Komplicated has worked hard to stay abreast of the threat posed by robot apocalypse. Now, the path to Skynet is all but assured …
… researchers at ETH Zurich have foolishly designed a robot that can create its own custom tools to complete tasks.
In this particular case the robot was tasked with transferring water from one bowl to another, which it accomplished by creating a small cup using its HMA—or Hot Melt Adhesive—dispenser. Which is a fancy way of describing a glue gun. The cup the robot created was pretty crappy, but those bastards learn fast. So what if it autonomously decided that ‘stabbing all humans’ was a more important job than pouring water? We’re trying to be optimistic about our inevitable future living side-by-side with robots, but it’s mistakes like this that could cost us control of our planet.
Well, time to sit down with this video …
Here is a seriously important read:
http://what-if.xkcd.com/5/
Seriously people that study engineering should be required to read comic books and watch movies. The Terminator series should be taught over a week long boot camp and Sentinels (the mutant hunting robots from the Marvel Universe) should be standard reading.
Oh and you smart ass software engineers, ya’ll need to be required to research and debate the ethical implications of the content in Ghost in the Shell before you take all this internet data storage stuff to far.