The difference between Fear and Danger

Terminator next door - picture from pixabay.com, author: Hypnoart

Do you know the quote from the movie After Earth?

After Earth Offical Trailer #1 (2013) - Will Smith Movie HD - video by Movieclips Trailers

“Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice.” --Will Smith--

remote outpost - picture from pixabay, author: tombud

We as humans have these huge brains and do all these thinking, some use it to achieve great things, others just to have fun and some of us do it against other people.

How Does the Brain Work? - Human Cognition | PSYCHOLOGY & BRAIN SCIENCE VIDEO video by Bright Elightenment

The Amazing Power of Your Mind - A MUST SEE! - video by Jeremy Bennett

Bad and Good and between is always existing and we know we're surrounded by more than 15,000 nuclear warheads around the world. That is not just fear, it's a real danger we know from history.

If we look in Maslow's pyramid:

After our basic physological needs (sleep, eat, drink,..) secondly we need security. We wanna be protected from the rain, cold, heat, thieves and violence to name a view. It's so important for us that we fear everything which may threaten that need and a robot with AI looks like that.

Today we see the rise of the robots and many other technologies like deep learning, AI, blockchains, automation, quantum computing, nuclear fusion at the same time. Robots become good helpers in households as automated lawnmowers or cleaners and even to be social partners for old people who lost their spouse or family.

That's great!

8 ADVANCED ROBOTS ANIMAL YOU NEED TO SEE - video by TechZone

Because we get more time to do the things we really want. Honestly nobody really wants to clean the floor of his house for hours or hold a steering wheel by watching the back of the vehicle ahead in a traffic jam. Nobody wants to stay behind a machine and to push a lever thousand times a day.

asssembly worker - animation from giphy.com

The latter is the stoneage of our time. We have long since recognized that such stupid activities are not for our own sake and so we move towards automation and robots and AI. But is that the real driver or is it just economic factor to eliminate the failure factor human? I think both like i mentioned above there are many incentives to drive innovation, let's look at the opportunities for us

How wonderful would that be?

Think about that if you had the choice either to drive early in the morning in the rain on four-lane motorway stucking in a traffic jam just to sit in a office with bored co-workers and fulfil compliance codes all day long ..

hamster wheel animation from giphy.com

.. or to sleep out, have a long breakfast and after that take a long walk with your family or your spouse around a beautiful lake in the morning sun, have a hour of power with yourself ..

morning walk - picture from pixabay, author: makunin

after that you have some hours for your dedicated work in your house in your favored environment, no stress just pure fun to create value for others

Freedom - picture from pixabay.com, author: marketa_star

We want this convenience, we want it so badly so we think and dream about all the time if we're not trapped in stupid daily rituals. That's the positive thinking which drives all the developments today and in the future i think. On the other hand people have doubts and fears that we're already so far advanced with our technology and that we hand over too much responsibility to machines.

Is that not frightening?

Elon Musk thinks that we must upgrade our brains to survive with evolving AI because we just get control over future AI if we have a third digital layer between the cortex and limbic system. But that needs a much higher bandwidth human brains have today.

Who is wondering why many people think Musk has completely lost his mind. But is there some truth in what he says?

Elon Musk’s Neuralink aims to connect human brain with AI - video by Artificial Intelligence AI

We are already cyborgs | Elon Musk | Code Conference 2016 - video by Recode

Also so called nanobots may flow in the future through your venes to repair functional disorders and blend your organic tissue with control circuits to replace the destroyed areas. There is a moral question:

If THEY replace me piece by piece with electronics when will i actually stop be human and just a machine? When does my human consciousness disappear?

Antibacterial nanorobot animation - video by Yuriy Svidinenko

Nanomotors Target Living Cells - video by The Daily Conversation

Unbelievable to be inhabited by nanobots, with AI? If you think of all the bacteria, microorganism we need to stay healthy, maybe that's just a logical consequence to live longer?

Really?

Life expectancy is growing. We're approaching 100 years. May there no room for all of us on the planet because of such technology?

Why the world population won’t exceed 11 billion | Hans Rosling | TGS.ORG - video by THINK Global School

There is a theory of Konradjew cycles which seems not applicable anymore with such a flood of innovation we are in for the next decades. In the book The Singularity Is Near by Ray Kurzweil are some interesting logarithmic charts which show without a doubt technology is growing exponentially. Blockchain technology is just one field where we progressing fast though the internet via crowdfunding and connecting our brains for development

And with such high pace of innovation many people fall by the wayside in terms of have enough time to draw confidence with new technology to adopt it for their own life because if they try the next technology is already at the corner and the pace is further increasing.

Is that true?

I think yes, but that's not new. Think of the invention of the steam machine or the combustion engine. The majority denied the new technology in the beginning because they had doubts and fears. The hourse owners would get no money for their services anymore. The machines are dangerous because they bang, flash and smell like creatures from hell.

Steam Engine History - video by Largest Dams

What are indians shouted as they saw an airplane for the first time: "The thunderbird is coming!".

In established environments with aged technology there are always lobbies with high recognition and with power. There is always a strong belief in the established technology which implies a feeling of security which is not existent.

A few years ago Tesla Motors (now Tesla) was ridiculed by the german automotive industry. They claimed that there is no market for EV's, Tesla cars went up in flames (the reality was, that Tesla cars are much safer but the media showed a completely burnt Model S 24/7 and don't mentioned that the percentage of burnt CE cars was much higher).

Today August 3rd 2017 Elon Musk got another 1,600 preorders of the Model 3.. no market? Are you kidding me?! .. But also german manufacturers have realised now it's over and you know what: Volkswagen is claiming to be the market leader by 2025 in the EV market..

AND

Zetsche: Mercedes Wants to Lead in Electric Cars by 2025 - video by Bloomberg

Zetsche:
We are by far the market leader (grin) .. oh no we're the market leader

so lobbies fuel anxiety to save their business until they cannot oppose the truth anymore.

and that leads me to another quote:

Do what you fear and the death of fear is certain.

We're feeling uncomfortable if we think of that THEY (robots or strangers) could control or even destroy our life in a maybe a not so distant future. That thought alone can scare people because it spreads uncertainty and raises a urgent question:

When and where will that happen, anytime soon?!

Not tomorrow i think.. But where all those thoughts and ideas come from? It comes from the mind of people, of us!

5 Deadliest Movie Robots - video by AlltimeMovies

We think about such scary scenarios. But initially i think it was just a tiny fraction who extrapolated current developments to future outcome and after that someone said:

Hey let us making some cool movie .. think about if robots conquer the world and we need a hero, one of a kind and than we use the most advanced CG FX to make it a unforgettable experience, Yeahh! let's do that!

And we're consuming all that S*** and have bad dreams that machines are coming to RESCUE US?

animation from giphy.com

If you look what DARPA and MIT develop together, it's not so comforting if you think these machines become more intelligent than you and not just mechanical wonders.. BUT the marketing shows also some nice things we all want :)

5 New Technology 2016 | Military Robots | Awesome Robots - video by NewTech HD

So what, should we fear the robots?

I think we should be aware of what we are developing and what the intention is behind by a financier for example! The inventor of the hydrogen bomb never wanted that millions of people would eventually die from his invention and so we must ask us the question:

Is that all in our best interest and how can we take control of that to get a better world and no Skynet?

I'm quite optimistic to see many nice helpers on the market for us with the mainstream adoption of IOT and here comes also Blockchain into play.

BTW: Before we become a multplanetary species and must get used to zero gravity we can buy a Kurata for $1.3 Million and make some EEeeepic BAAAaaattles!!!

Why We Fear Robots and AI?