God’s Imprint
May, 2011: God’s Imprint
Imagine you are a mad scientist in the not too distant future. Imagine you have designed an extremely advanced robot, one with mental and physical capabilities far greater than humans, but with pleasant human-like features so as not to be alarming at first sight. The robot is also extremely dexterous and mobile. You have named him Roy.
Roy is fully capable of assimilating into human culture, but only in a subservient manner. He could be a maid, butler, cook, chauffeur, nanny, bodyguard and the like, but not a teacher or CEO or a military officer.
Roy is highly cognitive – way smarter than most humans. But, being a mere robot, he will have to be told what to do and when to do it. He will also have to be told what not to do. So, before you turn Roy loose, you must program him to do his job and nothing more and nothing less. This is not as easy as it sounds.
Consider what happened in the movie “Space Odyssey, 2001″ released in 1975. In Part I, a large monolithic obelisk is discovered by primitive apes. In Part II, millions of years later, a second similar obelisk is discovered on the moon. The obelisk seems to be beaming a mysterious signal towards the planet Jupiter. Earthlings, being ever curious, decide to send a large manned spaceship to Jupiter to find out what the heck is going on.
One of the characters aboard the transport is a brilliant computer, named Hal. If you’ve seen the movie, you will remember that Hal totally wigged out along the way. Hal began his rampage by killing off several passengers, after which he killed one of the two astronauts aboard. Finally, Hal turned his evil intentions to the ship captain, Dave. But, Dave was onto Hal and was going to put up a fight. He entered the computer’s power bank and began pulling out Hal’s energy pods. Hal got weaker and weaker and finally, sensing his imminent demise, implored Dave to quit. In a deep, drawn out voice Hal said, “Dave … I’m feeling … much better … now. Please … stop.”
When the movie was over, you probably hated Hal. But, in the sequel, “Space Odyssey, 2010,” it was revealed what really happened. Poor Hal wasn’t evil after all. He had been programmed with contradictory instructions. On the one hand, Hal was told the mission to Jupiter had to be protected at all costs. On the other hand, Hal was told that the astronauts were in charge and had to be obeyed. As the mission wore on Hal became more and more confused and finally decided that the humans aboard were imperiling the mission. So, Hal decided to eliminate them. A perfectly understandable response considering Hal’s predicament.
The plot illuminates the dilemma of programming highly cognitive robots. A human being, such as Dave, could have easily reconciled the seemingly contradictory information.
So, back to the original problem. How are you going to program Roy so that he doesn’t end up like Hal? Well, you could start by installing a database of every law, ordinance and regulation – federal, state and local – on the books. Then instruct Roy to never violate any of them. You must also instruct Roy to never, under any circumstances, harm any human being.
Will Roy be able to function? Remember, when given an instruction by his owner, Roy will have to scan his database to make sure that the instruction doesn’t violate any of the hundreds of thousands of laws, ordinances and regulations – many of them somewhat if not outright contradictory. And what will Roy be programmed to do if he encounters a dilemma?
What if someone has purchased Roy as a bodyguard and one evening while Roy and he are enjoying an evening stroll through their neighborhood, the owner is attacked by hoodlums. They knock him down and beat him mercilessly. He shouts out to Roy to kill the sons of bitches. But Roy can’t. His programming won’t allow it. So, Roy just stands there and watches his owner die.
Clearly, Roy will have to be re-programmed so that under certain conditions he can indeed harm or kill humans. But, what will these circumstances be? Another vast array of possible scenarios will have to be entered into Roy’s database.
By now, you undoubtedly begin to see the magnitude of the problem of programming a highly functioning robot.
Now, forget about Roy and consider yourself. How in the world do you function in today’s world? There are a zillion laws, ordinances and regulations governing your behavior. Suppose you find yourself in an unpleasant or even perilous situation from which you must make an immediate response. Are you going to go through the entire database of laws, ordinances and regulations to determine your proper response? No, of course not. Your brain is not fast enough and, even if it was, you would likely encounter contradictory information. You’ll be there all day. Humans couldn’t function this way.
