robots as a species

[leugi]

I was thinking that what we consider to be alive has to have intellectual movements, and that we humans are at the top of this pyramid, but if by this definition of being alive wouldn't an intellectual robot be consider alive as well and if we are able to make a robot smart enough to replicate then wouldn't they be considered a species? if this is true then wouldn't sending robots out into space to repopulate another world be considered as the only way for intellectual species of this world to survive after the sun destroys everything?

[kisai]

I was thinking that what we consider to be alive has to have intellectual movements

Having a brain is not a prerequisite for life.

Edited March 6, 2012 by kisai

[leugi]

Having a brain is not a prerequisite for life.

 

i did not mean having a brain, what i meant is that being alive has to derive from movements that are not made by physics, for example, rocks are not alive because physics is able to predict its movements, but intellectual movements are made by being some sort of organism, having DNA, whatever you want to call it and physics cannot predict them.

[kisai]

i did not mean having a brain, what i meant is that being alive has to derive from movements that are not made by physics, for example, rocks are not alive because physics is able to predict its movements, but intellectual movements are made by being some sort of organism, having DNA, whatever you want to call it and physics cannot predict them.

 

 

This is also incorrect. There are many species that are incapable of self-locomotion, like for instance, most plants.

[leugi]

This is also incorrect. There are many species that are incapable of self-locomotion, like for instance, most plants.

 

okay, never mind, i guess my new definition for life is the ability to replicate, but my question still stands, because if we are able to create a robot with the ability to create other robots and the ability to better itself, then would it be considered alive.

[zapatos]

okay, never mind, i guess my new definition for life is the ability to replicate, but my question still stands, because if we are able to create a robot with the ability to create other robots and the ability to better itself, then would it be considered alive.

Probably not as life is generally considered to consist of:

 

Since there is no unequivocal definition of life, the current understanding is descriptive, where life is a characteristic of organisms that exhibit all or most of the following phenomena:[15][17]

 

1.Homeostasis: Regulation of the internal environment to maintain a constant state; for example, electrolyte concentration or sweating to reduce temperature.

2.Organization: Being structurally composed of one or more cells, which are the basic units of life.

3.Metabolism: Transformation of energy by converting chemicals and energy into cellular components (anabolism) and decomposing organic matter (catabolism). Living things require energy to maintain internal organization (homeostasis) and to produce the other phenomena associated with life.

4.Growth: Maintenance of a higher rate of anabolism than catabolism. A growing organism increases in size in all of its parts, rather than simply accumulating matter.

5.Adaptation: The ability to change over a period of time in response to the environment. This ability is fundamental to the process of evolution and is determined by the organism's heredity as well as the composition of metabolized substances, and external factors present.

6.Response to stimuli: A response can take many forms, from the contraction of a unicellular organism to external chemicals, to complex reactions involving all the senses of multicellular organisms. A response is often expressed by motion, for example, the leaves of a plant turning toward the sun (phototropism) and by chemotaxis.

7.Reproduction: The ability to produce new individual organisms, either asexually from a single parent organism, or sexually from two parent organisms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life

[leugi]

"Probably not as life is generally considered to consist of:"

the only difference of what you are describing and what could potentially be a living robot is that one is an organic form of life and the other is not, it's kind of like thinking that DNA is the only way for life to exist, what if there was another type of life form in another planet that didn't run on DNA, would we consider it to be living?

Edited March 7, 2012 by leugi

[zapatos]

"Probably not as life is generally considered to consist of:"

the only difference of what you are describing and what could potentially be a living robot is that one is an organic form of life and the other is not, it's kind of like thinking that DNA is the only way for life to exist, what if there was another type of life form in another planet that didn't run on DNA, would we consider it to be living?

That's the only difference? Seems to me like a robot wouldn't do much of what I listed.

 

Sure, life on another planet would not need DNA to be considered living.

[doG]

Life is a biological term. It would corrupt the meaning and usage of the word to apply it to anything that is not biological.

[rktpro]

A robot could be categorised as specie only when it is able to mate and reproduce.

