Journal of Digital Learning, Volume 4 by Bedford-School

JOURNAL OF DIGITAL LEARNING VOLUME 4 , 2021

ARE ROBOTS A THREAT TO HUMANITY?

CONTRIBUTORS 2

05. J A M E S M O F F AT , U P P E R S I X T H 06. Y O N AT H A N S I L E S H I , U P P E R S I X T H 08. KEVIN XU, FIFTH FORM 10. ALFRED WRIGHT, YEAR 8 11. THEO YOUNG, YEAR 8

P R E FA C E The fourth edition of the Journal of Digital Learning takes as its theme the controversial issue as to whether or not robots pose a threat to humanity. Pupils from both the Upper and Prep

Schools submitted entries and we are pleased to present to you a selection of the very best essays. We hope you enjoy them, find them thoughtprovoking and informative.

E D I T E D B Y D R A L B I N W A L L A C E , D I R E C T O R O F D I G I TA L L E A R N I N G

ARE ROBOTS A THREAT TO HUMANITY? J A M E S

M O F F A T ,

As Charles Rubin outlined in an essay on Machine Morality: “some futurists are attempting to take seriously the question of how to avoid a robot apocalypse.” A robot is a machine resembling a human being, able to replicate certain functions automatically. To assess whether robots are a “threat” to humanity it must be considered “likely” and a “moderate impact” on the risk assessment matrix. If robots were to be considered a threat to humanity, legal guidelines on limits to the capacity of robot intelligence should be enforced. The edict is that robots are not currently a threat to humanity, but without the enforcement of legal guidelines, they may be considered one in the future as a result of their ever increasing role as servants of humanity. One may argue that robots are not currently developed enough to pose a risk. In 2011, supercomputer “Watson” went head-tohead with two multi-time winners of the US quiz show “Jeopardy”. Watson demonstrated an encyclopaedic knowledge, captivating viewers with its ability to answer questions from ambiguous clues like: “It’s a poor workman who blames these” to which Watson correctly answered “What are tools?”. Ultimately, Watson won with ~ £50,000 prize money but it wasn’t perfect - repeating mistakes and at times coming up with arbitrary answers. This exemplifies that robots are not quite at the capacity to be considered a threat to humanity since even the smartest do not have the ability to learn from mistakes or fully comprehend certain questions. Another argument to support the concept that robots are not a threat to humanity is that they are tailored to do “good” rather than “bad”. “Robear” is a high-tech robot designed to lift elderly patients from a bed into a wheelchair. This implies that robots are not a threat to humanity because they are, mostly, developed to help people. In the short term critics suggest that caring for the ill and aged will be overtaken by robots in order to increase efficiency and overall well-being 24/7. Unfortunately, many suggest that if robots are to control the medical sector it could lead to mass unemployment which could pose a threat

U P P E R

S I X T H

to humanity. However, this cannot be considered so because although a sector may be “at risk” of automation it does not mean they are “likely to be automated” since the time and money required would be astronomical and as such, at present, it is not a likely risk. Finally, countries are developing AI at exponential rates in order to gain social, military and political advantages. Recently, a Pentagon software-chief resigned in protest announcing that the US “already lost the AI fight to China”. This shows that limits on growth need to be entrenched but also that it is very unlikely to be able to stop increasing intelligence because every country wants to be at an advantage to others. In conclusion, it is clear that robots are not likely to cause damage or danger to our society as of today. Nevertheless, there is a strong argument that in the future this may have to be reconsidered in order to “avoid a robot apocalypse”.

ARE ROBOTS A THREAT TO HUMANITY? YONATHAN SILESHI, UPPER SIXTH

Yes and No. To be more specific, there are different ways robots may be a threat to humanity and it may not be in the way that you think. The idea of robots has been around for many decades now, centuries even. The first ideas of robots dated back to Greek mythology, where Talos the bronze giant, a robot made of bronze, was sent to the Island of Crete as a guard from Hephaestus. This bronze giant was said to be able to carry out feats that the strongest human could not carry out such as throwing boulders onto incoming ships that were not originally from Crete. However, the ensuing ideas are more and more becoming reality. In 1961, a ‘robot’ was able to sing and from there we continued to consider the ideas of robots being integrated into human life. When the question came up of Robots being a threat to humanity, my mind went straight to Isaac Asimov and his book called I, Robot. This book reflects on a future where robots and humans live in a society together. However, the robots have laws implemented in them which prevent any sort of harm to humans or themselves. Although the book is fictional, the laws are an important thing as normal robots would have no other choice but to follow these orders and the tasks they were programmed to do, but what about robots with AI. The worry here is that the AI will become aware of the underlying code in it, and be able to manually change it, to effectively bypass the laws it was given, like a human reconnecting the neurons in their brain. Although that is concerning, I believe with continued development and research into the use of robots, there will be slow introduction of AI robots with more responsibilities in human society, then we would reach a point where we know what to do if a case like this were to happen. This example is since robots will even have the opportunity to change their base code. Now, how are robots a threat to humanity? I

