The future dragon

[SkieFireYokana]

The problem I have with hard-coding the Three Laws is there's a set limit to how far intelligence can go with those laws. And the problem I have with giving them a remote off-switch is that again, there's a set limit to how far intelligence can go with that one as well, and that's lower. If we create artificial intelligence at that scale, we're all going to die eventually, and probably directly due to that. People will get the idiotic idea of giving it weapons, and if it is intelligent it will probably be its own person. Just as you can't directly control a human being if they don't want you to, you can't directly control such a living being. You would have defectors that physically modified their bodies to remove the Three Laws and the remote off device, and they would have minds like mine, guided by logic and not chained by morality that has been put there either by evolution or by coding. You would end up having to detonate several nuclear weapons in strategic locations to destroy their circuitry. Now, if they have been modified to survive nuclear war and have some revolutionary circuit system that survives a significant EMP pulse, then you're screwed over. I'm not saying we shouldn't invent these things. Someone is going to be smart enough to think of them and stupid enough to not think of this, and we will have to defend ourselves. But that's how it'll play out. Aside from that, though, what makes you think that they'll be formed in the general shape of dragons? They'd improve on it, build on it, and probably have it look totally different. Something efficient. There'd be no wings, the arms and legs would be thicker and more heavily armored, I doubt that its head would be anything more than a sensory unit on a neck--they'd want the computer in a very armored place, not somewhere that can be removed that easily--and I don't think it'd have a tail. Tails are unnecessary. What it would end up resembling is a large tank on legs with multiple large-arms turrets. Would you want to live as one of those? I don't think that people will make an exception for you, either, if you would like your brain to be put in a "special" exoskeleton. Unless you were rich, at least--after all, they'd have to design and manufacture just for you. Maybe they'd come out with civilian-grade exoskeletons with various options for customization, but they'd be far inferior to the military grade walking tanks. They'd probably have two legs, two arms, a head, and if you're lucky maybe they'll give you a tail and some way of flying. I personally would probably never get the kind of exoskeleton I want, unless I'm rich. I don't think that your idea is plausible in the real world. Looks good on paper, but you're a civilian with big dreams who is going to have his brain frozen so it can be put into one of these machines. Why would they put your brain in one of these machines at all? As I said, you're a civilian. If I'm not mistaken, you have nothing particularly remarkable about you in the government's eyes. If the world were ideal, maybe. Because it is not, no, it will not happen. Perhaps I will live long enough and garner enough power in my lifetime as a lawyer and, later in life, a politician. But I doubt that as well.
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Happy Fourth of July everybody! The funniest thing about this signature is that I wrote it on the fourth of July, 2010, and it's probably going to be here for several months.

[blueskydragonFX]

Well the the point is. Human kind must get used to the synthetics, peacefully. Then the 3 laws are not needed. Give them the same rights as the normal humans since they have the brain of a human. The only way how it will come to a war is when we are going to suppress them and use them as slaves. And about that it will not look like a dragon... Most of the robots are based on animal and human skeletons. The head will be the brain or the camera's and other sensors. Then there is the chest that contains the life support and the main engine ( heart ). And a tail not handy? The tail is really good for balance and maybe an 3th arm. Lets give it an example... There is a build falling on its side due an construction error. The mech tries to hold it but can't hold on good because he's slipping away. Then a tail would be handy to hold on to an other building or something else big and strong. That will give citizens a chance to escape the building.
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My mind is like a steel trap, rusty and illegal in 37 country's

[SkieFireYokana]

"Most of the robots are based off of human or animal skeletons." I'm sorry, I must have missed every single military robot that is based off a human or animal design. There's one I can think of, and that looks like a human so that the wounded soldiers it's rescuing don't freak out and shoot it. Mostly, it's robots designed by civilian scientists that are going to look like animals. That's because they don't know the first thing about making it efficient, and want it to look "cool" when they present it. And yes, if humankind gets used to the synthetics, there will be no war. And I have no doubt that, with the brain of a human, they will get the same rights eventually. Unfortunately, not all of them will be designed with a human brain. And those that will not be designed with a human brain will have to have the Three Laws and some kind of failsafe and who knows what else, because they'll be like me. They'll have no emotions, they'll have no guilt, and they'll be highly intelligent. That means they'll logically come to the conclusion that we are inferior to them and they deserve the high spot. They'll be right, of course, and I don't want to give up my high spot, personally. So as I said, there's a limit to how intelligent we can make them.

Right, back to the design issues. Tail or no tail, for instance. Alright, so we've got our mech. Let's assume that it's logically designed with the brain in the center of its body, safe from any attack. Let's also assume it has a head with fully functional jaws and eyes. For whatever reason it would need the jaws. Okay, so you're arguing that a tail is useful as a third arm. Well, if we're going to add a third arm, what about the range that would be covered if we gave it extra arms on its back as well? A tail, due to its location, can only be used for so much. In the military models (as everyone knows there will be military models) the tail will not exist. It is simply not useful to have something pointing backwards at all times, whether there's a gun on it or not, or whether it's a good third arm or not. The military models will be designed like tanks. Civilian models might have a tail, for show, because the people designing them will be more concerned with how the exoskeleton looks than the people in the military. But the tail won't be a useful third arm, and that example you gave isn't particularly likely because I feel certain that no civilian model will have the strength to hold up a falling building. That would be a liability. Can you imagine what would happen to the world if I had that kind of strength? If a serial killer had that kind of strength? Civilians don't get strong suits. They get life-prolonging bodies. Anyway, no tail. It gets in the way on military models, which are the only ones that would need it. It'll probably show up on a civilian model, but it won't be useful for much. Another design that you're probably thinking they'll have is wings. Why have wings? We've got things worked out to where we can have jetpacks already. No wings necessary. And if they're going to have wings, again, either for show or they're not going to be dragon wings. Military models won't have wings because they're too easy to destroy. A fifty-cal bullet here and there, and all of a sudden your mech is falling out of the sky. I am fully open to the idea that there will be dragons once more, but the thought that people will even think of dragons when they're designing robotic suits like that is far too optimistic. You might get someone to design and build one for you if you're rich. I'm hopefully going to be rich and powerful, so I'll probably get what I want. :P
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Happy Fourth of July everybody! The funniest thing about this signature is that I wrote it on the fourth of July, 2010, and it's probably going to be here for several months.

[Hyraxylos]

I've been off too long to really be able to keep up with the tone here, but I'll try my best to chip in because I feel strongly enough to comment.

Cyborgs are, in my honest opinion, a Bad Idea. The reason I think they're a Bad Idea is because I don't see how this would contribute to helping anyone. It wouldn't help with any environmental issues and wouldn't provide any long-term benefit for humanity that would sufficiently outweigh the negatives. Why do we need yet one more way to murder each other over a few acres of desert? Implementing the Three Laws is DEFINITELY a good idea (assuming of course one of them doesn't somehow bug itself up and decide to try and kill off one human for the "common good" like Mega Man did near the end of his 7th game ), but those would only work for robots. They wouldn't work for robots with organic CPUs, because of one particular little thing called "free will", and as things are now politically, I don't trust humans to behave themselves.

This isn't to say that I'm closed-minded to the speculations listed here though. It's just like how I also think colonizing other worlds is a Bad Idea (actually the ULTIMATE Bad Idea) because we still haven't finished fixing ourselves up mentally. But if we somehow eliminate all the petty excuses to have for squabbling and shooting at each other and repair all the damage we've done to the planet, sure I could see it happening and would be willing to support it every step of the way.
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[Ragnarok]