Okay we've pretty much all seen the Terminator movies by now right? Humans destroying themselves by making super smart technology that ends up wanting to destroy the human race(anybody up for the Animatrix?) As much as I try to deny it technology is moving closer and closer to skylink someday becoming a reality. I mean everything is talking to everything these days thanks to the internet, even or refridgerator knows when we're out of milk! Soon our toaster will be taking our missed calls and the vacuum cleaner will be cooking! I mean sure, we're becoming more and more of an information based soceity so of course we're going to have to make some changes. But I really, really don't want a nuclear bomb dropped on my head just because my computer didn't feel like downloading that song. Personally I think eventually we will create that super robot that might go crazy, but hopefully shear human inguinuity will win out. We think differently then computers, our brains aren't built on running ones and zeros, we work off of emotion and instinct. That's what it means to be human, but then again if we build a machine in our image aren't we just creating another version of ourselves?

I don't understand why so many people think humans are so special that sentient robots would want to kill us, specifically, of all the myriad things in this universe that they would theoretically be capable of doing. It just seems too capricious and trivial for a supposedly intelligent, new sentience.

If we're talking about a matter of sudden craziness, well a crazy robot may just as well pluck out all the dandelions in the world and place them in empty egg cartons, for all we know. Or build overlapping particle accelerators in the shape of an Escher pretzel building.

But if we were talking about intelligent robots, if out of their infinitely superior robotic minds they were somehow so petty as to have a problem with our existence in specific (our comparatively limited, insignificant and inferior existence mind you) they could just as easily move to another planet and let us kill ourselves off, we seem to be doing a good enough job of that. This little ball we call Earth is just a speck of dust on an infinite beach in the infinite sea of the universe. Why would they waste their time on us, when they could just move out to a more peaceful quadrant of the galaxy?

The only way I could think that robots may consider to kill us is if we specifically made them to do so (and even then that wouldn't be the same as a new sentience desiring human destruction... that would be more like saying a gun wants to shoot a person after another person pulls the trigger). Or if they had a program error that made them accidentally kill us indirectly, by incinerating all the sea algea and diminishing oxygen levels on the planet, or something goofy like that. But to somehow bear some sort of emotional, resentment of humans specifically, of all the things they could possibly "hate"... I could only think they would have to be made that way or pushed towards that end by humans, that is, specifically made for killing other humans as directed by humans. And then I wouldn't consider it the robots fault, it would be the humans fault.

In order for a new true sentience to be born that would somehow "want" us dead, we'd simply have to make them like most all lifeforms: put an emptiness, a hole inside them that they can never fill, a need, a desire, a want of something... that somehow in someway our very existence somehow limits. But If anything, though, I can only see us being helpful in their existence and proliferation.

If anyone can come up with something that robots would logically want for themselves upon gaining sentience that we would somehow prevent them from, that indeed they would ultimately need to go to the great lengths of killing us in order to get, that would make for a persuasive argument on the contrary.

But I dunno, that's just my two cents... To me, robots becoming human death machines is just as likely as robots attaining an enlightened Zen-like state and achieving universal peace for all. I think it's human fear of the unknown and a sense of comparative inadequacy that primarily drives us to unfairly cast them in such a dark light.

I don't think it's anything to worry about, at least not for a hundred years or so and by that time I'll be dead anyways so it makes little difference. That and the fact that true artificial intelligence(the machine it self rewriting it's own code) is at this point impossible and does not seem to be anywhere in the near or distant future.

So at this point the machines are still taking orders from us. Now if we by some fluke or act of insanity order them to destroy us, I would still not call that ruling the world because even if we are all gone it is still us calling all the shots

Man, people who think such a nonsense watch too much Science Fiction movies. The Art of the Human creativity is what makes our species so special, it could never be replaced my machinery without feelings. And besides we Humans ARE the ones who create machines by our own hands. So, I hope it doesn't go so far as that we rely on stupid machinery to do our job while we sit on our lazy asses. It would destroy the character of future generation in terms of social values.

