Ever since I was a kid I’ve had a passion for robots. I had one that worked on batteries. It walked, opened two doors on its chest and “shoot” to end its happy stroll turning and turning. I loved it. I don’t know what happened to it, but years later I finally got one that was rather similar. The difference is that mine had a robot face, not a human one, and for it I liked it more. And while looking for it –long before eBay–, I started buying tin and metal robots, though I do have a few honorable plastic exceptions in my not too big collection.
Now I even have a kit to build and program robots using my Mac. I plan to make one that plays with Macavity during the day, though knowing my cat, he might get jelous of it like he is of my Wall-E. Anyway, here’s the picture of the one that started my collection (it’s the one on the left). I’ll include the photos of my other robots at the bottom of this post. hope you like them as much as I do:
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In Wired magazine –one of my favourites– I read that Ray Kurzweil has a pill-administrator because he takes about 250 pills a day (vitamins, minerals, aminoacids, etc.) since he wants to make sure he’ll live another 25-30 years so when the singularity he predicted arrives, he can download his mind to a computer and live forever.
When I read that article I knew what his description of singularity was, although I didn’t know about the pills and the downloading of his self. In fact I wrote articles about it for Nickelodeon magazine and for National Geographic Kids when the film Wall-E was released (I was the editor-in-chief for both of them at the time). Up to now, those are amongst the articles I’m proudest of and I got loads of letters from kids wanting to know more (I always write for kids thinking they are what they are: intelligent beings and not little retarded adults that need to be schooled everytime someone writes for them).
Anyway, “singularity” is a term of physics that refers to describe a point of infinite density and energy that breaks the space-time continuum and can be found inside a black hole (at the edge of the black hole is the event horizon). Though most singularities are covered by areas of high density, some seem to be “naked”.
Kurzweil borrows this concept to refer to the way scientific and technologic breakthroughs are happening from 60 years back until now. It’s something like a breaking point or a point of no return.
For centuries, people just knew they’d live pretty much the same life their grandparents lived. Nowadays, on the other hand, the technologic breaktrhoughs don’t happen every generation but every five to 10 years, which is rapidly taking us to a point of rupture in the history of our species, in other words, a singularity.
Kurzweil has a time frame for the date when this time will arrive based on the number of calculations the human mind and computers perform right now. He says our intelligence doesn’t increase with time, and our species (all together) can perform 10 26 calculations per second.
On the other hand, the computers’ intelligence is a million times less than ours but it DOES increase exponencially (remember Moore’s Law?), so by the year 2030 those machines we invented will be as intelligent as us, and by anytime after that, they’ll be far more intelligent than us.
Of course, one thing is the amount of calculations per second you (or a computer) can do and quite another is consciousness. About that, Kurzweil says consciousness is a subject for philosophical debate, not a scientific one. However, what makes him conclude that science, specially neurology, won’t come to find the biochemical reactions that form our I, our consciousness, our soul or whatever you want to call it? I mean, the way I see it, consciousness is also a matter of scientific realm, and in my opinion what he’s doing by saying it is not is providing the kind of argument teologists use by saying something is “a matter of god” and you have to accept it “by faith”.
There are some other concepts I don’t agree with him on. Let’s see. Kurzweil says that “a thousand-dollar computer can remember millions and millions of things in a precise way, and us, on the other hand, can barely remember a handful of phone numbers”. I think the computer doesn’t “remember” but “stores” data. Back to him: “Once they [computers] learn something, they can share that knowledge with other computers. We don’t have ports to download what we know (for instance, we can’t download our knowledge of French to somebody else so he/she will know exactly as much as we do). But computers can share their knowledge patterns between them. So I ask: Do computers “share” their knowledge out of their good will, or do they receive an order (from us) to perform that sharing between them?
Moreover, according to him, quite soon (obviously, before 2030) we’ll be able to download our mind, our consciousness, our soul, our I through nanobots to a computer and, in that way, live eternally since computers don’t get sick (time to make a little joke: he obviously hasn’t heard of computer viruses), don’t rot, don’t wear out. And we’ll also be able to do this procedure the other way around, i.e., implant nanobots in our brain to give it a boost, increase its capacity and even alternate between reality and a virutal reality (kind of having a switch), and choosing how to interact with others and in the world, which would apparently allow us to fly with Luke Skywalker, have passionate sex with Angelina Jolie, a virtual meeting with someone living on the other side of the planet or, if we choose the real-real world, have a real-real apple.
