has become ingrained in me the many many ways an assembly of subsystems can quickly fail when attempting a task something was designed for. So when I see a brilliant public figure who is a mover and shaker in the tech industry fret about a long-theorized concept that has been considered a figment of science fiction and nothing more, my attention is piqued.
By now, you have likely seen footage of Honda's Asimo robot (decades in development), and while impressive, there are many things it still has issues with, such as traversing stairs, large disruptions while in motion (or standing still), and battery life. These are huge engineering problems in the creation of bipedal humanoid robots. To that end, I was sure that it would be many decades from now when I would see a robotic platform that was capable of all of these things and more. Well, then I came across updated footage of Boston Dynamics's robots as they were a few years ago. See for yourself. Providing higher-capacity, smaller, and lighter batteries, these humanoid robots would be able to independently traverse the same terrain most adult humans can. Giving them LiDAR vision provides the bot with a 360 degree three dimensional map of their surroundings, allowing them to avoid or traverse obstacles. By enabling wireless connection with a cloud computing network, the sensitive processing hardware can be taken out of the robot, and computed elsewhere in realtime. These are the types of robots your mother warned you about.
Going back to Elon Musk and his donation, I am under the impression that something out of sight is being developed. Is it possible Elon has seen something few others have? Something that made him realize we as a species are on the bleeding edge of creating an intelligence that might surpass our own? Speculation itself is never an answer, and I submit that Mr. Musk may just be on the lookout for humanity, as so many of his other projects/companies appear to be doing. Still though, with Google's development of AI-like algorithms, and IBM's Watson computer (who conquered jeopardy in 2011), it isn't too far of a stretch to think that there might be a new species joining humans rather soon. Hopefully the work of people smarter than I and with far more input/resources are able to make sure that our new robot neighbors are the friendly type.