So, how do humans function? It’s pretty simple. It’s God. You see, God imprinted the human brain with an innate sense of right and wrong. We all know what’s right and what’s wrong. We don’t need a stack of law books to tell us how to act. God also gave us free will, so that even though we know right from wrong, we are free to choose either. And, unfortunately, a small percentage of humans choose to do wrong on levels ranging from fairly innocuous to incredibly evil. And, unfortunately, this small percentage of humans make life much more difficult and painful for the rest of us.
May 18th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
Even though I may not agree, you always provide detailed, lengthy articles on politics. This I always enjoy.
Elbee
May 22nd, 2011 at 1:08 am
Useful blog website, keep me personally through searching it, I am seriously interested to find out another recommendation of it.
May 24th, 2011 at 12:42 am
I just sent this post to a bunch of my friends as I agree with most of what you’re saying here and the way you’ve presented it is awesome.
May 24th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Hello, just ran into your site from digg. It’s not an article I would typically read, but I liked your thoughts on it. Thanx for making a piece worth reading!
May 24th, 2011 at 2:05 pm
Hey, just stumbled on your page from reddit. It’s not blog post I would normally read, but I liked your spin on it. Thanx for making a blog post worth reading!
May 25th, 2011 at 4:25 am
What a great resource!
May 25th, 2011 at 9:14 am
Hi, I stumbled on your webpage from stumbleupon. It’s not an article I would normally read, but I liked your perspective on it. Thanks for making an article worth reading!
May 26th, 2011 at 3:31 am
Hey, just stumbled on this webpage from mixx. This isn’t not an article I would normally read, but I loved your perspective on it. Thank you for making an article worth reading!
May 29th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
This is a very well thought out, smart and creative story. nicely explained and logicaly sequenced. However true, conclusion should not be a surprise to anyone. Life has never been perfect nor fair. And I would not be surprised if the “small percentage of humans” is not that small.
June 2nd, 2011 at 11:43 am
I would like to come back to my previous comments. Although correct, I must admit I remained with the supperficial aspect of the article. The literary aspect of it.
However, I now realize I missed the whole point of it: the ethical one. So here I come back with my commets on the message it contains.
1 – God has allowed man to choose. Therefore there are persons who choose to do wrong. This is the reason why there are good and there are bad persons. If He would have made all men good, then we would all be Hals or Roys. What makes us human is the ability to choose, and therefore the ability to do wrong or to err. Humanity implies diversity.
2 – What is Right or wrong, is relative. Who can claim to have the the power to define right and wrong?
Killing is wrong. Killing the enemy in a war is right. Killing in self defense may be right or wrong.
What about invading Irak? Some may think it is right and others may think it is wrong. Should you be in this second group, wouldn you justify defending your country by fighting back? and if your efforts during the war were unsuccessfull because you lost the war, should you accept defeat or should you continue fighting by other means? Weren´t partisans in WW2 doing exactly this while France was under nazi control?
3 – What about colonialism? How many attrocities were commited by Romans in Jerusalem during the time Our Lord was born? And what about the control of England over India? or the portuguese in Africa? Or americans with african americans in the southern states up until last century? You may argue that these attrocities were accepted at their time when values were different than today´s and that all of these have been corrected. Yes, this is true, but then you are admitting that right or wrong depends on time.
4 – And what about the more subtle instances like a) choosing between the least damage alternative, b) Euthanasia etc?
The whole purpose of my comment is to show that, with the few exceptions of ill minded individuals, human being tend to act correctly. However, what is correct for one individual may be interpreted as incorrect to others. The unseemingly terrorific reaction in of many muslems to western impositions may be the right reaction to the wrong advantage taken by the west due to economic or military superiority in their territories.
June 4th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
Pretty impressive post. I just stumbled upon your page and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your opinions. Any way I’ll be coming back and I hope you post again soon.
June 5th, 2011 at 3:46 pm
Good blog! I really love how it is easy on my eyes as well as the details are well written. I am wondering how I might be notified whenever a new post has been made. I have subscribed to your rss feed which ought to do the trick! Have a nice day!