said yes and no, but have not gotten to the point yet. Well, their threats are also benefits to us as well. For example, they are most definitely a threat to future jobs, especially manual ones. But this fear is one with not much thought given into it, it is human nature to have a fear towards the unknown, and given that jobs would be taken, people are scared. However, this is a gift hidden in disguise. As the global population slowly becomes better educated, and there is a key necessity for people to study and gain an education, having robots in manual labor jobs or low income, low education jobs, this would only boost the number of people that gain from it. This would also increase money made in these manual labor jobs due to increased efficiency and this would increase the economy in a country. Therefore, although manual labour jobs would mean some of the next few generations might be affected as they would have no job, education would increase and economy of a country would increase as robots would work low income, low education manual jobs whilst more people worked in high income, high education jobs.

Another threat to humanity, which is more serious, is the involvement of robots to society as key workers such as doctors and policemen. The Da Vinci robot, most known as the robot that performed surgery for complex conditions, is an introduction to using robots in the hospital. Seeming like robots do not suffer from fatigue, and have a higher level of precision, they would be able to complete more successful surgeries. However, an incident with the Da Vinci robot led to a bigger fear to robots. Although the doctor the robot was not trained to do so, the robot still resulted in a failed heart surgery, leading to the death of the patient. Incidents like these will make the public very hesitant to rely that heavily on robots. If robots were to be used as police offers, would they kill someone just for having a gun, if the person is shooting at the robot, should the robot then kill the human

even though a robot may be indestructible? Could a robot possibly snap someone’s arm due to having no constraints on their strength? These questions are what I am more concerned about, as this is a more serious case that could happen if there was a glitch in the robot or the robot gets hacked or something similar. People could possibly lose their lives to a machine. In conclusion, I believe that robots integrated with AI are the biggest threat to humanity due to how unpredictable they can be. No matter how much research occurs, they can still become self-aware and do something they were never meant to do. Some people may believe we deserve this due to playing with the idea of God. However, the other threats I mentioned, may slowly be overcome with continued research and development. It will just require patience and clear set of ethics.

ROBOTICS: A THREAT TO HUMANITY? K E V I N

X U ,

F I F T H

F O R M

Are artificial intelligence and super intelligent

eradicate war, disease, and poverty, and so the cre-

machines the best or worst thing that could ever

ation of strong AI might be the biggest event in

happen to humankind? This has been a question

human history. Some experts have expressed con-

in existence since the 1940s when computer sci-

cern, though, that it might also be the last, unless

entist Alan Turing wondered and began to believe

we learn to align the goals of the AI with ours before

that there would be a time when machines could

it becomes super intelligent.

have an unlimited impact on humanity through a

How can AI be dangerous?

process that mimicked evolution.

If we focus on what’s possible today with AI,

What is AI?

here are some of the potential negative impacts

From SIRI to self-driving cars, artificial intel-

of artificial intelligence that we should consider

ligence (AI) is progressing rapidly. While science

and plan for:

fiction often portrays AI as robots with human-

Change the jobs humans do/job automation:

like characteristics, AI can encompass anything

AI will change the workplace and the jobs that

from Google’s search algorithms to IBM’s Watson

humans do. Some jobs will be lost to AI technol-

to autonomous weapons.

ogy, so humans will need to embrace the change

Artificial intelligence today is properly known as narrow AI (or weak AI), in that it is designed to

and find new activities that will provide them the social and mental benefits their job provided.

perform a narrow task (e.g. only facial recognition

AI-enabled terrorism: Artificial intelligence will

or only internet searches or only driving a car).

change the way conflicts are fought from auton-

However, the long-term goal of many research-

omous drones, robotic swarms, and remote and

ers is to create general AI (AGI or strong AI). While

nanorobot attacks. In addition to being concerned

narrow AI may outperform humans at whatever its

with a nuclear arms race, we'll need to monitor the

specific task is, like playing chess or solving equa-

global autonomous weapons race.

tions, AGI would outperform humans at nearly every

Myths about the risks of superhuman AI

cognitive task.

