A sci-fi author is suggesting that humanity's dominion over robots may
dramatically shift in the next few decades as automatons begin to
outnumber people.
Based on his calculations, Logan Streondj believes that it is only a matter of time before humans are outnumbered by robots.
He explains that, by comparing birth rates with robot production rates
and then extrapolating forward, the number of people and robots 'born'
per year will be the same in 2040.
It's all downhill from there as robots would overtake humans in
population by the early 2050's and outnumber people 10 to 1 by around
the year 2070.
While this may sound like a simple mathematical exercise, Streondj
posits that a conflict between humans and robots will ultimately arise
due to this population parity.
Provided they have the sufficient artificial intelligence to do so,
which seem likely, future robots will eventually realize how vastly they
outnumber humans and may decide to assert themselves over their
creators.
And, thus, the robot apocalypse begins.
For more on the rise of robots, check out software developer Martin Ford's appearance on last night's C2C where he discussed how robots are poised to take a myriad of jobs from humans in the near future.
There will be as many robots as there are humans within the next 24 to 39 years, according to a blog post published yesterday by a writer who is penning a new science fiction novel.
Logan Streondj, a software programmer and author,
wanted to figure out when the population of robots will reach that of
humans for his book titled “A home for robots or-else artilect war.”
Streondj used a variety of sources to determine the date. First, he turned to statistics website World Counts,
which states there are roughly 350 thousand humans born every day, the
equivalent of 130 million a year. The growth rate is around 1%.
Then he turned to the International Federation of Robotics, which
states there were about five million robots produced in 2014 (when
combining service and industrial robots), with a growth rate of around
15%.
“Using a compound interest calculator and presuming rates stay
relatively constant, [it’s possible to] figure out that in around 25
years (2040) parity will be reached — the number of robots and humans
being produced per year will be the same,” wrote Streondj on the Joyful Lifestyle Cooperative blog.
“However, while homo-sapiens live on average 70 years, according to World Fact Book,
robots have a life expectancy closer to 10 years, so would need to
produce about seven times more robots per year in order to have the same
number as humans which will be reached in the early 2050s. If, however,
there is no assistance from humans fighting for the entitlements of
robots, and the robots are forced to revolt by themselves, likely they
would do so when outnumbering humans 10 to 1, which would (assuming
trends continue) be in 55 years, or around 2070.”
A robot can be defined as a machine capable of carrying out a complex
series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a
computer, according to Oxford Dictionairies.
Streondj said he needed to come up with a realistic timeline for when a conflict could occur between humans and robots.
“Intuitively it would seem to be around the time when there are as
many or more robots than homo-sapiens on the planet, at which point
there may be enough sufficiently intelligent robots to demand a space
for themselves,” he said. “The most likely time-frame for an artilect
war style conflict would be between 2040 and 2055.”
An artificial intellect (or “artilect”) is a computer intelligence
superior to that of humans in one or more spheres of knowledge, together
with an implicit will to use the intelligence, according to AI researcher Dr Hugo de Garis.
Renowned scientists, such as Stephen Hawking and Oxford University’s
Nick Bostrom, have warned that machines could outsmart humans within the
next hundred years. Hawking told the BBC in 2014 that artificial
intelligence could spell the end for humanity, while Bostrom agrees that the future of the human race is likely to be shaped by machines.
Billionaires like PayPal founder Elon Musk and Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates have also expressed their concerns over the uncontrolled development of AI. However, many other scientists in the field, such Microsoft Research chief Eric Horvitz, say AI fears have been greatly overblown.
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