Robert Anton Wilson Quotes

No one knows when a robot will approach human intelligence, but I suspect it will be late in the 21st century. Will they be dangerous? Possibly. So I suggest we put a chip in their brain to shut them off if they have murderous thoughts.

We are still fearful, superstitious and all-too-human creatures. At times, we forget the magnitude of the havoc we can wreak by off-loading our minds onto super-intelligent machines, that is, until they run away from us, like mad sorcerers' apprentices, and drag us up to the precipice for a look down into the abyss.

There is a real danger that computers will develop intelligence and take over. We urgently need to develop direct connections to the brain so that computers can add to human intelligence rather than be in opposition.

Above all, I would not expect a wise race, at great expense, to set loose an army of self-replicating robots.

We humans are not the end of evolution, so if we can make a machine that's as smart as a person, we can probably also make one that's much smarter. There's no point in making just another person. You want to make one that can do things we can't.

Some people call this artificial intelligence, but the reality is this technology will enhance us. So instead of artificial intelligence, I think we'll augment our intelligence.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

In a world that's smarter than it used to be and, in some ways, smarter than it ought to be, stupidity has a way of making us seem all the more human.

By the time we get to the 2040s, we'll be able to multiply human intelligence a billionfold. That will be a profound change that's singular in nature. Computers are going to keep getting smaller and smaller. Ultimately, they will go inside our bodies and brains and make us healthier, make us smarter.

There's something so arrogant about us creating robots that are more and more human-looking or acting. It's like we're playing God. Let's create something that's a reflection of us, but it's inferior.

Two big questions that people ask me are: if we make these robots more and more human-like, will we accept them - will they need rights eventually? And the other question people ask me is, will they want to take over?

Since the rise of Homo sapiens, human beings have been the smartest minds around. But very shortly - on a historical scale, that is - we can expect technology to break the upper bound on intelligence that has held for the last few tens of thousands of years.

In the future, when Microsoft leaves a security-flaw in their code it won't mean that somebody hacks your computer. It will mean that somebody takes control of your servant robot and it stands in your bedroom doorway sharpening a knife and watching you sleep.

You don't want to stand too close to a robot arm; it can turn your head to mush.

You want to know what a robot's designed for. And if it's doing something outside the scope of what it's made to do, you should be very suspicious.

In my books the technology that I choose to talk about has to serve the themes. What that means is that I end up having to cut out a lot of cool technology that would be really fun to describe and play with, but which would just confuse everybody. So in 'Amped,' I focus on neural implants.

Robots are not people. They are mechanically more perfect than we are, they have an astounding intellectual capacity, but they have no soul.

A world in which advanced military robots are easily available is a world filled with an increasing numbers of modern militaries—a world that may face a higher risk if arms races and conflicts.

Machines are what enable the human race to move forward and up, and machines have always been physical,. Computers are the first devices that actually help the mind.

Every technology that can improve the human condition could harm the human condition. Someone evil could program a robot to hurt people.

It's been an old saw in science fiction for a long time, since 'Frankenstein,' that we're going to create life that's going to turn on us.

I see the 'z' in 'Humanz' as referring to robots, AI, programming, brainwashing, indoctrination. And it's a question to us: are we human, or are we humanz? Have we lost the ability to think for ourselves? Do we just believe what we're told? That's how I see it.

We need to invest in technologies that amplify human capacity, not replace it.

I definitely fall into the camp of thinking of AI as augmenting human capability and capacity.

I am more on the side of humans than robots.