The Human Factor

Articles like this drive me nuts.

As a child, I always thought that one day robots would be so advanced that they would cater to ALL of our needs. That people would be reduced into pleasure seeking sloths, sitting in a chair, as machines who read--and even anticipated--our thoughts did everything.

A scary thing, but later on i've come to realize that something like this might never happen.

We may or may not be the most complex being in the whole galaxy, but i'd like to believe that our thoughts and emotions give us that unique edge.

We can make robots better, faster, and even stronger than we are, but I don't think that we can ever make robots that will be as spiritual or emotionally adept as we are, otherwise that robot would be human.

The one thing that sustains us human beings is also our number one flaw: feeling. Too much of their decisions are governed by emotions.

But neither do I think that this is the only distintive factor in most of us.

We all seem to think that as soon as the robots feel, that makes it just like us. I'd like to think of myself as something more than a biological mass that is capable of giving raw emotions.

We think, we have logic, we feel. We rationalize and we interact. There are so many layers that I don't think strings of codes in a bit machine will ever come to cover.

It's always been our belief that robots are perfect, that the very reason why we create them is to reduce the possibility of human error.

But in making them into a superior being, we must also integrate into them that which makes us perfect, which is also deemed as a flaw: our feelings.

Compassion, hatred. Love, fondness. Jelousy, lust. Dissatisfaction, contenment. Religion, spirituality. To elevate a being--bionic or otherwise--we'd have to integrate all of those things.

As for humans integrating robotic parts to achieve immortality.

Maybe it's just me, but I happen to think of this as unnatural. It's one thing to have a pacemaker to extend your life, and another to alter your body in order to live forever.

Call it a Christian way of thinking, but death is a natural part of our evolution. As we continue to evolve, our race gets better and faster, our brains get to be more complex. Taking the next step involves leaving something behind.

Unless of course, the evolutionary process involved cybernetics, which I personally don't think it does.

...

Anyway, this is just one of the things that keep me awake some nights.

Your life seems so long and yet so short, but if you compare it next to the lives that came before you, and the ones coming, consider all their experiences, and out it into one long string of existence...then my life is suddenly so minute.