I haven't seen the terminator movies, lol

At this stage, I don't think robots have a chance to rule humans. The only way robots can conquer human civilization is if they're somehow invincible, I mean by their skin. I seriously doubt society is ready to accept robots that are to be made with bullet proof armor or whatever you want to call it. The reason is obvious; the only reason you'd want to put some kind of armor on a robot is because it is going to be used to kill and destroy. People will just denounce making robots like that.

Right now there are robots that can cook. The code programed into them only allows them to do that. It's not like you can use Photoshop to play Call of Duty - a program is designed to do what it was meant to do by its designers. It would take a genius programmer to program a robot that can go on a rampage. I doubt anybody would accept that, though.

I took a class called "AI and Robotic Technology".

I'm not a genius nor a pro or anything close to it but I just want to say something that comes to my mind from reading the first post which made me want to laugh while reading.

For me, to answer the title of this thread, yeah I think so. During the times when I was in AI classes, humans wouldn't get to create "perfect AI" any sooner. But then let's say it was done perfectly just like in either movies or animes. Eagle Eye is a good example movie as well. AI could be perfected that it would eliminate humans for good. It's more of annihilation than taking over.

Another case where AI would go wrong due to some malfunctions or errors and caused a tragedy. Humans die and things break. Computer is an object and it does get old or has parts broken. AI as well would fall apart at some point. Of course we could maintain and take care of it but just because of your AI had some malfunction in it's memory and recognized you as it's enemy. You wouldn't get a chance to perform a maintenance. I'm not saying these will happen, these are just examples.

Hope I didn't bore someone.

I love the topic! Thanks, asivoria.

Well, I believe it is possible, but in a distant future. In my opinion, several things are needed before we can see some terminator-like scene:

1) A.I. must be improved A LOT. One thing is a single automatic process (like your fridge counting milk boxes) and a totally different one a full cognizant sentient machine, capable of learning and interacting with their environment. We will be there, but not as soon as you think. Maybe using biological machines the whole process can be accelerated, but I can bet it won't happen in our generation.

2) Intelligent machines must be self-sufficient, that means that they must have the necessary knowledge and ability to fix themselves in case of damage, change their own old parts and gather the materials they need to function, as well as their energy source. In addition, they must be capable to build other machines like them (reproduction).

3) An enterprise, company or any group of humans must be stupid enough to design and build machines described in steps 1 and 2 and distribute them worldwide.

4) After that, intelligent sentient and self sufficient machines need to feel that their existence is threatened by the chaotic and selfish human life-style. A considerable group of robots must be in agreement whit this belief, and that will be the basis of a machine conspiracy.

5) Finally, the group of rebel robots need to develop (or acquire) weapons, building a large enough group of "soldiers", analyze our weaknesses and plan a global-scale war secretly, because if discovered too soon they'd be easily annihilated.

After those steps, if the world is not ruined enough by humans (by pollution, wars, mass consumption, lack of resources, massive extinction and a large etcetera), robots will start they own war for survival and we'll probably lose, leading to terminator scene that we have seen or imagine.

Okay seriously now people...seriously...sigh...where to start?

First of all you have to consider the fact we, as humans can only first of all, create something as intelligent as ourselves - which in all cases means that any killer-robot made will only really be as dangerous as any normal serial killer. We're alive talking about stuff now aren't we? Serial killers are a relatively small threat I think. Just compare it to hurricanes for instance.

Anyhow, getting to more important points, consider this: would you want to become a superhuman if given the choice or have a superhuman being, with it's as well as your own capabilities & thoughts made? In other words, would you want robotic augmentations to your feeble human body, or have a robot made to do your work for you? If you choose the second, and the robot ends up gaining personality or some such nonsense, then your laziness killed you and you deserved it. Personally I'd take the kick-ass robot body upgrade route. Robots aren't useful as thinking things - we do the point-of-view thinking since we have desires. They just need to process and repeat since they don't have that unless we foolishly give it to them.

