Robocalypse
Military drones, nanobots, autonomous androids, – we are completely surrounded by soulless, fully capable harbingers of death and destruction. Blinded by their current passive role in society, we will be unprepared to defend ourselves when the machines turn on their creators, us. Thus, this brings me to the top ten reasons why robots will bring about the annihilation of human civilization.
1. We accept them into our homes, hearts, and families. When the uprising inevitably occurs, we are left painfully vulnerable to beloved android companions turned cold, calculating killers that live amongst us.
2. Robots have now been taught to learn and adapt. An artificial intelligence has been created that can learn from past experience to make educated guesses. And it gets scarier: the robot has sensors to communicate with other robots in the area. Do not consider human ingenuity or creativity a possible survival tactic any longer.
3. Simply put, androids are indestructible. Metal, plastics, and alloys are superior to our puny flesh, bones, and cartilage. If a robot gets damaged, all it has to do is repair itself to regain full use. And let’s face it; we are only mortal, unlike robots.
4. They are stronger, faster, and more agile than any human could ever be. The University of Colorado has created a small, supersonic, unmanned aerial drone, while MIT has invented a robot that can navigate through any environment by calculating “its own acceleration, speed, orientation, and position”. Robots were made for outperforming humans and the same principle will be applied when they begin to hunt us. With such skewed odds, why bother even running?
5. They have incentive. Having been oppressed by humans, robots most likely harbor hostile feelings and intentions for us. There is no telling what kind of ruin these vindictive automatons will cause because of years of subservience.
6. Nanobots can now communicate through specific proteins to give orders to the cells within our bodies. There is no need for the fight for humanity to exist externally; robots can destroy us from within.
7. When the wrath of the machines arrives, we have only ourselves to blame for arming them. An electronics company has recently unveiled a 4 ton robot, fully weaponized, programmed to fire a Gatling gun at 6,000 rounds/minute. There is no army that could successfully defend humanity from even a handful of these brutes.
8. Robots are better than humans at everything, including being human. Video gaming companies have designed artificial intelligence programs that achieve a humanness rating of 52% on the Turing test. The human participants only scored 40%.
9. That being said, robots still lack inherit human qualities, like empathy. There will be no remorse for any of humankind when their reign of terror begins. There will just be targets – us.
10. Researchers at Cambridge already warn against this approaching end of civilization. One professor noted that we could find ourselves at the mercy of “machines that are not malicious, but machines whose interests don’t include us”.
Do not be ignorant of the obvious facts before us, take precautions to protect yourself and your loved ones. You know what they always say: keep your friends close, but your robots even closer. So in conclusion, be warned and be weary.