Robot factories located in space would be able to manufacture products with maximum efficiency … they could conduct hazardous research and radio the encrypted results back to their parent corporation on Earth. Only a small “seed colony” of robots would be needed to set up an off-world operation … “Now suppose a company goes out of business, leaving its research division in space, where there’s no supervision. The result is self-sustaining, superintelligent wildlife.” This marks the point where the genie finally gets out of the bottle and Earth’s retirement community of pampered humans finds itself faced with a big problem … All the local materials will be plundered and converted into machines.
Predictor: Moravec, Hans
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for Wired magazine, Charles Platt, author of “The Silicon Man,” interviews Hans Moravec, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute and the author of “Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence.” Moravec predicts that thanks to networking technology by the year 2040 “there will be no job people can do better than robots,” and discusses what happens next. Platt writes: ”In the long term, though, robots programmed to serve us with maximum efficiency can become a potential hazard. They will naturally try to obtain energy and raw materials as cheaply as possible, with a minimum of regulatory interference. And the ideal way to do this is by relocating some of their operations beyond planet Earth. Unlike human beings, robots don’t need to breathe air, aren’t disoriented by zero gravity, and can be easily shielded from harmful radiation. There are vast mineral resources in the asteroid belt, where there will be no regulations regarding pollution, noise, or safety. Robot factories located in space would be able to manufacture products with maximum efficiency and then drop them down into Earth’s gravity well. Alternatively, they could conduct hazardous research and radio the encrypted results back to their parent corporation on Earth. Only a small ‘seed colony’ of robots would be needed to set up an off-world operation. Using local mineral ores and solar energy, robots could build everything they required – including copies of themselves. In this scenario, everything is still being controlled by the parent corporations, which are still being controlled by us. Therefore, the off-world operations should present no problems. ‘But now suppose a company goes out of business,’ Moravec says, ‘leaving its research division in space, where there’s no supervision. The result is self-sustaining, superintelligent wildlife.’ This marks the point where the genie finally gets out of the bottle and Earth’s retirement community of pampered humans finds itself faced with a big problem. Out in space, the preprogrammed drive to compete and be efficient will result in the runaway evolution of machine capabilities. Moravec feels that in a short period of time, all the local materials will be plundered and converted into machines, and all available solar energy will be used to power them. The result will be a dense, interacting swarm of competing entities – although, he says, the competition will be relatively benign. Warfare among robots will be rare because ‘fighting wastes energy, and a third entity can eat the pieces.'”
Biography:Hans Moravec was a professor at Carnegie Mellon university’s Robotics Institute who caused a lot of consternation with the book “Mind Children: The Future of the Robot and Human Intelligence,” in which he predicted the rise of machines and extinction of humans. (Research Scientist/Illuminator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Community/Culture
Subtopic: Human-Machine Interaction
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: Superhumanism: According to Hans Moravec, by 2040 Robots Will Become as Smart as We Are. And Then They’ll Displace Us as the Dominant Form of Life on Earth. But He Isn’t Worried – the Robots Will Love Us
Quote Type: Partial quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/3.10/moravec_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney