Will Robots One Day Rise Up Against Us?

This was basic plot in the original 1978 TV science fiction series entitled 'Battlestar Galactica'. Given my interest in History I find it fascinating that perhaps the concept wasn't so original after all.

Way back in 1920 there was a book written by Czech writer Karel Čapek entitled R.U.R. In the book Karel envisioned robots one day could be developed that could think as independently intelligent as humans. They were invented do the everyday mundane drudgery filled tasks that humans found repulsive and refused to do.

Being intelligent in design they tricked man into relying on them pretending they were content, all the while plotting a rebellion which led to the extinction of their task masters, the human beings.

If I said it once I've said it dozens of times, history makes fools of us all when it comes to assuming no one else ever thought about the things we take for granted as new ideas of our own. Such is the case with the TV show 'Battlestar Galactica' and it's 'Cylons' which obviously was based on a book written over a half a century before it premiered. There's even something more creepy going on here. I'll explain that after you take a look at this short video.



In today's world shortly cars will be driving themselves. Planes already fly on auto pilot and some aeroengineers are already in the early planning stages of designing commercial passenger jets that can be piloted from the ground like currently the military drones are. If that's not creepy enough for you, military planners are looking at the day these drones will use facial recognition and aggressive actions taken on the ground which will trigger the drone to automatically fire it's weapons.

Some of today's' modern trains are already fully automatic. The train conductor is only onboard to oversee these systems. Currently stock market trades are done at the rate of millions of shares per second. Some police patrol cars are equipped with license plate readers that alert an officer to scofflaws or stolen vehicles. E-ZPass will soon be replaced with these as well. The 10,000's of highway cams are a forerunner that one day will allow for the detection of drivers faces via facial recognition. They also will be capable of automatically detecting speeders and accidents.

These are just a few examples of what is already possible today. Imagine what tomorrow's autotomic devices will be capable of.

This history behind the word 'robots' is a fascinating one. It seems Karel Čapek was ahead of his time in predicting that robots would replace workers one day. What if.. just what if.. he was also a visionary. A farsighted individual who foresaw that one day these robots could supersede humans altogether. I tend to believe, in some cases, history can be yesterday's tomorrow. History should serve as cautionary reminder of what has already been tried or is possible.

Those who are incapable of learning from the past are doomed to repeat it's mistakes. Albeit whether real or imagined one should give pause to consider the possibilities.

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After all if 93 years ago (when this book was written) someone said there would one day be robots on the production lines and the drones we all take for granted today, they would have called that person nuts!