[Spyman]

I was thinking that what we consider to be alive has to have intellectual movements, and that we humans are at the top of this pyramid, but if by this definition of being alive wouldn't an intellectual robot be consider alive as well and if we are able to make a robot smart enough to replicate then wouldn't they be considered a species? if this is true then wouldn't sending robots out into space to repopulate another world be considered as the only way for intellectual species of this world to survive after the sun destroys everything?

If we were able to build a robot that has intelligence, is conscious, feels emotions and has its own free will, then I would consider it alive.

 

Species is maybe not the correct technical term for such a lifeform, but a large population of such replicating robots would certainly be able to build nations, wage war and conquer extraterrestrial worlds.

 

However I don't think that inventing such robots is the ONLY way for us to secure future survival of intelligent life, it is much more likely that we will build machines that helps us travel through space, improve and preserve our biological life, to such extent that humans can survive the Sun and explore the Milky Way.

[kisai]

okay, never mind, i guess my new definition for life is the ability to replicate,

 

 

Now you are excluding mules, which have such a low fertility rate that they could not survive as a species without human intervention.

 

 

 

A robot could be categorised as specie only when it is able to mate and reproduce.

 

There are living creatures that undergo mitosis and cytokinesis to reproduce. Creatures mate because mating allows more variance in individuals, which is more evolutionary successful than making a mere copy of your own chronosomes.

 

 

 

If we were able to build a robot that has intelligence, is conscious, feels emotions and has its own free will, then I would consider it alive.

 

 

Again, there are living creatures which are not intelligent, not conscious, do not display emotion, and which free will is an impossibility for the creature to consider.

Edited March 7, 2012 by kisai

[Spyman]

Again, there are living creatures which are not intelligent, not conscious, do not display emotion, and which free will is an impossibility for the creature to consider.

Yes, I agree, but if you read my statment once more you will see that I did not make any attempt to defining life, I never said that other creatures with different properties would not be alive, all I said was that I would consider such a creature I described to be alive.

 

The fact that there exists other types of lifeforms does not make the robot in question less alive.

 

I seem to interpret the OP differently than you, I think leugi is more interested in discussing whether such a being would be considered alive and if they could be our inheritors which upholds the human legacy when our race has died out.

 

You have not told us your opinion thereof, would you consider this robot to be alive, do you think they could continue our civilisation?

[rktpro]

There are living creatures that undergo mitosis and cytokinesis to reproduce. Creatures mate because mating allows more variance in individuals, which is more evolutionary successful than making a mere copy of your own chronosomes.

 

It should have been that species are able to reproduce. Yes, using the term 'mate' confines 'species' to only sexually reproducing.

[leugi]

If we were able to build a robot that has intelligence, is conscious, feels emotions and has its own free will, then I would consider it alive.

 

Species is maybe not the correct technical term for such a lifeform, but a large population of such replicating robots would certainly be able to build nations, wage war and conquer extraterrestrial worlds.

 

However I don't think that inventing such robots is the ONLY way for us to secure future survival of intelligent life, it is much more likely that we will build machines that helps us travel through space, improve and preserve our biological life, to such extent that humans can survive the Sun and explore the Milky Way.

 

but robots can survive without oxygen, and other things that we need, therefore robots may be our best shot because the chance that we find another planet like earth is not that good, i think that the best way to preserve all the biological living organism from this planet is by storing them in capsules then the robots do space travel to find another earth.

[Spyman]

but robots can survive without oxygen, and other things that we need, therefore robots may be our best shot because the chance that we find another planet like earth is not that good, i think that the best way to preserve all the biological living organism from this planet is by storing them in capsules then the robots do space travel to find another earth.

Robots have some advantages but they also have disadvantages, for instance robots needs batteries to survive and I am not so confident batteries will be easier to bring with you and recycle in space than oxygen. But by far the most obvious problem with robots that have free will is that they can't be trusted to always take the best decision for biological life when they themselves are mechanical.

 

What prevents them from determining that they would be better off without the capsules in the cargohold that contains these pesky biological organism and simply dump them to gain survival advantage?

 

And why would they want to travel a long time and very distant to another Earth, there are probably plenty of more attractive targets out there at much closer range for mechanical lifeforms?

