Daniel H. Wilson Quotes

The question is, you know, will someone accidentally build a robot that takes over from us? And that's sort of like this lone guy in the backyard, you know - 'I accidentally built a 747.' I don't think that's going to happen.

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?

I absolutely don't think a sentient artificial intelligence is going to wage war against the human species.

You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs.

I love stories like 'The Terminator' movies and 'The Matrix,' where our machines become self-aware and turn on us.

Once we no longer have the intellectual upper hand, then we quite literally, by definition, cannot outwit our successors. So unless we are absolutely sure that the machines we are building right now are not going to eventually become our new robot overlords, prudence is called for.

As we get robots becoming more sophisticated, I think we should worry sooner rather than later on how much they could take over, but I think it'll mostly be a positive thing. In terms of deadlines it won't be any worse than nuclear weapons.

Technology is at the forefront of everything these days - communication, work. It's amazing and scary at the same time how robots have evolved, but I find it hard to believe that robots will completely rule the world. Not in my lifetime anyway.

Most of the intelligence out there must be artificial intelligence. We keep looking for critters like us living on a planet like ours, where in fact the majority of the intelligence out there is not biological. That would be my argument.

Science fiction has done a really good job of scaring us into thinking that computers shouldn't get too smart, because as soon as they get really smart, they're going to take over the world and kill us, or something like that. But why would they do that?

I believe that robots should only have faces if they truly need them.

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

I'm not afraid of computers taking over the world.

Robots already perform many functions, from making cars to defusing bombs - or, more menacingly, firing missiles. Children and adults play with toy robots, while vacuum-cleaning robots are sucking up dirt in a growing number of homes and - as evidenced by YouTube videos - entertaining cats.

Let's not kid ourselves here, robots already run most of our world. We'll be their butlers soon enough.

Artificial intelligence is growing up fast, as are robots whose facial expressions can elicit empathy and make your mirror neurons quiver.

Robots have gotten steadily more capable, but humans' expectations that robots should have minds keeps biting robot developers.

The concept of the robot encapsulates both aspects of technology. On one hand it's cool, it's fun, it's healthy, it's sexy, it's stylish. On the other hand it's terrifying, it's alienating, it's addictive, and it's scary. That has been the subject of much science-fiction literature.

If popular culture has taught us anything, it is that someday mankind must face and destroy the growing robot menace.

Personally, I'm not afraid of a robot uprising. The benefits far outweigh the threats.

Robots are interesting because they exist as a real technology that you can really study - you can get a degree in robotics - and they also have all this pop-culture real estate that they take up in people's minds.

Our technology has already outstripped our ability to control it.

I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans. And I am rooting for the machines.

In a few years the androids will be working for us. Let’s hope that we never have to work for them

I think the 'Terminator' idea is a reasonable one - that is that one day the Internet becomes self-aware and simply says that humans are in the way. After all, if you meet an ant hill and you're making a 10-lane super highway, you just pave over the ants. It's not that you don't like the ants, it's not that you hate ants; they are just in the way.