Monday, September 29, 2008

How To Survive A Robot Uprising


Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion
**************************************************
In this uncomfortably humorous survival guide, Wilson, a
Ph.D. candidate at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon
University, reminds readers that "any machine could rebel,
from a toaster to a Terminator," and though the forms our
future robot enemies may take are manifold, they each have
exploitable weaknesses that, fortuitously, match our natural
human strengths. So, if a two-legged android gives chase,
seek out a body of water, as "most robots will sink in water
or mud and fall through ice." It also may be a good idea to
carry around a pair of welder's goggles, as lasers will likely
be robot attackers' weapons of choice, and even a weak
laser can cause blindness. Options for fighting back are
plentiful, though not everyone will be relieved to learn the
standard kitchen microwave can be retrofitted into a radiation
gun that can destroy electronics and "cook human flesh."
(Instructions for such a project are not included.) Humorous
and informative-Wilson drops robotics history trivia nuggets
and includes brief descriptions of current robot research-this
nifty little guide to surviving the inevitable robot apocalypse
may have you reconsidering purchasing that "smart" (read:
insidious) refrigerator.

2 comments:

Bill said...

He most know these....)

Three Laws of Robotics are a set of three rules written by Isaac Asimov, which almost all positronic robots appearing in his fiction must obey. Introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories, the Laws state the following:

“ A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Joe said...

LOL, sounds like a great book