David Ewing Duncan - 16 July

WHEN IM 164

LIFE AT ALL COSTS

EXPERIMENTAL MAN

MASTERMINDS

CALENDAR

RESIDENTS

HERNANDO DE SOTO

FROM CAPE TO CAIRO

PEDALING THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

Kevin Kelly, Teddy Bear Bot

Sunny Bates, The %$@! Robot That Swiped My Job

Emily Morse and Bryony Cole, Sex (Intimacy) Bot

David Agus, Eric Topol, and Jordan Shlain, Doc Bot

Robert Latiff and George Poste, Warrior Bot

Dean Kamen, Its Not About the Robots Bot

Bob Kerrey and Greg Simon, Politician Bot

David Eagleman, Wearable Bot

Stephanie Mehta and Robert Siegel, Journalism Bot

Stephen Petranek, Mars (Daemon) Bot

Craig Venter, Risk-Free Bot

Adam Gazzaley, Brain Optimization Bot

David Baldacci, Thriller Bot

Tiffany Shlain, Ken Goldberg, and Odessa Shlain Goldberg, Memory Bot

Tim OReilly, Matrix Bot

Juan Enriquez and George Church, Homo digitalis/Homo syntheticis

Rodrigo Martinez, Tourist (Evolution) Bot

Brian Greene, God Bot

David Sinclair, Joon Yun, and Marc Hodosh, Immortal Me Bot

In the future we will all remember when the robots truly arrived. Everyone will have their story. Some will be revelatory, recalled as a rush of excitement that a robot could do that thing that was so vitally important to us. Perhaps a robot surgeon saved the life of someone dear to you. Or you had mind-blowing sex with the robo-date of your dreams. And how can you forget when that robot broker used AI-quantum mumbo jumbo to net you a tidy sum on the Pyongyang stock exchange, allowing you to pay for your daughters masters degreein robotics?

For others, their first true robot experience will be like getting the best toy ever: a mega-bot loaded with games, jokes, travel suggestions, advice in love, holographic telephonesa robot thats funny and wise and, quite possibly, sexy, like the voice of Scarlett Johansson in the movie Her. Or maybe your inaugural robot moment will be more banal. An instant when you realize with relief that the machines have taken over all the tasks and responsibilities that used to be super annoyingtaking out the trash, changing diapers, paying bills, and vacuuming those hard-to-reach places in your (robot-driven) car.

Possibly your recollection will be less benign, a memory of when a robot turned against you. The #%$! machine that swiped your job. The robot IRS agent that threatened to seize your bank assets over a tax dispute. The robo-judge that decided against you in a lawsuit with a former business partner that also happened to be a robot, making you wonder if all these robots are secretly working in cahoots.

You might also remember when the robots began campaigning for equal rights with humans and for an end to robot slavery, abuse, and exploitation. Or when robots became so smart that they ceased to do what we asked them and became our benign overlords, treating us like cute and not very bright pets. Or when the robots grew tired of us and decided to destroy us, turning our own robo-powered weapons of mass destruction against us, which we hoped was just a bad dreama possible future scenario discussed in the early twenty-first century by the likes of Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX. AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization, Musk once said, adding that AI is potentially more dangerous than nukes. Great news coming from a guy who made AI-powered cars and spaceships.

Those of you living in the present day can be forgiven if you feel a bit antsy about the whole existential risk thing, even as you continue to love, love, love your technology as it whisks you across and over continents and oceans at thirty-five thousand feet, and also brews you decent triple-shot cappuccinos with extra foam at just the push of a button. It summons you rides in someone elses Kia Soul or Chevy Volt that hopefully doesnt smell funny, and it connects you online with that cute chestnut-haired girl you had a crush on in sixth grade whose current-day pics you like but are careful not to love, because that would be a little weird after all these years.

Yet deep down, many people living in the early 2000sknown as the Early Robot Era (ERE)feared that a robo-apocalypse wasnt off the table for the future. This despite reassurances from tech elites like Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg. Im really optimistic, Zuckerberg has said about the future. People who are naysayers and kind of try to drum up these doomsday scenariosI just, I dont understand it. To which Elon Musk replied, Ive talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited.

Further into the future we will remember when robots became organic, created in a lab from living tissue, cells, and DNA to look and be just like us, but better and more resilient. Even further out in time we will recall when we first had the option of becoming robots ourselves, by downloading our minds and our essences into organic-engineered beings that could theoretically live forever. Some of us will remember being thrilled by the prospect of having a synthetic or organometallic body thats young and sleek and impervious to aging.