Beware of the...Robots! in Off Topic

ID:46844
 
Aug 18 2008, 7:52 pm
Keywords: politics
Now that, in the year 2008, we have flying cars and all, robot scare stories are a dime a dozen, of course -- but this one has a surprising lesson that, for a supposedly cheezy comic, shows wisdom that eludes even some of the smartest commentators of our day. But that will all change...in the FUTURE!



Hat tip to the ever reliable Colby Cosh...
#1 Aug 18 2008, 7:57 pm
LIES I believed that in 2005 transformers would rule our world, THAT SHOW LIED TO ME i thoght it was a documentry!
#2 Aug 18 2008, 8:05 pm
Pft, everyone knows comic books lie. The year 2270 won't be blessed by robots; it will be cursed by them! This is how it's gonna go down:

2230: People develop the first sentient robots.

2250: The "Robot Age" of technology begins

2260: Robots become used for entertainment as well as work.

2270: Robots gain enough intelligence to destroy the world with 31337 h4x0rz.
#3 Aug 19 2008, 2:22 am
Nice comic :)
#4 Aug 19 2008, 8:15 am
I, personally find all of this robot overlords nonsense quite disturbing. I mean, what kind of company with enough knowledge to create a potentially world-destroying robot would not put in millions of failsafes, backup controls, shutoff procedures, and program it's AI to not even THINK of wanting to take over the world?

And Jeff, sentient robots are closer than you think. Experts predict that robots will be able to be human-like enough to be used as spouses by 2050. Sentience would probably be obtained by 2070.
#5 Aug 19 2008, 8:36 am
to be used as spouses

...I wonder how that work work >_<
#6 Aug 19 2008, 9:47 am
idk but Japan was close to something like that. now i think


ANDRIOD BABY
#7 Aug 19 2008, 10:33 am
Wow, I sent a pointer to this comic to my favorite economics blog, Cafe Hayek and Professor Boudreaux posted it and gave me credit, in a matter of hours.

The internet is a wacky place!

An odd bit about the name "Hayek" -- Friedrich Hayek was an extremely influential economic thinker whom I had never heard of until, to round out something I was sending to Guy from Amazon, I included some book called "The Road to Serfdom" from his wishlist. I haven't read that book yet, and have much more to learn about Hayek, but Guy inadvertently helped push me into learning more about the fascinating subject of economics...
#8 Aug 19 2008, 7:38 pm
This reminded me, indirectly, of one of my favorite horror stories, "Blobs!", from MAD issue 1. When I searched Google for it, I found this page:

http://batmobile.wordpress.com/2008/08/03/ the-origins-of-wall-e/

...which is funny because I also thought of the story when I saw Wall-E. Then again, just about everything makes me think of it, so that's not so astonishing, I guess.

Unfortunately, the scans included with the post are just seven copies of the first page, so here's the ending (SPOILER ALERT): the big machine breaks down and everyone is screwed!

Also, I just took "The Road to Serfdom" off the bookshelf. Maybe now I'm mature enough to finish it!