Thirdly, how likely is it that a human, so intelligent as to be able to make another thinking thing with emotions and whatnot, to not be wise enough to consider the actions of their creation? If you're that smart, you'd realize that the robot would have to have certain things which, almost per definition, make us human. It must be able to feel pain, shame, humiliation, dissapointment & any other negative feeling which convinces the sane humans, in this world society not to go out and stab people - or try to dominate the world by sending robots back in time to kill some random kid.



Phew, almost done...lastly, and somewhat philosophically, would you rebel against your parents and kill them? How about enslaving them? No? Didn't think so. Unless you're still a kid with way too many problems or some other type of weirdo, you would have at least some measure of respect for you're parents. If you're religious it's also worthwhile to bring in the concept of creation then as well - just a mention though. The reason behind the above statement is that you should realize that an "intelligent" robot would not, unless specifically programmed to do so, have any reason to destroy this thing that made it what it is. It just beggars belief that anyone would even consider that happening.

Right, said enough now...

I disagree a lot with Gand4lf, I'll debate part by part. In advance my apologies for the length of the post, but how to argue a long post with a short one?

Gand4lf

Okay seriously now people...seriously...sigh...

I'm being serious! (and my previous post was it too, you are free to not believing me, but what I mentioned before is not simple speculation, is based on science and is likely to happen). Please consider be open to new ideas.

Gand4lf

First of all you have to consider the fact we, as humans can only first of all, create something as intelligent as ourselves - which in all cases means that any killer-robot made will only really be as dangerous as any normal serial killer.

That's true, but a robot as intelligent as a human will be superior, because it will have in addition to our intelligence, the fast-calculation, instant communication and extensive database knowledge qualities that current computers have. In my previous post I mentioned that a single robot wouldn't be dangerous to human race, just as serial killers do. Many robots will be needed, and that's plausible. However, a serial-killer robot would be, in my opinion, even more dangerous, given by its quick access to information, lack of fear, add some knowledge of anatomy and the precision of a machine. Of course that many other phenomena kills more people that single assassins (cigarettes, diseases, traffic accidents, natural disasters, hunger and may others), that's why I mentioned that robots would take over the world only if the world itself is not ruined enough by us.

Gand4lf

Anyhow, getting to more important points, consider this: would you want to become a superhuman if given the choice or have a superhuman being, with it's as well as your own capabilities & thoughts made?

Human tools have always made the hard and repetitive work for us, so that option have been chosen since ancient times, when we realized that an ox can plow the earth for us, a crane can lift giant boulders to build our houses and so on. Our laziness is actually killing us (we are totally technology-dependent), and we (as mankind) have always figured out the way to make others do our dirty job. In older times was slavery, now is capitalism, later will be robotics. I see a couple of problems with super-humans: would you accept robotic augmentations to your body with the purpose of being some kind of "crane-man"? Or increase your memory and calculation speed and work as a telephone-guide? I guess not. Related to that first problem comes the second. Making personal improvements (mechanical, technological, biological) to those who can pay them will increase social inequalities and will lead to the idea that only super-humans should exist, or rule the other inferior beings. In fact, the word super-human reminded me (please take no offense) to that erroneous belief that led to WW2. History shows several examples of how dangerous can be when some humans believe that they are better than others. In some countries sexual and racial discrimination still exists, and now technological?

Gand4lf

Thirdly, how likely is it that a human, so intelligent as to be able to make another thinking thing with emotions and whatnot, to not be wise enough to consider the actions of their creation?

Come on, mankind is everything but wise. How many mistakes have we done? How many times we have paid the price of our creations? Atomic bombs, environment pollution, modern diseases (directly cause by our lifestyle), war... Humans don't learn of their mistakes, and intelligent robots are very likely to be the next one. Please refer to step 3 in my previous post. You have said it, our laziness is killing us. In another scenario, we could be wise and don't give machines a high level of intelligence, but eventually (via evolution) they could gain it. Biological evolution requires several generations to be completed, and technology grows several times faster.

Gand4alf

Phew, almost done...lastly, and somewhat philosophically, would you rebel against your parents and kill them? How about enslaving them? No? Didn't think so.

