Nothing to see here - just a robot doing backflips Many people in the comment section said that they were both amazed and frightened at the same time. One even said, "Kill it with fire before it replicates!" So, will robots be the best thing ever or the beginning of the end?
Atlas, The Next Generation This is from over a year ago, but it's just a matter of a few years before these things move with the same agility as normal humans in all types of terrain and situations. Add to that greater strength and they become potentially threatening, but also capable of doing all sorts of useful tasks. Eventually the cost of robots goes way down (just as the price of personal computers plummeted over the course of a couple decades) and at that point all sorts of tedious tasks will be accomplished by these machines. I see that as a good thing, especially after paying way too much for someone to do some basic home maintenance work last year!
Elon Musk on Do you trust this computer? Robots can be made which have very limited abilities. For instance, assembly line robots perform a single task repeatedly. However, an autonomous robot is a totally different thing. Complicating the discussion is the fact that AI does not need to inhabit a robot capable of physically interacting with the world. So, the general discussion can go in a lot of different directions and entertain many different scenarios.
Those who think AI is NOT bad are Fools - Elon Musk The ability to play games with well-defined rules is one thing. Driving is another. Whether the development of these abilities is dangerous is questionable, but it does suggest possibilities which are concerning.
CactusHugger: When most people think of robots they think of a device that can perform mundane tasks. Many people have those little Roomba vacuums that glide around and save people the drudgery of vacuuming. The creation of a multi-purpose robot capable of doing a multitude of tasks and possessing some kind of ability to adapt to novel situations would require some degree of higher-level cognitive functions. It's conceivable that such technology could get out of control, but I don't think such a scenario is a given at all.
ROBOTS VERSUS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: This is a huge area in technology and only some of it is potentially problematic. Is it possible to develop AI that has a sense of self? Can AI have goals and wants and needs? It's one thing to be able to perform data gathering and analysis and a very different thing to make decisions about what to do with the information. Is AI more like a super powerful calculator that has all sorts of useful data crunching functions including the ability to monitor surveillance feeds or does it have decision-making capabilities? I suppose some already has decision-making capabilities, self-driving cars for instance, but I doubt we will enable AI to make many decisions that could have greater impact or maybe we will. Who knows?
Can this robot build an IKEA chair faster than you? A robot handyman that can fix things around the house would be pretty useful. I could see that happening within a few decades. Don't have any worries about that!