do we deserve to perish in a nuclear holocaust?

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There are several factors here. One of the most important is the unpredictability of the future. The assumption of a smooth development curve, either linear or geometric, is very tricky. Early in the development of the computer IBM experts predicted that six or seven computers were all that were necessary for the needs of the world. I remember when IBM ridiculed the Apple II back in the 1970's as a silly toy and finally put out a highly inferior model themselves before they realized the potential of the market.
A compact nuclear power supply has been a dream ever since Einstein proclaimed E=MC^2 and atomic power is still expensive, dangerous, bulky, and extremely messy and very environmentally unfriendly in its totality. Like fusion power it is always about 30 to 50 years in the future and likely to remain there. But, you never know. The mismanagement of the current fission units with their accidents and secretive policies of not revealing dangerous mistakes and unwise economic maintenance does not make the whole business very reassuring.
Economically robotics seems to be progressing nicely as long as the parties in power control the means of production and perhaps, eventually, will efficiently replace all the sweat shops, child and slave labor groups etc. that are lowering the wage scales throughout the world. The promised elevation of the quality of work in the West does not seem to be realized as skilled people are being pushed into low paying service jobs as skilled work moves to the Far East and it becomes very evident that there is no lack of talent in those populations. Strangely large corporations do not seem to make the connection that if they pay their workers less they may temporarily gain in competitive costs but also lose greatly in the slightly longer run in having a reduced market to purchase their output. Very efficient automatic production not only changes the whole labor management environment, it radically undermines the capability of consumers to purchase output and makes the economic gains a destructive weapon against the whole money system. Insofar as robotics is concerned the entire replacement of a major part of the work force by robots could only lead to Luddite revolts on a massive scale that might upset or destroy entire social systems and set robotics back totally. Military robots are another matter but essentially governments have to provide for humanity, not robots and I have no idea where that will end up.

In essence, a very successful robotic system will totally upset human social affairs through its rendering of current economic systems as completely wrong headed and civilization may well be headed for chaos and self destruction without the necessity of an atomic armageddon.

That was kind of my point.



So, what about nuclear power?

The early concept of huge safe nuclear power in tiny containers which are a basic necessity for efficient robots and other mechanical equipment freed from dependence upon continual renewal from very temporary and weak sources still remains a dream and a very remote but real possibility. It's still science-fiction.

To a great degree I sympathize with your disdain and horror of humanity and its long and current history of brutality and stupidity but I suspect even you must detect within humanity great possibilities in a positive direction. I have a hunch that a total transition to robotics will merely duplicate much of the waste and destruction of human history in a different medium that is not quite so attuned to the flux of energy and matter that produced humanity and it seems to me that a meld of the two approaches would be far more successful than a total discarding of humanity but that requires a radical transformation which may or may not take place. In anycase, it will involve conflicts of its own nature that, considering past history, will be long and cruel and perhaps not successful.

They don't have to use nuclear power.



Machines are cold. They don't need to have self-interests or anything else that would make them behave with cruelty to their own kind.

And, no, they're not biological, but they are a part of nature. Everything is, and robots and computers are as capable of taking advantage of the benefits of features of biological life as we are. It's amazing how many things can be reduced to formal systems. Doesn't this fern look so real?

I've seen the fern thing which only indicates that the pattern has a mathematical basis. But all things have a mathematical basis. Robots don't need nuclear power, true, but it sure as hell would be more convenient that copulating every couple of hours with an electrical system.

The concept that machines are cold and humans are warm or hot is a pure fantasy based on human standards. Viewed from a neutral stance humans are equally cold and the mayhem that humans create and disseminate derives from totally cold internal calculations that most frequently neglect points that machines are equally capable of misinterpreting. Machines will no doubt destroy each other in stupid and useless conflicts as easily as humans and if they are given in their programs "warmth" they no doubt will behave appropriately. Humans are just a different variety of machine.

If these robots will be there to stay on earth, they need the mechanisms to sustain themselves. If their metals or whatever materials oxidate or wear off, they need some mechanism to renew themselves or recycle or reproduce. So each individual robot has a self-interest in maintaining itself. If each robot does not have this egoism, they would not survive.

If robots are given the capabilities to sustain themselves they probably will. And when one group of robots nails down an essential material or component for survival there will no doubt be some motivation for conflict from another robot group to take it away. The one outstanding characteristic robots have is that they can think and react faster so the old history of conflict and destruction might, in a robot civilization, take place faster and might be even more destructive.

