How long do we have until robots take over the world?

2 years, 5 months, 2 days.

Twelve years, three months, seven days and five hours. I can tell you to the second, if you wish.

ah shit. @bpeoples got there first!

Until the distant future… the year… TWO THOUSAND.

A relevant article: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/28/ethics-of-robots-tha.html

And the word is robophobia. And if it isn’t, it should be!

I will never let the robots take me, I would prefer zombies to robots.

They will never take over. They are dependant on us and we know their many weaknesses.

The robots already did, we are depending 24/7 on computers. Our faith lies in electronics.

@martin86 at this point the computers serve us so they have not taken over the world.

@jamielynn2328 But what about when they interbreed? Robozomies! We’re all doomed. Doomed I say!

@Dog If they stop serving us all at once, we are nowhere. That means control, that means they’ve taken over.

Anyone who can camp knows how to survive without computers.

Sure we would do things differently and without fluther it would be freakishly dull but we will all be just fine.

Bear Grylls: Ultimate Survival (.. without computers!)

@martijn86 Bear Grylls has nothing on Les Stroud, the real survivorman.

Frankenstein Complex?

Unless a robot, or robots, are programmed to take over the Earth I doubt it will happen. Steven Pinker kind of addresses this in his book “How The Mind Works.”

@se_ven We should start using that term! The other closest things are automatonophobia, a fear of inanimate objects that represents sentient beings, so like statues, dummies, robots etc, and technophobia, which is a fear of all technology. Neither really covers the specific fear of robots only, which I think is probably a pretty legit phobia to have.

In a sense they already have. most factories today are dependent on robots and they have replaced most of the workers.
Today’s economy is dependant on cheap and fast mass production, which in turn is dependant on robots. That means without robots, western society as we know it would collapse.
Robots have already taken over the world, without them knowing it.

@mrentropy: All they need is ambition; ambition taken to an extreme means taking over the world. And even ambition doesn’t necessarily need to be programmed—a sense of self-worth, with the desire to improve one’s self, could instill that. And even that could spontaneously arise is a robot somehow gets a sense of self!

Let me just say that I for one welcome our metallic overlords.

I don’t see the Borg coming down to assimilate us into their collective until…....never. As far as machines becoming completely autonomous and free thinking like in the Terminator movies…..never. Having automated servants (androids?) like those found in the film Bicentennial Man who eventually have emotions and other human like abilities added? Um, never. Robo-phobia perhaps?

@Bluefreedom
why not?
there is no reason why it could not happen.

you mean it hasn’t happened already? sure feels like it has. :p

It is too late. The robots have indeed already taken over! The sheeple people robot people are running the show dudes.

Humans will never be obsolete:

1. Computers need humans to maintain them and to keep the software running.

2. Computers are made of degradeable parts and fail over just a few years.

3. In the very unlikely event of an uprising against humans we know the many weaknesses that will destroy computers and can defeat them easily.

@Dog
1. Only until they gain the ability to maintain themselves or each other.
2. So are humans and human components fail even faster. We have the advantage of regeneration. Robots could simply exchange faulty parts with new ones.
3. It is more likely that humans will underestimate their adversary and ignore the threat long enough for it to become unstoppable. Furthermore, to defeat them you would have to destroy all of them in one single attack, otherwise they will adapt and remove the weakness.

The Flight of the Conchords have something to say on this issue.

They cannot maintain themselves as they cannot feel a component before it fails.

To defeat them you remove their power sorece or introduce water. Since they do not reproduce you need not destroy them all at once.

Without man they are vulnerable to the elements.

Eventually they will. But it is all over in 2012 so dont you worry.

“They cannot maintain themselves as they cannot feel a component before it fails.”
Internal self diagnostics. Already used on the Leopard 2 MBT to find faulty parts easily without disassembling the tank. Just plug in the laptop and look what is wrong.

“To defeat them you remove their power sorece”
You would have to get close enough to remove the power source. especially problematic if they have an internal powersource, like a hydrogen fuel cell, miniature nuclear reactor, zero point energy generator, etc.

“or introduce water”
To get water into their system, same problem, getting close enough. Also assumes their cases are not waterproof. Furthermore, their entire circuitry could be optical and and their actual power source isolated, and therefore impervious to water.

“Since they do not reproduce you need not destroy them all at once.”
They could reproduce by taking over/building a factory start producing parts and assembling offspring. Alternatively there is the option of nanotechnology “growing” their offspring out of rawmaterials.

“They are very delicate and vulnerable.”
You can drop cellphones from several metres high and they will only have a scratch.
Modern battletanks, fighter aircraft etc are full of electronics and computers and they are sturdy enough to withstand the stresses of a battlefield.

@ekans That’s what I was quoting above! :D My favorite bit is the binary solo.

“In the beginning there was man, and for a time it was good….but mankind’s so-called civil societies soon fell victim to vanity and corruption…. Then man made the machine, in his own likeness…thus would man become the architect of his own demise…but for a time it was good. The machines worked tirelessly to do man’s bidding. Though loyal and pure the machines earned no respect from their masters…these strange endlessly multiplying mammals…”

…sometime before 2047 if the U.S. Air Force has anything to do with it.

It’s already happened. We just don’t know it.

Have you checked to see if Obama is a robot or not?

@benjaminlevi
a muslim, kenian, arab and since recently, british robot.

@ragingloli Was he only constructed there or is he actually an English citizen? Also, could an android be knighted?

Won’t happen. But humans might merge with robots and form a man-machine species.

I look foward to the day when the robot overlords take over.

Hopefully, they might put some sort of logic to the chaos and do a better job of running than the current (and previous) set of clueless imbeciles have done.

[I can’t wait for the day of Borg assimilation]

Ya know, that borg queen was hot. ;-)

What do robots want? I have trouble imagining a robot CEO wanting a billion dollar bonus.

Once free will and self expression is included into their programming. A good CEO does need to be creative.

You just might end up some Robots bitch. :-)

Actually that is what we already are. Sitting in front of our PC. Waiting for then next witty comment, e-mail or new hack. Twisting in your chair reduced to a child doing the pee-pee dance.

If would consider the technological singularity as robots (with enhanced AI) taking over the world, some predictions are as early as 2017. It might be a case of robots taking over, after they have merged with human intelligence.

I do not think they will ever take over. There are always things that only humans can do. And just like the Matrix, robots can only really “take over” if humans allow them to.