Ok. The key concept here is to download my I to a computer which then will not only be me, but a far more intelligent me, able to solve problems I wouldn’t even dream of trying. And on top of everything, a me that will live forever (I guess I won’t have any excuse not to write my world-famous turned into a movie novel, right?).
First, I’d like to state four objections to what Kurzweil says:
1. What’s intelligence? Is it just the amount of calculations we’re able to perform and the amount of data we can keep in our brain? Can this computer I’m writing on “decide” which word I should write right after this one if I don’t push the keys?
2. Sometime in the history of mankind we concluded that being slaves or having slaves wasn’t morally right. Some freed their slaves, some slaves rebelled. So, why will machines that soon will be far more intelligent than us accept to be our slaves and carry our I, our personna, within their circuits and do whatever our free-will or tantrum of the moment is? Why will they feel compelled to safeguard our I when they could have their own I?
3. How many people will have access to this technology, this paradigmatic shift? I’m sure it won’t be the kid with flies in his eyes dying of starvation in Somalia or in the Tarahumara mountains. Who will decide who gets to transfer their I to computers? Or will it be done by those who can afford it? What if a Hitler or a Bush or a Bin Laden does it just because he has access to this technology? Will this produce first class (forever living) and second class human beings (mortal ones)?
4. I’ve always been a Mac person. Not PC, Mac. However, the MacBook I’m using right now is unable to read files I backed up in diskettes because since the end of the last Century Macs don’t have a floppy reader. But even if I managed to download those files to this Mac, it most likely won’t be able to read it because either it was created in a software that no longer exists, or in a very old version of a software that still exists, or using a diferent opperative system. (If you’re interested in this subject, please read my entry on “The (im)persistence of memory” in this same category in this blog).
Fine. I’ve mentioned enough arguments against Kurzweil’s ideas, and for a long time I thought he was totally wrong. However, he himself gave me the tools to see things not quite the way he does, but in a way that seems to me worthy of analysis and debate:
He says “biological evolution evolved [sorry about the redundancy] in an exponential way. Every stage created something more powerfull for the next, so when DNA came to being, the speed of evolution increased because it was then possible to “store” data (traits, genetic information). Finally, the evolution process created a species with rational capacities, Homo sapiens […] and in our own cultural and technological evolution, we will combine ourselves with our own creations [computers], becoming one”.
Sorry, two more objections from me before I go to what I wanted to say: First, we’re not the “jewel of the crown” of evolution. If we were there wouldn’t be any biological diversity. Evolution works more like a tree with many branches and certainly not as a pyramid with us on top. Second, evolution doesn’t have a purpose. Adaptations to the environment happen by mistake, by means of errors while copying the genetic code. Sure, those errors can be rather good and allow the individual to survive better in its environment thus being able to have more progenie, to reproduce more and inherit that same trait to at least a few of its offspring, which will then survive better and also reproduce more and… you get the idea. In other words, evolution is not a “being” that has a master plan to create a specific species or reach a specific goal. Evolution actually just happens (and to me, that makes it even more wonderful and gives me a complete sense of awe when I think about it). But back to the second objection, evolution doesn’t work the way our technology works: we do have a plan, a goal to reach. If we want cars that use air for fuel and don’t pollute at all, or if we want to go to the Moon, we’ll do whatever it takes to reach that goal. Evolution never said: “From this nautilus I’m going to reach the point when there’s an Apatosaurus and then a Cro-magnon and from there it’s just a tiny leap to a Homo sapiens”. Nope, it doesn’t work that way.
Finally I’ve reached the point where all my arguments against Kurzweil make me reconsider my position to his arguments (and for that, thank you, Kurzweil):
If “intelligence” and “consciousness” (or the I, the personna, the soul) can be downloaded to a computer, then we can say that computer is indeed a person, a personna in itself because it has the characteristics to be considered as such (free will, ethics, the ability to solve problems and alter its surroundings, etc.).
