Can robots rule us in the near future? #
Some people express that super artificial intelligence will take control of the earth(popularly
called AI takeover), and super artificial intelligence is inevitable. Famous Brains like Elon Musk
and Stephen Hawking considered that and advocated performing research on preventive measures (AI
Alignment). I highly doubt if robots and artificial intelligence could evolve to a certain extent
that they would take over humanity because of the following reasons:
Energy problem: #
Suppose super artificial intelligence(SAI) could be powerful, efficient and enormous. It should
consume a lot of electricity to perform tasks better than humans. As the programming develops to
become more and more advanced, to function, it should at least use 100 times the energy we use
today (as we humans get our energy from food to match our work, robots' only source is
electricity). To reach the need for power, they would need to burn up the entire coal on earth to
sustain for a year. if you think 100 times is too large, how about ten even so they cannot make it
to the next decade(assuming that coal will be available readily)
How do robots produce so much power? You might be thinking of renewable energy sources like solar
power. I doubt if that's possible as well. With an efficiency of converting less than 22% of solar
energy into electricity, and there is no production during the night, It should cut a large portion
of the forest for that energy scale.
It might cause sufficient global warming and has a high
possibility of ozone depletion resulting in highly harmful radiation to electronic materials and,
large cut down of trees would result in increase in soil erosion which is not good electronic
devices so they can't afford to cut such large trees to survive. As far as we know, there is no
alternative power source, so eventually, large scale super artificial intelligence will have to
fall in one way or the other.
Lack of greed: #
People are worried that robots will take over the Earth because they are greedy. Humans are always
greedy about others (I'm not judging if it is right or wrong) and worried if someone might steal
their position. They are applying this to robots as one-day robots might control us.
Computers lack greed. No matter how efficient you make a computer, it can't match the greediness of
humans.
Energy storage problem: #
Resources for battery storage are minimal. Mobility should be easy if robots want to take over
Earth. Moving from one place to another needs power highly efficient batteries. With the current
technology we have, Li-ion batteries are more efficient. Unless they develop far better
alternatives, it would be a huge challenge with the available lithium. and there would be many such
shortage of resources problems.
Aging sooner: #
It looks like robots are more sensitive than humans. They age sooner than humans. Today computers
become ineffective in Syears, and they would be poor functioning in less than a decade. And we need
to throw them away. This is because the chips get less efficient because of their constant use.
This happens everywhere; continuous use of atoms repeatedly would decrease the system's efficiency.
A well-developed system in the human body will replace 98%of all atoms present in your body, which
makes us better functioning. Inside a computer chip, there is no method by which new atoms go into
hardware and automatically replace the old ones without affecting the system's functions. If robots
plan to take over the world, they should develop a new process to overcome the problem of ageing.
That process should be able to collect the atoms, replace the atoms wherever needed, and dispose of
the used atoms without affecting the system's functions.
Rest #
We assume that robots don't need rest like humans. It is not true after all; when robots work,
there is a release in heat energy. Higher the work, the higher the heat production. High Heat
production could damage the hardware inside the devices, so they need to be stopped for a while to
cool down.
No escape from Natural calamities: #
Even Robots can't escape from natural calamities. Radiations, solar flares, and cyclones would
impact robots. Rains could significantly impact electronics that are very frequent on earth. Even
dust causes significant damage to the walking computers.
Note: This is my opinion and I would be very much interested to know your opinion on the matter.