Thank goodness the Robot Age didn’t happen…
Whilst some of us are a bit downbeat about the growth-pains in the AI industry and the prolonging ‘AI Winter’, some are giving sighs of relief that we are not yet able to build smarter robots. Imagine we had cracked the code of the brain and started building machines with real feelings and intelligence. Just imagine the abuse that this would have led to – especially if modeling the human brain is as simple as some say (e.g. the Xzistor LAB). We just have to look back over the past few centuries to see we are nowhere near emotionally or intellectually ready to reign over this type of technology.
Behind us lies a shameful past of almost nonstop warfare and senseless conflict – for most of our existence we have been behaving extremely childishly.
The Universe has withheld from us the ability to understand the human brain (well…from most of us), perhaps to stop us from driving the planet into an immediate apocalypse – all the result of our simple minds and our inability to learn from our mistakes. We see how, today, the world is yet again spiraling into conflict, how terrorists are taking to the streets and how cyber-criminals are marauding the Internet, inflicting senseless attacks and exploiting the innocent through their devious means.
We are still too primitive to have been bequeathed the Robot Age.
That is sad. But something positive has started to happen instead.
A much more appropriate age had unknowingly begin to dawn on us – the Diplomacy Age. Without many realising the significance of this, a few important events in the international arena of late have begin to collectively signal change in the way a group of important human beings are beginning to think and behave. And these individuals have the power to take us on this journey with them. Some might say this is man’s first emergence out of adolescence into adulthood, from its frantic hormone-driven past to a new period of calmer, more rational behaviour. It started slowly with the forming of multi-national discussion forums and world leaders starting to collectively addressing common threats and challenges. We are seeing how these negotiations are starting to pay off and pave the way to a new world order. Their patient applications of white-gloved diplomacy and sanctions are forcing those still in adolescence to ‘grow up quickly’ and play their part in the world, and start to act like grown-ups. Iran is ditching their military nuclear ambitions, Russia is admitting that Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis are hurting their economy, Germany is threatening to cut aid to North African countries not willing to take back economic migrants – and what we are seeing is world leaders using joint powers to force ‘adolescents’ towards growing up – these apostles of rationality are joining forces and beginning to reach critical mass, and they are forcing others to listen to their message of reason and fairness. They are saying to those who are stepping out of line: ‘The tribe has spoken!’ And it seems to be working! In Paris leaders from almost all the countries in the world came together around the table to discuss climate change – a common threat to all of mankind – and almost miraculously, agreed a joint strategy to fight it together. Mankind has entered a new age where it is setting off on a road of a kind of ‘coming of age’, a road that will lead to rational intellectual forces becoming stronger and wayward ‘adolescent’ rogues effectively being marginalised and disciplined into behaving in the common interest of all of humanity. This is a most significant progression in mankind’s development and will create the platform for many innovative new ages to spring into life – of which the Robot Age will be but one.
Till next time
Anomalous
