When Will the Robots Take Over?

Written by Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema

The robots might have taken over already. There’s enough artificial intelligence out there to write this blog without human intervention. Computers can already beat chess masters by brute computational force. And look! Google Translate can change this into Norwegian: Google oversetter kan oversette denne bloggen. Vel, I kan probably måken thaten up mysefen withouten any programvare. But anyway …

For a ReelzChannel segment we did recently, we interviewed Dan Burrus, the author of Technotrends. He made this somewhat scary point about texting: When we text on our phones we have adopted a machine language, behaving more like tippy-tappy automatons than talky, expressive people. Maybe, click by click, we’re edging closer to world robotic domination. But maybe not. Machines need us to type because they’re still too dumb to understand us when we talk – try saying “radio on” to the voice-actuated thingie in your car and it will likely respond “ejector seat ready – prepare to exit.”

Voice recognition glitches aside, robots are trying to do more than ever. Dr. Monika Hagen thinks robots should be able to heal us. She’s been researching robotic surgery at the University of California, San Diego.

“The field is exploding. More and more robots are being sold and more and more procedures are being performed with these robots.” — Dr. Monika Hagen.

Dr. Hagen is developing procedures like minimally invasive abdominal surgery. You move controllers that look suspiciously like a video game and the robot makes the cuts. Don’t try this at home – you do need training.

If you want to worry about something, try this: Robots are already learning how to build themselves. How long before they build very sophisticated versions of themselves – enough to become self aware? When a computer becomes aware of itself you could say it achieves consciousness. After that happens, what’s the only difference between you and your laptop? A soul. When machines become self aware it will likely push us toward forging a new definition of the soul and a new quest for scientific proof that it exists uniquely in humans.

Remember the movie “21 Grams?” The title comes from the belief that the body loses 21 grams as the soul leaves the body. The number comes from research conducted in 1907 by Dr. Duncan MacDougall. He made a special bed built upon scales. He placed patients who were dying on it and measured what happened when they expired. Unfortunately, his results were wildly inconsistent – only one of his six test subjects lost 21 grams at death. But people want to believe in the soul – so much so that they want to believe it has an actual, measurable weight. It’s not very scientific, but it is poetic and intensely human. It will be a long time before any machine comes up with a belief system like that.

Or as we say in Norwegian, Det vil være en lang tid før maskinen kommer opp med en tro systemet sånn. (Thanks, Google Translator.)

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Weapons of Mass Distraction

Larry Gelbart, writer of “M*A*S*H,” and “Tootsie,” wrote an HBO movie called “Weapons of Mass Distraction.” The title is one of the best things about it.

Mass distractions distract everyone from thinking about war, help us stop thinking about Dick Cheney or the share price of AT&T. Mass distractions help keep us focused on which guy with sticky hair will win “American Idol” and encourage us to become hypnotized by Britney Spears, a mentally unstable hillbilly.

I’m not coming at this from a cultural mountaintop. I’m a veteran of E! Entertainment Television, have produced bio-docs on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Warren Beatty and have been doing pop culture movie segments for ReelzChannel. I’m in this pop culture thing really deep, ok? Lots of my colleagues in cable are doing great things melding pop culture with science. Exciting pop media is on the horizon with iPhone and Motorola phone aps. I get that pop culture is a powerful engine. But who’s driving?

Diane Keaton: It’s so clean out here [in Los Angeles.]
Woody Allen: That’s because they don’t throw their garbage away, they turn it into television shows.

– “Annie Hall.”

It’s relaxing to watch garbage on TV, more relaxing than taking out the real garbage. (“Is that starting to smell bad, or is it the television?”) People say mass media is dead, but nearly 29 million people watched the finale of American Idol. The most popular video on YouTube has been viewed about 56 million times. The pop audience is big and it’s a cultural powerhouse.

“We need better shows.”
- Jeff Zucker, chief executive of NBC Universal, quoted in the New York Times.

Zucker’s network is struggling in the ratings so making better shows seems an admirable directive. But what does better mean? I’m willing to bet that for Zucker and his product placement guru Ben Silverman, better means servicing the advertisers who pay for the shows. Judging by the garbage NBC puts on they haven’t been thinking much about the viewers.

Why do they put garbage on TV, anyway? Because people will watch it. If people will watch singers singing off key, that’s what goes on. Network TV programming, like banking these days, is a remarkably morality-free occupation. There is no cabal determining what goes on. (Sorry, Dan Brown, no Illuminati.) It’s all market driven. So who’s driving the culture train? Nobody, really. It’s kind of driving itself.

Here’s the thing: I believe in editors. As in Managing Editors, as in people who make a point of figuring out what might be visionary, necessary and important to know. I believe you can do this and cater to pop culture and mass culture.

Now that I have trashed the soldiers of television and maybe irritated some hard-working and dedicated others who could pay me good money, may I issue a few retractions? Britney Spears is a good entertainer who can draw and hold an audience. Naked celebrities are entertaining. Some of the people on “American Idol” can carry a tune. The dry humor of “The Office” is almost as funny as a real office. Tyra Banks might not be completely evil. Kittens are really cute. Kittenwar.com is an important website that has sucked down hours of my time. Just another weapon of mass distraction.