The name traditionally ascribed to this policy is "genocide."

The term genocide is usually applied to the elimination of a specific minority, usually for the satisfaction of rabid politicians who are in the market to control a national majority. The generalized destruction of entire nations or species, which DNForest seems to favor is much more democratic and more in the spirit of restoring some sort of balance to the number and variety of all life at the cost of indiscriminate murder of much of his (her?) own species and should be regarded as psychopathic homicide or mass murder, seemingly for the satisfaction of the pure lust to kill with little expectation of any long term benificial effects.

Is the informal name "awesomeness"?

One of the rather peculiar assumptions in this discussion is in the nature of robots. Humans, when threatened as a group, would tend to rally around their species which probably is an outcome of their biological source. Robots, on the other hand, are no more loyal to other robots than a hammer or a saw or an electric toaster is loyal to another hammer or saw or electric toaster. Robots are just tools which will do what their director demands at whatever object the director decides to manipulate. No doubt an artificial intellect could be a director just as well as a human but humans, ultimately, design artificial intelligences for a human purpose, whether that purpose is well conceived or not. When an automobile carelessly runs over a pedestrian it is not the automobile but the driver that is prosecuted. When automobiles become more autonomous and require little or no supervision to transport their contents I still doubt the automobiles will be held responsible for an accident any more than a thunder storm is held legally responsible for striking somebody dead with lightning. A robot controlled civilization is ultimately responsible to someone who designed the robots even though thr robots themselves may be more effective than a human doing the same job. Somewhere in there there is always a human being.

Tell me something Sand: do you HONESTLY believe that it is somehow impossible or infeasible for technology to outdo biology?
If so, WHY? Contemporary robotics and information technology still has a Long way to go before being equal to humans but I see NO REASON WHY it would not be possible for it to catch up to biology some time in the future,

Secondly: do you believe that *intelligence*, including sentience, is somehow intrinsically linked to biology such that they are physically inseperable-that is, nothing other than a biological system is capable of it.

Thirdly: Nuclear batteries do NOT use nuclear fission or fusion! They use a thermocouple to convert radiation into electricity.
Radioactive decay is the direct conversion of matter into energy. Energy can be transduced from one form to another. That means that radioactive decay can be converted into HEAT, and heat can be converted into electricity.

Sure.

Barring some kind of 'hive mind'.

If one of the drones has to sacrifice itself for the colony, so be it.

No, I believe human technology is quite capable of creating sentient robots. But I am also aware that there are great difficulties in creating a radical new life form with all the capabilities that organic life has exhibited since it requires a radical and huge and very dependable network of supporting technologies. The support system for organic life is largely dependent upon sunlight (there are exceptions) which is universal and water and fertile matrices to elaborate that energy into usable and dependable form. Nevertheless that matrix has been violated many times by natural forces causing famines and diseases and and other life endangering circumstances that have eliminated whole species very quickly. The organic base of life is extremely resiliant and has, over a period of millions of years, permitted life to bounce back and evolve new and better adapted forms. Robots as they are presently conceived have nowhere near the resiliency and adaptability and flexibility of the organic life base. When and if they do achieve this resiliency it is probably very likely that their basic component units will resemble to a large extent the basic components of organic life. This is the cell which is an ingenious computer with fantastic capabilities which are still very much of a mystery in its operations although much is being learned. If you think computer life will be immune to diseases designed to attack them then you live in a dreamworld. And there will evolve computers designed specifically to live off other computers much as in th organic world. There are constants for life of whatever form that are universal and just because life can be what may be termed inorganic does not mean that certain patterns will not persist. And, as I said before, as computers and robots advance, humans will incorporate them into their physiology, as they are beginning to do today so I doubt there will be a pure robot society as such. It makes no sense.

I am aware that nuclear batteries have been used on satellites for long life but I sincerely doubt that nuclear power as a heat generator would be useful for robot power as it would require extremely high temperatures to gain the power needed for a good sized machine of any strength and the intense radiation even in current fission power reactors is highly destructive of structures and difficult to control and made safe. Perhaps some nuclear reaction that could generate electrons directly might be functional but I have not heard of such. It's possible but it requires a whle subculture of manufacture that would also have to be robotic and, in effect, mirror the agriculture systems that power human life. That's an awful lot of stuff and it cannot be developed easily and quickly.

Only barring a hive mind scenario, which is both more appealing and more likely.



Hydrogen fuel cells

I didn't get any further email notifications on this thread, which I find interesting. I guess WP is exercising its power of censorship.