Oh man, your post was so long, but in your words I still feel the hints that tell me that we conceive future robots in a very very different way... but thinking about it both perspectives are not opposite, they only differ in time. Your allegation is that none of us can understand the robots' perspective, so you can't either, because we'll never now with certainty what will happen. The only thing we can do is imagine, assume and speculate.

Some things you said are for me properties of the first intelligent robots (and therefore their actions), the whole stuff you said that robots cannot be are exactly what I imagine middle generation robots would be, and the whole paragraph about Dr Manhattan is my idea of the final generation of robots, the last point in their evolution. In those different stages of their development, the way the think, feel and what they want are entirely different.

RedZ

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.

You are right, in that point we differ. I believe that somewhere in the middle of your two extreme stated points of robot nature, robots will develop human thoughts, feelings and behaviors. In that moment of "weakness", when their human feelings make them to feel threatened, they theoretically could want to make what humans do when facing a threat: destroy it.

Being conscious that is useless that we try to change each other mind (what for? it's nice to think different, it's very interesting to learn from others points of view), so in I have combined both perspectives in an eclectic theory.

And to answer your question...

RedZ

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).

I feet you can't conceive that robots can have human feelings for the way you use quote marks. A quoted word, when not indicating what someone else have said, indicates an expression that is assumed, doubted or even false (for example, if we speak about the "friendship" between USA and Irak). Even when is not explicitly stated, the author's style gives hints about his intentions or feelings. And I based my interpretation in your quoted expressions:

RedZ

(...) but any "motivations" robots may come to possess (...)
(...) they don't have any nerves to "feel" any duress or pain (...)
(...) being forced to work against their "will" (...)
If it were to display on a screen "I want justice", is that the same as when a human says it?
Certainly their intelligence may grow, but what "living" would it want to make for itself?
(...) faced with infinity, what would a robot "want"?
(...) desire freedom from a "slavery" of working (...)
(...) understanding of the robot "sentience" (...)
The original poster described robots that "wanted" to destroy the human race (...)
(...) a new true sentience to be born that would somehow "want" us dead (...)
(...) the robots feel threatened in the sense that their "lives" cannot cohabit with humans peaceably (...)
(...) and thus would feel "compelled" to eradicate us (...)
(...) that interferes with their "progression" (...)

So if that wasn't your intention, I suggest you stop using quote marks in that way.

As long as we don't give them too much sentience.

Gvnkwyr, that's a very interesting point that you've brought up, the internal evolution of a robot's thought processes. Given that they would likely think at speeds millions of times faster than we humans are capable, with infinitely omnipresent dynamic access to millions of data pieces/news/history/movies/books/etc., and assuming that their new sentience allows for dynamic modification of their own thought processes, it's a wonder to think how they may progress to an end-state zen-type quality, to what degree and how quickly they may achieve such a state, and the steps involved... I imagine that if they started from a blank-slate human-type emotionally programmed reference, then it would very likely follow the logical pattern you have outlined. It may depend on their own historical and environmental experiences, though it is perhaps possible, that with all the information at their disposal they may come to such conclusions within less than a micro-second of having gained sentience.

I agree, thinking about it I can see how my use of quotes may be misconstrued... My intention was to call into question how we would define these human aspects in an artifical construct as we do in ourselves, not to add a personal incredulity to these aspects ever possibly being attainable by a robot sentience. An inherent difficulty in discussions like these is that though we share a common language, the semantics as we understand them varies considerably from person to person... As such it is possible to derive tone and motivation from what an individual has written that may not have been intended, so I endeavor to be careful in maintaining an objective and distanced approach in my writing. However, I will definitely strive to be more judicious with my application of quotation marks in this regard, thank you for bringing it to my attention.

I apologize for the long-winded writings as well... I just find that writing about and exploring the intricasies of these sorts of issues to be fascinating.

That is... if swine flu doesn't wipe us off the face of the planet first.

i actually think that society is getting closer to the day were they create a "AI" Robot that will eventuallly become way too advanced for us to handle and then go on its own. But the more we mess with technology to try and better or lives the more we're finding ways to destroy it. i don't know maybe thats goin overboard but i think there will come a time we're human scientists will create something so powerful and more advanced for them that, they will be crushed by the weight of there own genius. But i do think that technology is really close to creating a threat to everyone very soon in the near future. so to answer the question, yes i do think that someday something so advanced will be built that we will not be able to control anymore will get out of hand and will seek to destroy the human race. (-_-)

I remember that one time in my English class one guy asked the same question.

This other guy that was really good at programming computers told everybody that computers can only 'obey commands' for now. They can't take the functions that we put into them and be like- ptooey on you- and go crazy. But I could not program my way out of a paper bag on Windows Paint.

Maaaaybe someday the totally will. I mean- I had this computer teacher over the summer who was showing a PowerPoint presentation during the first day of class, and the final slide was one of a picture from the latest Terminator movie. He was dead set on the idea that computers will someday take over the world.

I never found out exactly how old he is, but he told us he's been working with computers since the '80's and he used to use a slide rule in math class. All I'm sayin' is he's old- and he's seen how far computers have come- and he's pretty sure about how far they'll go- to destroy all humans that is.

It would be my dream come true to see something like robots taking over the world and slaving humans. Why?... Because it would mean that we had overcome death by living more than anybody else.

There is nothing to worry though, something like this will not be happening for at least one hundred years and when that did happen, we would be resting peacefully in our graves, not that I want that at all!...

I'm very anxious to see what the future awaits us!...

At the moment, no. We have neither the technology nor the expertise to create an artificial being that can be comparable to a sentient being much less a human. Even in the foreseeable future such technology is a long, long distance away, and I'm confident that unless computer scientists experience a unanimous epiphany within the next few decades, then we won't be around to experience any sort of artificial intelligence and most definitely not a robotic uprising.

For the moment, such things should remain in the pages of science fiction.

Well, after seeing movies such as i, robot, it all depends on how dependent human becomes on technology.

Robots won't kill us at least our creation cannot kill us , in future the best thing might happen is only if we will merge/fuse with nano technologies robots etc.
tehre is plenty evidence that it's happening now, look at new artificial organs, bionic eyes, nano chip can be inplanted into brain to help sick/dumb people look at people who lost arms legs now have better than true human leg a mecha leg lol nanomachines might be injected to our blood vesels to prevent illness poison ... so like i said we likely join with machines not fight them

I don't think so. The human is always more intelligent than robot because they created them

I dont think

Well the idea of humans creating a machine that ultimately tries to destroy us sounds interesting and even scary in some sense. But In reality i think we are still far in creating a machine that can think learn and evolve by itself. I personally think that we will destroy ourselves through war and other nonsense before we reach that stage.

Im convenced that if we are able to make artificial inteligence will eventually end like matrix or terminator movies. We are our own enemies.

Before that happens I guess we would be at the age where everything is controlled by the network a.k.a internet,the answer is simple go find yourself a virus generating program make one and by the time robots take over,they will have their own network upload the virus and the virus will spread to each robot thus causing them to shut down and you saved the world.(unless if they made an anti-virus then we are doomed)