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humansandrobotsI recently came across the work of photographer Frans Steiner, obviously a man inspired by the beauty of people. Nevertheless, as the collage image of one of his series shows, obviously he is, just like me, wondering about the co-existence of humans and their evolutionary successors: intelligent artificial humanoids. The description of latter species already implies three major obstacles:

  • Intelligent, they obvioulsy  "think like us". At least it means that their IQ matches or exceeds human level. Future robots communicate, act and play on a level comparable to humans. It's difficult to predict if the current generations will ever acknowledge intelligence brighter than their own. Humanity can not stop the development of it because it's a technological evolution emerged a long time ago and today we already count on it with our Tesla's, Google Search, Siri and medical robots. However, discussions about the "soul" of machines will make the acceptance even more awkward because, although the concrete intelligence of a robot might be superior, their conclusions about human matters will always be questioned;   
  • Artificial, they are "made by us". So we have designed and produced them in our studios and factories as opposed to having them grown in the belly of another human or maybe a petri dish. Humans tend to draw a strict line between "human grown" and "human made". We obviously already have forgotten that that line is already crossed many years ago with the acceptance of all sorts of medical tricks from artificial insemination until keeping humans alive anyway, let alone the replacement of human parts from hips, lungs, hearts, eyes, ears, kidneys, limps and sooner or later connections to our cognitive skills and abilities, say artificial parts of our brain. As a deaf person, I'm following the development of cochlear implants or direct brain connections closely and for me, these "brain improvements" can not come fast enough; 
  • Humanoid, they "look like us". Altough human resemblance is not mandatory for an intelligent robot, it helps to blend them into human environments which are after all shaped by humans for their own convenience.