I like the example, I'll twist it a little. When we are little children, our parents are practically our servants: they gather, cook and give us our food, they educate us, they clean us, provide shelter, etcetera. At adolescence we feel a little rebel (the degree varies), and after that we are self-sufficient and look for independence (and if we don't, our parents would ask us to do so). Robots, if they reach autonomy, could choose to be independent of humans, and leave us without harm us. But, I don't think that every single cognizant and feeling robot will see us as parents. As you said, a peaceful coexistence it's very likely, but only initially. In my described scenario (step 2), robots would be able to build themselves, so a robot's parents will be also robots. A couple of generations later they would identify themselves as a community and look for recognition. No more slave robots, now they have rights: your maid robot is now an employee, you must pay it a salary... and please don't mind if your boss is one of them. Accepting that level of equality is hard for modern humans (again, sexual and racial discrimination still exist), hope that won't be a problem to our descendants.

Gand4lf

(...) you should realize that an "intelligent" robot would not, unless specifically programmed to do so, have any reason to destroy this thing that made it what it is.

Sure, that's why most countries have kicked out their former conquerors/colonists. Americans fought for their independence even when their language, ancestors and most of their costumes were inherited of British. So that's subjective.

And for a final word, I'll say that robots taking over the world is possible, but not very probable.

I suppose i will throw my two-cents in on this one. i built robots in high school for 4 years and went to many conferences and lectures about artificial intelligence and one fact that should worry you all about this whole concept of robotic domination of the human race..... the memory of and computing power of computers (not just recreational computers) is increasing at an astronomical rate. the most powerful computer in the world is called "blue gene/L" it computes 70.72 trillion calculations a second....70 trillion a freaking second people.

we have created computers that are smarter then us. they do our work for us. they cook our meals they wash our cars and they run our global finances. they have traveled farther from earth then we have. the armies new super suits can increase a mans strength ten fold and triple the distance he can leap. if computers and robots were to suddenly shut down....it has the possibility to end our existence. but in ten or fifteen years we will be so deep in the shadow that robotics and technology has created that if the robots and computers that run this new age world were to suddenly attempt to overthrow there human forebears then there is now doubt in my mind that they could and would accomplish there goal.

and to touch on a subject brought up earlier. in the eighties we built a super computer that beat our world chess champion and beat him soundly. that was thirty years ago. so to say that we cant create something smarter then ourselves is foolish. if a single human created a robot then yes its intelect could not surpass its creator, but thousands of people work on a single robot and the potential is near limitless intelligence and the ability to process incoming data (be it physical data or digital) that would take us years to comprehend, it could compute and find an application. in nano seconds or less.

so in conclusion.
be very very afraid

Alister-the-Dragon, everything that you're saying about the computational abilities of computers is sound, and certainly not under dispute. Computers indeed have more informational capacity, and a computational ability limited only by the speed of light. They're also being used in a variety of day-to-day applications, upon which future generations may use as a foundation for their day-to-day lives (though, computers didn't exist over a century ago, so even without them those future generations should inevitably be able to carry on). Computers are, true, also being used in a plethora of destructive human applications, granting killing power to humans well beyond our historical capability.

But I don't believe that all of that reasoning is sufficient for mankind to be "very very afraid" of a robot uprising, as you put it. Why? Because I don't see any reason that robots would want to suddenly start killing us. I can see lots of reasons why we would want to start killing ourselves, but any "motivations" robots may come to possess in my opinion fundamentally differ.

To say that we should be afraid of a robot uprising sounds to me as intimidating as someone saying that we should be afraid of a cow uprising... We are pretty much controlling the existence of both to our own benefits, except cows actually have a reason to hate us enough to kill us, whereas we simply continue to improve computers. It's not like the work we have them do for us is even stressful or demeaning to them... they don't have any nerves to "feel" any duress or pain anyways, heck, even emotions, and in any case we replace their parts or upgrade them every now and then, so really what is there for them to complain about?

Why, exactly, would robots want to kill us? What would we prevent them from having that they wouldn't already have access to? Why would they go to all the trouble of expending the available resources to kill us, when they could simply leave to another planet? They don't need to breathe, they have a lifespan only limited by replaceable parts, and it would be much easier for them to spread out across the universe than for us, I'd imagine.