Also, if the first molecules capables of self-replication came into being out of organic matter that was “inorganic” (in the sense that those molecules weren’t proper living beings) in that primaeval soup, and then managed to reproduced via the RNA and then the DNA, why not accept that our evolutive process might well be going back to being clutters of “inorganic” matter, such as the one our computers are made of, and go on —keep evolving, or maybe we should call it evolupgrading— from there? Perhaps then the Icomputer in which we will become will be able to solve such problems as overpopulation (they won’t need us to reproduce and produce more or them. They’ll take logical and ecofriendly decisions about this), energetic crisis (I’m sure they’ll find a way to power themselves with the sun, wind, geotermic energy or some other non-polluting kind of energy) and ecocides (I don’t know if they’ll want to share our planet with all other species, but if they do, they won’t need to cut down trees to make room for cows to roam or, hopefully, throw chemical waste into rivers and lakes).
In other words, from the inorganic we come and to the inorganic we go, and maybe then the extinction of the Homo sapiens won’t be the end of our species and, with some extra luck, it won’t be the extinction of what makes us human.
By the way, the word “robot” was first used in the play “R.U.R.”, by the Czchec writer Karl Capek, which opened in Prague in January 1921 and was about the dehumanization of men and the excesive use of technology. The original word was “robota”, which means “forced labour”.
Years later, in 1935, the same Capek wrote, in third person: “It is with horror, honestly, that he rejects any responsibility for the idea that metal machins could ever replace human beings, and that with wires they could awaken something similar to life, love or rebellion. I would look at this dark posibily like an overestimation of machines or a great offense agianist life”. Curious, considering that the Industrial Revolution was at least 50 years and some machines had already replaced men in certain productive activities.
And while I’m at it, another subject that kind of falls into this one: Skynet. Yes, that Skynet that tries to destroy us all in the Terminator saga (which I love, by the way). I know the first film is from 1984, before internet was the world wide web, and therefore Cameron it was more obvious that the trheat against us came from machines and not software. However, by the third installment (still don’t like it although I conede it has some good points), and with more reason for the fourth one, Skynet starts loosing IQ by the thousands in my opinion: you have to be an idiot to try and erase the human race using rather expensive (at least timewise) and inefficient machines, cyborgs, when with a good virus or bacteria you could get a far better result, much cheaper and in a far shorter amount of time. Just remember the speed for the A H1N1 virus to reach all parts of the world. Ok, it’s not a very deadly virus, but imagine if it was, if it was a lot more contagious and deadly. We wouldn’t stand a chance. So, really, in 2026 is Skynet going to keep at it using ever more sofisticated cyborgs that, at the most, manage to kill a few hundreds of people (and some not even that, considering how many failed to kill John and Sara Connor). Oh, give me a break!
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And as a final note, here are the photos of my tin robot collection, along with some honourable exceptions:
Y para terminar, van las fotos de mis robots:
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This is one of the most special ones. It’s French and of a limited release. It’s probably one of the “best” (“collectibly” speaking) i have.
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One of my favourites. A unique pace handcrafted and bought in a flea market in Mexico City.
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A Japanese limited edition of a black R2 from Episode 1. It comes with a mini laser sable that serves as a remote control to make it move, rotate and make noises. Unfortunately, mine doesn’t work. I’ve however got a white one and plan to repair this one. (Time, if only I had more time available or 60-hours day).
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I got this little guy in Burma! I was surprised they actually did send it to me.
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I had to have a photographer robot, right?…
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This is one of the smallest I have and one of those honorable plastic exceptions in my collection. And I’ve had it since I was like nine years old… and it still works!
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What about the toad’s eyes this one has?
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All together now… here are the plastic ones.
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The only she-robot I’ve got and look at the space monkey about to make some mischief.
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Funny. The last to robots to enter my collection have three things in common: 1: they were presents (Hanna gave me the programable Wall-E I can’t play with because Macavity gets extremely jelous of it, and Crusli gave me the tiny one I absolutely adore). 2: They’re both yellow. 3: they’re both honorable plastic exceptions.
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Chris and Marcel gave me this with original drawings and stills from the film “Robots” when I told them I collected —and loved— robots. It’s also got Carlos Saldanha’s autograph. Isn’t it the gratest?
Yes, I know it’s not a robot, but it’s a tin toy and I’ve had it since the time I had my very first robot (so when I was about six or seven). And this was my other favourite toy. Fortunately this one survives and it’s the original one, so it’s here as a special guest. And it’s probably the reason I would LOVe to have an F40 Ferrari or a California Ferrari. If only I were filthy rich!
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I know I’d posted them already, but this is how I usually display them. I love the difference in size and it’s as if Wall-E was looking out for the little guy.
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