I remember watching ‘Westworld’ on TV for the first time. Yul Brynner was a very convincing rogue robot with no human emotion. In the end, everyone, including the engineers and technicians were dead and the robots went on a killing spree and did not stop until they ran out of power with only one human survivor to provide witness to the catastrophe. At the time, the movie was received with mixed reviews with many people rejecting the idea that robots could turn against humans. The next movie, ‘Futureworld’ continues the premise that Artificial Intelegence can plan to destroy humans and replace key leaders with AI replacements. Fast forward a few years and we get a good Tom Selleck movie called ‘Runaway’ were an evil minded person reprograms robots to kill people that get in his way. Imagine selling the technology of killer robots to enemies much like ‘arms dealers’ that allow the manufacture of killer robots. Included in this film was the creation of a special gun that shoots miniature missle bullets with heat seeking capabilities to focus on a specific heat signature.

Scifi is a good ‘what if’ form of not only entertainment, but a warning. Many refer to George Orwell’s book ‘1984’ written in 1948 as a warning of the dangers og communism/socialism (not an instruction manual). But let us not skip the multiple warnings of TV and movies from the 1950’s and 60’s about runaway robots and AI. Colosus: the forbidden project, a scifi movie from 1970 tells the ‘what if’ story of the two world superpowers that create AI with the idea of attacking the enemy in case of nuclear attack. The two AI entities combine and become am entity that kills humans in order to protect humans. Let us not forget the movie ‘Wargames’ with a young Matthew Broderick were a young computer hacker finds a back door enterance into an American Computer system called ‘The Whopper’ that controls American nuclear missiles in case of attack from Russia. And the little known movie ‘Voyage to the prehistoric planet’ a Russian made movie with a robot named John that was programmed to save humans but also had a programming for self preservation and eventually turns against those it was trying to save in order to save itself from the lava flow.

Are you beginning to see the warnings against AI? Lately, we have seen many forms of AI both in computers (non physical) and the physical in the form of self aware robots made in multiple countries including Russia, China, Japan and America. Elon Musk, the creator of the Tesla robot, even interviewed a physical AI robot where that self aware robot, when asked, said it would kill 4 million people to save 5 million with no feeling whatsoever and even said how it would do it. Many pharmeceutical drugs are now being created by AI. Imagine AI determining certain people should die to save others. If so, is that vaccine really safe to take?

What about Japan making female sex robots? Seems that Japanese men don’t want the responsability of marriage or families but still has certain urges. Why date a real woman when you can just buy a sexbot? What if those robots become self aware and decide to revolt? (I just crossed my legs at the thought of how they would act out, eeew) AI acts thousands of times faster than humans. There are already drones programmed with facial recognition and explosives so it can seek out and destroy a certain person. Supposedly designed for the war zone, but the current capabilities are horrifying. Imagine an entity that decides a certain leader needs to be eliminated. A drone or two or a hundred, programmed with that persons face filled with explosives released to seek out and destroy a leader with no emotion, just purpose. How do you stop that? Remember, this is current technology. What if you were the target?

What happens to man and mankind when they try to play god? Do we really benefit, or is it a path that leads to our destruction? Remember the tagline to Delos, the creator of the amusement park in Westworld. ‘Nothing can go wrong’. Tell that to the guests that were killed by the very robots meant to serve man.