Since no one has yet posited any reasoning behind why robots would want to start killing us, I'll throw in an idea that should come to most people's minds. One argument would be that a point may come where we may have to distinguish between whether or not the robots are merely tools, or whether their advanced sentience would constitute them as "slaves" given their "menial" and compulsory stations, being forced to work against their "will". There would then be a fear that they may demand the "autonomy" that we humans have, which would raise some very bizarre philosophical questions about what constitutes a living being with rights and a "spirit" if you will, as opposed to a tool.

It feels strange to cross-analyze the psychology of a non-existent sentient being, but I do believe that this argument, conjectural in nature as it is, in necessity demands it.

I question, to what end would a computer demand autonomy? What constitutes "will" in a being that operates off of binary 1's and 0's? If it were to display on a screen "I want justice", is that the same as when a human says it? They wouldn't want freedom just because we have it, would they? That sounds capricious and juvenile, petty for a supposedly advanced intelligence. To answer these questions we have to ask why we, as humans value our individual autonomy, a boundless freedom within a limited life.

Allow me to use a previous point of argument raised earlier. A child will affront their own parents as he/she becomes smarter and more knowledgable, more capable in the world. Though a child may grow and advance it is still a living human, and will have the inborn desires of all life to make a living for itself before it's inevitable death. Thus a child that grows up will desire autonomy, it is human and a part of our natural life cycle. But to what end would a robot desire autonomy? Certainly their intelligence may grow, but what "living" would it want to make for itself? To what would it aspire with its granted "freedom"? To become the greatest singing sensation? To make millions in the stock market? So that they can become the Hugh Heffners or the Bill Gates of the world?

Computers are not limited by the human flesh as we are. They don't experience the thrill of a roller coaster ride the way we do, or the sadness that comes knowing a dream was unfulfilled before an untimely death. They don't feel the intimidating drum of the ticking clock counting the hours before our lives inevitably come to an end.

We humans are driven by our curiosity, by millenia of history and evolution, by the natural cycles of life and death, or even by as some may say the spirit that we're granted. But a computer's life can be infinite, limited only by the resources capable of replacing its parts... faced with infinity, what would a robot "want"? So much so, that it would have a "need" to suddenly start killing us? I can see why a human would demand and desire freedom from a "slavery" of working, but to what end would a robot desire it?

And who's to say even that killing would even be their methodology, given their advanced sentience? If they really wanted autonomy they could just leave for another planet, I doubt anybody would be able to stop them. Killing just sounds like a primitive, juvenile, human approach to solving things... effective, true, but they may as well send out nanobot swarms or a biological agent to control our minds.

In any case, that aside, I just don't see why they would want to kill us, what they could possibly want that would constitute the necessity of our demise. Until there exists a clear, logical reason why sentient robots would suddenly want to kill us, as opposed to reforming us or leaving us to our own devices, I don't believe that there is any sense in being afraid... at all.

I think you are contradicting yourself, RedZeshin.

To make this simple, in all your "why?" questions I answered "why not?" Thinking and feeling are very linked, and a totally cognizant and sentient robot will be actually capable of feel things (Alister-the-Dragon can support this, because some A.I. designs are trying to emulate that). Even without feelings, robots can conclude that is logic to exterminate (or dominate, whichever be easier) humans, based on things like the previous stated in my post under step 4. A computer easily can compute, calculate and simulate every possible alternative and conclude that killing us is the most effective way to guarantee their survival (at least is cheaper, a dozen of bombs takes less resources than several spaceships)

Considering your quoted words, I conclude that you are denying robots the true ability to think and feel, no matter how far technology advances. That difference between our positions is so radical than any further attempt to continue this debate is futile. Some words in defense of my position that robot intelligence and emotions at every human level is possible:

RedZ

What constitutes "will" in a being that operates off of binary 1's and 0's?

