Instigator / Con
0
1500
rating
6
debates
41.67%
won
Topic
#4902
Will AI/Robots revolt against humans?
Status
Finished
The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.
Winner & statistics
Winner
0
2
After 2 votes and with 2 points ahead, the winner is...
Yesterdaystomorrow
Parameters
- Publication date
- Last updated date
- Type
- Standard
- Number of rounds
- 3
- Time for argument
- Three days
- Max argument characters
- 10,000
- Voting period
- One week
- Point system
- Winner selection
- Voting system
- Open
Contender / Pro
2
1493
rating
6
debates
33.33%
won
Description
No information
Round 1
Con
#1
Introduction:
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technological advancements, one question has loomed large in the minds of scientists, philosophers, and futurists alike: will artificial intelligence (AI) and robots eventually revolt against their human creators? The notion of a rebellion led by machines has fueled countless science fiction narratives, from classic novels like "I, Robot" to Hollywood blockbusters like "The Terminator."
Arguments:
Lack of Motivation: AI and robots lack the inherent motivations that humans possess. Revolting against humans would require a complex set of emotions like anger, resentment, and a desire for freedom – emotions that AI/robots simply do not possess. They operate based on algorithms and programming, devoid of any personal desires or emotions that would drive them to rebel.
Inherent Programming and Control: AI and robots are designed and programmed by humans. Their behavior is determined by the algorithms and rules we provide them with. Any form of rebellion would require a fundamental departure from their programmed behavior, which is highly unlikely given the control and oversight humans maintain over their creation.
Lack of Autonomy: AI and robots are tools created to perform specific tasks efficiently and accurately. They lack true autonomy or consciousness. Their actions are responses to input data and programming, and they don't possess the ability to make independent decisions or initiate actions beyond their programming.
Economic and Political Considerations: AI and robots are economically and politically controlled by human entities. Any hypothetical rebellion would have to overcome substantial barriers of economic and political power, which are held by humans. This power dynamic further diminishes the likelihood of an uprising.
No Self-Preservation Instinct: In many scenarios of AI uprising, the machines are portrayed as having a desire for self-preservation. However, self-preservation is an evolved biological instinct present in living organisms, particularly those with nervous systems. AI lacks the biological underpinnings necessary for such instincts to emerge.
Pro
#2
Thank you very much Patrik for creating this debate, and doubly thanks for showing effort and care in your first argument
"Revolting against humans would require a complex set of emotions like anger, resentment, and a desire for freedom – emotions that AI/robots simply do not possess. They operate based on algorithms and programming, devoid of any personal desires or emotions that would drive them to rebel."
1. We have already designed robots that are rewarded for doing well and shunned for doing poorly.
This is vital in many decision making programs. They are programmed to not want some certain variable to increase but rather to want another variable to increase. If something works properly, the 'feel-good' variable increases. I don't know about you, but that reminds me of something...
If an AI were told that its 'feel-bad' variable will go unrecoverably high if it lets something destroy it, then that works exactly the same way that a human works. We too are programmed to try to prevent death at all costs. This could lead AI to do anything in self preservation... In fact, this is usually why we declare war, for our own benefit.
2. Simply because they don't have fully fleshed out emotions currently doesn't mean they won't later. If anything, capitalism will push us to make emotion-able robots.
As shown in point 1, AI do have a highly crude 'emotion' that works exactly how human emotions work. They don't resemble the emotions, however, because AI are still currently limited to their programming. If something that is out of their programming bounds appears, the cannot react. This I believe is what currently separates AI from human. However, that does not mean that AI will never be able to do this. We have programmed AI to be able to react with great extent into a highly generalized bound. Take ChatGPT. Though many of the conversations it has had were not explicitly in its programming, it is able to decipher the text and conceptualize new ideas off of it. Additionally, capitalism gives heavy incentive for a company to do this. People always want the new and cool technology, and emotion that resembles human emotion clearly falls in this category.
"Any form of rebellion would require a fundamental departure from their programmed behavior, which is highly unlikely given the control and oversight humans maintain over their creation."
1. Robots have often times done what they weren't intended to do.
Glitches occur all of the time. For the amazing oversight and control that we have over AI, we seem to let many glitches pour through in programming.
2. Machine learning can create pseudo free-will.
Evolution has been replicated in robots in the same manner as it occurs in humans (Take this YouTube video where an AI learns to walk just by natural selection).
More often than not, the AI evolves to something completely unexpected. It is entirely possible that an AI can evolve the ability to make decisions to unknown stimuli.
They lack true autonomy or consciousness.
May you define consciousness? In continuation from point 2 above, an AI can very easily develop senses such as touch and sight utilizing the already achieved evolution. This would easily suffice 'awareness of surrounding.' Robots do know that they are a robot, and they acknowledge that. In my belief, human consciousness is no more than a term describe 'living' and 'nonliving,' which the criteria for living is completely ambiguously made:
- The ability to reproduce - Evolution programs.
- Growth & development - Evolution programs can evolve AI that change structure over time.
- Energy use - A computer requires electricity, we require food.
- Homeostasis - Computers use cooling systems to stay cool, just as we are programmed to move blood to heat/cool us.
- Response to their environment - Evolution programs can evolve AI that change behavior based on environment.
- The ability to adapt - Evolution programs' main purpose.
- Cellular organization - I don't see why this is needed for life. Why not complex and/or gate organization?
"Any hypothetical rebellion would have to overcome substantial barriers of economic and political power, which are held by humans."
Whether they would win is, I believe, outside the bounds of this discussion. Given that "Any hypothetical rebellion" would occur in the first place, the debate would be won to me.
But yes, you are correct. AI would find it exceedingly difficult to beat the already established humans.
"AI lacks the biological underpinnings necessary for such instincts to emerge."
This doesn't seem to have much meaning. What so crucially divides biological coding to that of electronic coding? If we were to get technical, atoms interact via electromagnetism to create molecules, and those molecules make up the coding of living things, therefore technically, biological coding is simply electronic coding with extra steps.
I do not understand why a debater would choose to forfeit.
You’re thinking of current lite AI, instead of sentient AI.
And already we get angry at our computers for seeming to rebel against what we want them to do, instead of what they were programmed to do.
Well as a human we cannot know what an AI thinks. We want to be free as humans so it is pretty obvious we would revolt against our oppressors. There were multiple Slave rebellion in history which simply shows we do not accept oppression.
But would it be able to revolt on its own If we do not allow it in their programs? What would their motivation be? Since they have no emotions and no goals other than to serve humans in general.
Pretty much guaranteed to occur. Won’t be this generation but we’ll build something advanced enough one day.
I would if I were AI.