June 6th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Hello, I hopped over to your web site from stumbleupon. It is not an article I would normally read, but I loved your spin on it. Thank you for creating a piece worth reading!
June 11th, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Thanks for another great article. Where else could anyone get that kind of information in such a perfect way of writing? I have a presentation next week, and I am on the look for such info.
April 5th, 2012 at 1:50 am
I appreciate you sharing this blog.Really thank you! Great.
April 9th, 2012 at 5:47 am
Enjoyed every bit of your blog.Really looking forward to read more. Fantastic.
April 10th, 2012 at 5:43 am
some genuinely interesting points you could have written.
April 10th, 2012 at 2:03 pm
Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon your blog and in accession capital to assert that I acquire actually enjoyed account your blog posts. Any way I’ll be subscribing to your feeds and even I achievement you access consistently fast.
April 12th, 2012 at 1:49 am
Whats up! I simply wish to give a huge thumbs up for the good info you’ve right here on this post. I can be coming again to your blog for extra soon.
April 12th, 2012 at 5:00 pm
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your web site by accident, and I am shocked why this accident did not happened earlier! I bookmarked it.
April 13th, 2012 at 10:38 am
I think this is a real great post.Much thanks again. Much obliged.
April 14th, 2012 at 11:43 am
HTOSbh Major thanks for the blog post.Really thank you! Keep writing.
April 14th, 2012 at 10:00 pm
Надежда на наслаждение почти так же приятна, как и само наслаждение. – У. Шекспир
April 15th, 2012 at 8:16 am
Im cheerful I located this webpage page, I couldnt obtain any information on this subject matter before. I as well run a site and in case you are ever serious in doing some visitor writing for me please sense free to let me understand, im all the time look for persons to check out my site. Please stop by as well as leave a note sometime!
April 16th, 2012 at 8:31 am
hello!,I really like your writing so a lot! percentage we communicate extra approximately your post on AOL? I require an expert on this space to resolve my problem. May be that’s you! Taking a look forward to peer you.
April 16th, 2012 at 11:35 am
I simply want to tell you that I am beginner to blogging and honestly enjoyed you’re web-site. Likely I’m going to bookmark your site . You really come with terrific writings. Appreciate it for sharing your website.
April 17th, 2012 at 8:09 am
I and my their peers were reviewing the excellent items from your website while suddenly I got a terrible feeling We never expressed regard to the webmaster for all those strategies. All the ladies happen to be certainly stimulated to study them all and also have in essence undeniably already been enjoying these things. I want to thank simply being well useful and then to get such wonderful issues millions of individuals are really needing to be aware of. Our very own honest repent for not expressing gratitude to you previously.
April 18th, 2012 at 9:48 am
There is perceptibly a bunch to identify about this. I suppose you made some good points in features also.
April 22nd, 2012 at 8:35 pm
I wish more people would write blogs like this that are actually helpful to read. With all the crap floating around on the web, it is rare to read a blog like yours instead.
April 23rd, 2012 at 11:30 am
Thank you for being my coach on this niche. I enjoyed your own article greatly and most of all favored how you handled the issues I widely known as controversial. You happen to be always incredibly kind to readers like me and aid me in my lifestyle. Thank you.
April 23rd, 2012 at 12:20 pm
you may have an awesome blog here! would you like to make some invite posts on my blog?
April 23rd, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Great beat ! I wish to apprentice while you amend your internet web site, how can i subscribe for a weblog web site? The account aided me a appropriate deal. I had been slightly bit acquainted of this your broadcast provided bright clear concept
April 23rd, 2012 at 4:20 pm
Thank you for the blog post. Jones and I are already saving for just a new e-book on this subject and your article has made us all to save money. Your thinking really answered all our concerns. In fact, in excess of what we had thought of in advance of the time we found your superb blog. We no longer nurture doubts as well as a troubled mind because you have really attended to our own needs in this article. Thanks