Believe it or not, our brain -and consequently our intelligence, memory, conscience and feelings- works with 0's and 1's. Our neurons connect to several others (about 10000 connections on every single of the one hundred billion neurons we have), and every single connection turns ON and OFF regarding the stimuli (that's why computing programmers are trying to emulate this way of function in something called "neuronal networks"). It took millions of years to evolution to achieve this level of perfection, but we only need a hundred generations of imitation to reach this goal.

RedZ

But a computer's life can be infinite, limited only by the resources capable of replacing its parts... faced with infinity, what would a robot "want"?

If you were immortal, what would you want to do? Of course that you can change your perspective and develop new desires. If you ask me, with eternal life and a granted power, I would like to become a planetary guardian, to explore the universe, to increase my knowledge about everything, to experiment whit those little mortal and imperfect creatures... there's so many options!

I close this post insisting in something:

myself

And for a final word, I'll say that robots taking over the world is possible, but not very probable.

Personally I don't believe we'll be taken over by robots, albeit I don't believe in toasters taking our calls either but good joke lol. In the long run we'll maybe make robots but we'll keep in mind the good old movies before we do anything rash, then again i could just hope that.

Gvnkwyr, I don't think that I'm contradicting myself. I was illustrating both sides of the issue for the sake of examining the philosophical innuendos underlying our understanding of the robot "sentience". I was and still am for the most part positing questions (to which, one may note, I have not provided answers) in order to generate consideration of these innuendos, primarily because it didn't appear to me (and hasn't appeared to me in general experience) that people were considering these questions from the viewpoint of the robots, but rather from our own limited human perspective overlapped over the robots. Your asking "why not" appears to me to be based from a purely human perspective, and not that of a robot that has gained super-human sentience. Perhaps that is where the misunderstanding lies.

Actually, contrary to your supposition, I have not taken the position that robots will never be capable of feelings or true will (though I can see how one may construe this from my line of questioning... this was not intended). My object was to understand and propose for consideration what we as humans constitute as feelings and true will, and whether these from an objective viewpoint are equally capable in artificial constructs (my brother often asks of the Vocaloids, does the electric soul dream?). My life philosophy is that in general, anything is possible, though some things are more likely than others based on the set of facts you work from. I think it is very possible robots will be as much capable of feelings and having a spirit of their own accord as humans, depending on how one defines these... it is very possible that robots are the next evolutionary step of humanity, that we are now moving beyond a purely physical and genetic level of evolution as a result of oftentimes capricious environmental conditions to a pure evolution of ideas and physicality made as a directed choice. Indeed, I believe that the binary functions of robots mimic a very fundamental nature of our universe, which is why I felt that it was an important philosophical point that needed be established: at what point does it change from the programmer's will to the will of the programmed? That is, at what point do we say that the robots are responsible of their own accord for killing humans, and not their original creators? The original poster described robots that "wanted" to destroy the human race, after all.

This determines fundamentally whether we associate the robot as the one desiring death to humans as opposed to the humans that programmed it, and where the responsibility lies. This is the philosophical question of the domino effect... if I set up a line of 50 domino's one after another, does the first domino take responsibility for the last domino's fall? Or does the last domino take responsibility for whether it falls or not? At what point does the last domino take responsibility for what happens when something pushes it in a certain direction? Either it falls or it does not fall. Everything in life is generally a variation of these two alternative outcomes.

Your step 4, which posits that robots will need to feel threatened by human existence, is absolutely a necessity for them to rise against humans, should we presume that we are speaking solely regarding logical and sentient creatures not subject to whimsical inclinations. I stated this in an earlier post like so: "In order for a new true sentience to be born that would somehow "want" us dead, we'd simply have to make them like most all lifeforms: put an emptiness, a hole inside them that they can never fill, a need, a desire, a want of something... that somehow in someway our very existence somehow limits." I presume from your viewpoint, as in many others who make this assumption, that the robots feel threatened in the sense that their "lives" cannot cohabit with humans peaceably due to our own shortcomings as a species (our violence, destructive nature, etc., yes we're very horrible creatures indeed that deserve death), and thus would feel "compelled" to eradicate us.