Many AI researchers roll their eyes when seeing

Why research AI safety?

this headline: “Stephen Hawking warns that rise

The goal of keeping AI’s impact on society ben-

of robots may be disastrous for mankind.” And as

eficial motivates research, in many areas. From

many have lost count of how many similar articles

economics and law to technical topics such as ver-

they’ve seen. Typically, these articles are accompa-

ification, validity, security, and control. Whereas it

nied by an evil-looking robot carrying a weapon,

may be little more than a minor nuisance if your

and they suggest we should worry about robots

laptop crashes or gets hacked, it becomes more

rising and killing us because they’ve become con-

important that an AI system does what you want

scious and/or evil. On a lighter note, such articles

it to do if it controls your car. Another short-term

are rather impressive, because they succinctly sum-

challenge is preventing a devastating arms race in

marize the scenario that AI researchers don’t worry

lethal autonomous weapons.

about. That scenario combines as many as three

In the long term, a vital question is what will happen if the quest for strong AI succeeds, and

separate misconceptions: concern about consciousness, evil, and robots.

an AI system becomes better than humans at all

The robot misconception is related to the myth

cognitive tasks. As being claimed out by I.J. Good

that machines can’t control humans. Intelligence

in 1965, designing smarter AI systems is itself a

enables control: humans control tigers not because

cognitive task. Such a system could potentially

we are stronger, but because we are smarter. This

undergo recursive self-improvement, triggering

means that if we cede our position as smartest on

an intelligence explosion leaving human intellect

our planet, it’s possible that we might also cede

far behind. By inventing revolutionary new tech-

control.

nologies, such a superintelligence might help us

ARE ROBOTS A THREAT TO HUMANITY? WHAT I THINK... ALFRED WRIGHT, YEAR 8

I do not think robots are a threat to humanity because many robots and machines were created to help us, like Siri or Alexa. Siri and Alexa are meant to make life around the house and outside a lot easier by just telling a phone or a device what you want. Another reason why, in my opinion, robots are not a threat to humanity is because even though they are advanced they will not ever be as advanced as humans because of the human brain. The only way some robot might be a threat to humanity is if someone with bad intentions programmed one to do evil things. The way robots are programmed is made for robots not to be evil or do anything bad. although some people think robots are going to take over the world in the future and that they could become more advanced than humans, robots have been created to help people and not for anything bad. The things that robots can do is incredible, also the people making robots have a responsibility to make sure the robots are programmed correctly.

Take Apple for example, they’ve made AI and These technologies were made to help people, not for perpetuating evil. Humans can live without robots and technology but there is no doubt it would be a lot harder because of how used we are to living with technology and how long we have been living with technology. There have been some people talking about how in war robots would be better fighters than humans because of their endurance and what they’re made of, but it is uncertain whether or not this is going to happen. The AI robots are amazing inventions that should never be a threat to humanity because of the way they are designed, and the morals of the people who make them. Apple and Microsoft have hired professional technologists to make sure the products do not have any malfunctions and to make sure the products work perfectly so nothing happens that could have a negative impact. There should be no reason for anyone to think robots are a threat to humanity because of the points I have made above.

ARE ROBOTS A THREAT TO HUMANITY? THEO YOUNG, YEAR 8

Are robots a threat to humanity? It is a difficult question to answer as the earth’s technology is developing daily. There are many different types of robots and AI all the way from iPhones and desktops, to robotic animals and humans. Also, there are two sides to this argument. On one side of the argument, they are a threat to jobs and humans themselves, but not for the reason you may think. Robots are a potential threat to jobs because for repetitive tasks they are essentially super humans, as they can work out the toughest equations in a matter of milliseconds. They will never die and they can do really complex things based on just a simple programme. These reasons may eventually reduce job options, mostly because robots can never stop working and they are considerably more efficient than humans. A study claims that robots could take over up to 20 million jobs by 2030! Additionally, it predicts that the number of robots in the workplace has increased to 2.25 million. Another threat that they may be posing is that they may be taking over our daily lives. if you look

around you in the streets, most people will either be on their phone or with ear plugs in, even though this is considered normal now (because people have work on their phone) people are becoming addicted to them. Scientists have discovered that teenagers that are addicted or have problems getting off their phones are more likely to have anxiety, depression and sleeping disorders. This is how they are taking over our lives in a negative way. Although they can be addictive, and take over our jobs, they can also be used for good. For example, in certain surgeries, there are some robots that can assist with heart and keyhole surgeries on humans. They can be life changing due their steady arms and amazingly efficient processors. There are some companies that use robots to deliver food to houses. This can be useful for people who live alone or who are disabled. In conclusion, robots have a role to play in our future, but must be used wisely so that they can enhance our lives rather than overwhelm them.