quotations about robots
First machine kicked man's ass physically, then machine started taking over the left-brain when Deep Blue bested Kasparov in chess, and then finally the machine fully took over the left-brain when Watson beat the great Ken Jennings on Jeopardy. And now these terminators are coming after right-brained activities too--the creative and emotional side of the brain. Pretty soon we'll all be driving cars with bumper stickers that say, "Robots make better lovers."
JAROD KINTZ
Gosh, I Probably Shouldn't Publish This
Until we figure out how to fairly distribute the fruits of robot labor, it will be an era of mass joblessness and mass poverty.
KEVIN DRUM
"You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot--and Sooner Than You Think", Mother Jones, November/December 2017
When you are thirteen, you spend all your time imagining what it would be like to live in a world where you could pay a robot for sex. And that sex would cost a dollar. And the only obstacle to getting that sex would be making sure you had four quarters. Then you grow up and it turns out you do live in that kind of world. A world with coin-operated sexbots. And it's not really as great as you thought it would be.
CHARLES YU
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
If you don't want a generation of robots, fund the arts!
CATH CROWLEY
Graffiti Moon
Robots building robots. Now that's just stupid.
JEFF VINTAR
I, Robot
If you want to look at this through a utopian lens, the AI Revolution has the potential to free humanity forever from drudgery. In the best-case scenario, a combination of intelligent robots and green energy will provide everyone on Earth with everything they need. But just as the Industrial Revolution caused a lot of short-term pain, so will intelligent robots. While we're on the road to our Star Trek future, but before we finally get there, the rich are going to get richer--because they own the robots--and the rest of us are going to get poorer because we'll be out of jobs.
KEVIN DRUM
"You Will Lose Your Job to a Robot--and Sooner Than You Think", Mother Jones, November/December 2017
Accepting that one day your role might be handled by a robot is a hard pill to swallow. But if we can learn anything from history, it's that when machines take over workers must learn to adapt, and create new roles for themselves.
THOMAS SHAMBLER
"Robots are coming! How to stay relevant in an automated world", Arabian Business, May 31, 2016
What separates us into engineers and robots, puppeteers and puppets, kings and pawns, is not the status we hold at any given time among others -- status is irrelevant; it is the level of ever-present awareness we have of a grey-matter tailor's tools ... of flattery, persuasion, and cunning.
A. J. DARKHOLME
Rise of the Morningstar
If the robot can recognize the clean flame of life
in men who have never fallen from life
then he repents, and his will breaks, and a great love of life
brings him to his knees, in homage and pure passion of service.
Then he receives the kiss of reconciliation
and ceases to be a robot, and becomes a servant of life.
D. H. LAWRENCE
"Real Democracy", The Complete Poems
Serafina was late for dinner because her emotional robots had been having a nervous breakdown.
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS
All the Birds in the Sky
Machines smart enough to do anything for us will probably also be able to do anything with us: go to dinner, own property, compete for sexual partners. They might even have passionate opinions about politics or, like the robots on Battlestar Galactica, even religious beliefs. Some have worried about robot rebellions, but with so many tort lawyers around to apply the brakes, the bigger question is this: Will humanoid machines enrich our social lives, or will they be a new kind of television, destroying our relationships with real humans?
FRED HAPGOOD
Discover Magazine, June 2008
If you look at the robotic devices that are coming into the restaurant industry -- it's cheaper to buy a $35,000 robotic arm than it is to hire an employee who's inefficient making $15 an hour bagging French fries -- it's nonsense and it's very destructive and it's inflationary and it's going to cause a job loss across this country like you're not going to believe.
ED RENSI
interview, Mornings with Maria, June 2016
Next to robots, humans are pretty stupid. Stupid in the sense that they can't hold the vast quantities of data that their machine counterparts can. So when it comes to humans and robots working together, there's a clear mismatch in abilities.
HUGH LANGLEY
"Robots are learning to deal with human stupidity", TechRadar, February 18, 2016