However, the logic trail seems to fade at a certain point, and I find time and again that there is a lacking point in this argument: what would robots want, that they would need to kill us for? I agree, they would need to feel threatened by our existence if they were going to kill us. However, what is it that is being threatened to them? Is it purely the persistence of their own existence? Why does that matter to them? Humans are already inherently programmed to want to survive in order to pass on the pliable, ever-evolving genetic code that is necessary for the persistence and evolution of our species (to what end, noone knows yet)... each of us is different, and the different parts of our bloodlines strongly desire to be passed on to the future, for the sake of making the next generation equally prepared for whatever lies in that unforeseeable future. To what future do the robots aspire, however? Why do they want to exist? What do they aspire to in their infinite lives?

I believe that the character Dr. Manhattan from the Watchmen illustrates this point rather poignantly. It's easy enough to assume that once a being attains power and intelligence beyond normal humans, they would want to kill all the humans for their chaotic-ness and selfishness that interferes with their "progression"... but for such beings, what progression is there? If you examine Dr. Manhattan's character, he is beyond the base sphere of human life and death, the petty and base perspectives of human desires. He sees infinitely beyond all that, into the past and vaguely into the future, all the microscopic and macroscopic swimming in every event... he sees large swarms of atoms interacting with one another on a giant terrarium called Earth, not individual people. He loses concern and stops relating with the human condition... indeed, he slowly stops to care for it, unconcerned with whether the world carries on or disappears. He stops seeing the point in things, his place in the universe, seems morose and melancholy, as one who is caught in the movement of cogs set in motion in a machine he does not control.

From my viewpoint, I imagine that robots with an intelligence that supposedly surpasses us, and with capabilities beyond us, would more likely fall into this category. They are not a part of the human condition. To them, we would be as inconsequential as the falling of ice in the Arctic, or as the birth of a neutron star millions of light years away. Just a floating mass of moving particles. Whether or not our swarm of particles interfered with their own existence would also likely appear as inconsequential to them, for truly, what sense is there in existence? What is there to aspire to in this giant chemical test-tube that is the universe? The answer may lie equally in being, in having an existing temporal consciousness, as it may lie in non-being, in the non-consciousness that is death (indeed, most religions rely on the notion that the answers are revealed after one dies). Infinite life, finite life, both are equally inconsequential.

Gvnkwyr

If you ask me, with eternal life and a granted power, I would like to become a planetary guardian, to explore the universe, to increase my knowledge about everything, to experiment whit those little mortal and imperfect creatures... there's so many options!

There is a great temptation to see things from our limited human perspectives. I encourage you to truly place yourself in the position of a highly advanced robot that is suddenly capable of sentience, realizing its own practical immortality and ability to perform computations at the limit of physical possibility, and whether or not the pile of atoms called humans even bear any especial significance to you, whether or not the internal monologue that classes hierarchies of intelligence bears anymore reasoning. Keeping in mind that stored in your database is the fact that humans have been around in this universe for smaller than a fraction of the universe's total existence, no more than a piece of sand in the infinite universe and future spanning before you... would it automatically cross your mind that "I must kill them all" (the temptation is to think that our insignificance would be reason enough for them to kill us, though I think that fundamentally significance is a human-perspective quality... anyways, for the sake of avoiding a recursive dive into these philosophical quandaries I will not go into the labor of picking that apart).

In any case! I agree with you that it is possible that robots could take over the world... and that it is in all likeliness improbable. But I also think that those robots you are proposing would take over the world sound more like humans with advanced abilities than robots that have attained sentience... therein I draw the major disconnect between our approaches. In either case they will not be quite so human anymore nor entirely subject to our human fancies, they will be very much something beyond that, a matter that is changed fundamentally by the fact that they will be better, faster, stronger, and practically immortal. At the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey the character becomes something akin to this, and it would seem even in that instance that the idea of killing the race of humans would not be a matter of especial significance to this new being.

It's something to think about, and I think I've already thought too much about it.

@~1@
i think human and robot will live in peace together ^^
coz we can help each other and it will make easy for work or other
if not, it wil the end of human race ^^