Speaking of evolution of knowledge, here’s an interesting perspective. Obviously the natural (or unnatural) progression of evolution of knowledge could lead to the use of robots with artificial or actual intelligence, or as I like to call it, the humanisation of robots.
Check out the article from Waltz and Buchanan in the April issue of Science.
The write that a computer program could be used to “conduct a continuously looping procedure that starts with a question, carries out experiments to answer the question, evaluates the results, and reformulates new questions.”
This of course brings with it its own ethical concerns: what do we automate, where do we specify the need for human intervention, or even what would happen if we left all the research questions open to automation? Wouldn’t that mean that we have removed some ethical issues just by doing that, be removing human will and preconceptions? Would that be better? Or worse? What would the manhatten project have been like if there had been no human intervention, no one to lobby the US president to continue with the research? And what of Cold Fusion? Would we now be kept warm by the cold?
Answers on a postcard please….
PS This is a new Science News feature I’m going to run weekly which will be in conjunction with a podcast service I’m working on.
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