 

Once we are locked away in capsules we are no longer their masters and nothing more than their prisoners, at their mercy, consuming their resources.

[kisai]

Yes, I agree, but if you read my statment once more you will see that I did not make any attempt to defining life, I never said that other creatures with different properties would not be alive, all I said was that I would consider such a creature I described to be alive.

 

The fact that there exists other types of lifeforms does not make the robot in question less alive.

 

 

Your sentiment is the vein of the Turing Test, which seeks to unask "Are machines capable of intelligence?" and replace it with "Are machines capable of fooling human beings into thinking that they are human?"

 

 

 

Personally, I do not like it. I believe that thinking and acting rationally is different from thinking and acting like a human. I might put you in a room with a hypothetical automata that could perform many different tasks, answer your questions, and shows you how it survives, yet didn't think like a human. You might be freaked by this creature, but it would act alive and rational, yet inhuman.

 

 

 

I seem to interpret the OP differently than you, I think leugi is more interested in discussing whether such a being would be considered alive and if they could be our inheritors which upholds the human legacy when our race has died out.

 

You have not told us your opinion thereof, would you consider this robot to be alive, do you think they could continue our civilisation?

 

 

I believe that it is inevitable that some or most humans will choose to undergo transhumanism, especially when confronted with difficult tasks, like space travel, where our meat bodies are at an incredible disadvantage. I also believe that some humans will shun this transformation utterly. I choose to consider humans that transform their bodies still human.

[Spyman]

Your sentiment is the vein of the Turing Test, which seeks to unask "Are machines capable of intelligence?" and replace it with "Are machines capable of fooling human beings into thinking that they are human?"

 

 

 

Personally, I do not like it. I believe that thinking and acting rationally is different from thinking and acting like a human. I might put you in a room with a hypothetical automata that could perform many different tasks, answer your questions, and shows you how it survives, yet didn't think like a human. You might be freaked by this creature, but it would act alive and rational, yet inhuman.

While I agree that a self-aware machine would not be human or even think like a human, I still maintain that I would consider it to be alive.

 

A Turing Test might be able to determine a rough level of intelligence for an machine and its software, but I don't think it suffices to determine if any machine or creature is alive or self-aware or not.

 

If we someday find and meet with an alien civilization, they will very likely be different from us, both in thoughts and apperance. They would be alive, think and act rationally but yet be very inhuman, more inhuman than any machines that we ourselves might build as copies of us. I am not certain these aliens would be able to fool us that they are human in a such a test, because they are simply not human enough. Still it would likely be evident for us if they are self-aware and intelligent or not.

 

It might also turn out sometime in the future that it is fully possible to build a stupid machine that is not self-aware but yet are able to fool us, by cheating and using help from data crafted by its creators. Because the creators would be self-aware humans with the knowledge of what type of data the machine needs to have access to, in its task to successfully fool us.

 

 

I believe that it is inevitable that some or most humans will choose to undergo transhumanism, especially when confronted with difficult tasks, like space travel, where our meat bodies are at an incredible disadvantage. I also believe that some humans will shun this transformation utterly. I choose to consider humans that transform their bodies still human.

Yes, I also think transhumaism will happen and cause a lot of turmoil during the initial transition. Depending of the level of transhumanism I might consider them still human but in more extreme cases I would regard them as posthuman.

 

But I don't see any reason that transhumanism would disrupt or prevent advancements in robotics, more likely it would accelerate such development. Robots are already our servants, doing boring or dangerous work, if it ever will be possible to boost their brain to self-awareness then it is certain that someone will.

[Dalton]

 

Here's a video of cultured rat neurons controlling a robot exterior.

 

Creepy stuff. Might help add to the discussion. Or at least entertain.

[Spyman]

If the Blue Brain Project goes well then that robot could be controlled by an artificial rat brain by 2014.

 

The Blue Brain Project is an attempt to create a synthetic brain by reverse-engineering the mammalian brain down to the molecular level.

 

(...)

 

In November 2007, the project reported the end of the first phase, delivering a data-driven process for creating, validating, and researching the neocortical column.

 

By 2005 the first single cellular model was completed. The first artificial cellular neocortical column of 10,000 cells was built by 2008. By July 2011 a cellular mesocircuit of 100 neocortical columns with a million cells in total was built. A cellular rat brain is planned for 2014 with 100 mesocircuits totalling a hundred million cells. Finally a cellular human brain is predicted possible by 2023 equivalent to 1000 rat brains with a total of a hundred billion cells.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Brain_Project

[shah_nosrat]

I was thinking that what we consider to be alive has to have intellectual movements, and that we humans are at the top of this pyramid, but if by this definition of being alive wouldn't an intellectual robot be consider alive as well and if we are able to make a robot smart enough to replicate then wouldn't they be considered a species? if this is true then wouldn't sending robots out into space to repopulate another world be considered as the only way for intellectual species of this world to survive after the sun destroys everything?

 

I don't know if considering robots as its own species would be a good idea, not to mention it being an intellectual being/entity. We would then have to consider their robotic rights as well, and would give rise and debate to ethical considerations of how to deal with these new robotic beings or their species as a whole.

 

But I do know that Japanese scientists creating realistic humanoid robots to assist us in our daily chores or life for that matter, they consider it as being the next evolution of the so-called "Personal Computer".

 

Now to consider something as alive, they would have to satisfy certain prerequisites (Which I'm not really sure of) but I'm sure it exists.

 

[Dbz_479]

Robots as a Species,In my opinion here's a contradiction.Science & life is all about perception.Even if u teach all Human Knowledge to a calculating analyticalRobot,When it is thrown in to Empty space where it Definitely will meet a foreign substance with property unknown to human knowledge,Can it Behave & respond to it?But if the same is done with a Human being,he discovers a New Perception due to amazing ability called thinking(I guess) which can be only a calculation for lifeless matter created by u that too only after u teach it,I wonder even if u give it a brain but not all the human senses can be given to it due to difficulties,It would miss that one new element which the missing human sense would have discovered.Only thing i can think of is Transhumanism Mixing elements with life to create a thoughtful controlled evolutionary process,which has advantage of a mechanical being & perceptions of life.That has to be decided by future when crisis occurs.

[JohnStu]

Hmm, robots as a species, probably will be an one gender specie then.

[Xittenn]

There are plenty of asexual entities of whom we refer to as species of living organisms, I don't see why this is an issue. I also don't see why in the future if robots were self conscious enough to ask for fair treatment that they would be treated with anything less--which includes being honored as a living species, organic or not. I believe the simplest route to take on this would be to modify the statement to a species of non-biological living organisms.

 

I'm of the opinion that people enjoy their bragging rights and too many humans will step on anything that doesn't meet its needs. I make this my opinion because some feel we are very nice beings that see the good in all, and I do not agree with this. If the robot is conscious it will not need our approval of it as a species if it chooses to consider itself as one. If we choose to treat them without respect chances are there will be problems. If robot consciousness is going to be a problem, and we can't respect them as a species should need arise, then we had best not create them in the first damn place. Stupid humans . . . :|

[JohnStu]

There are plenty of asexual entities of whom we refer to as species of living organisms, I don't see why this is an issue. I also don't see why in the future if robots were self conscious enough to ask for fair treatment that they would be treated with anything less--which includes being honored as a living species, organic or not. I believe the simplest route to take on this would be to modify the statement to a species of non-biological living organisms.

 

I'm of the opinion that people enjoy their bragging rights and too many humans will step on anything that doesn't meet its needs. I make this my opinion because some feel we are very nice beings that see the good in all, and I do not agree with this. If the robot is conscious it will not need our approval of it as a species if it chooses to consider itself as one. If we choose to treat them without respect chances are there will be problems. If robot consciousness is going to be a problem, and we can't respect them as a species should need arise, then we had best not create them in the first damn place. Stupid humans . . . :|

Okay, time to print out some robot citizenship cards. Or should we let them hvae their mono-gender society.

 

The reason I pointed out robots would be single gender is that this would mean they wouldn't be in a society, because they would have less need to be in a huge group.