Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Why Machines Will Never Take Over The World

It is a recurring theme in science fiction that as computers increase in power and sophistication, they may one day reach a point where they decide they can do better without us, and condemn us to lives suspended in racked pods with our brains plugged into a vast virtual world, or alternatively send increasingly resourceful and indestructable robots to hunt us down in our bunkers, while above ground survivors fight a desperate war for survival amidst the wreckage of civilisation.

If you find this vision of the future alarming, take heart in this SQL query, which was generated by a machine. Not, perhaps, a Cyberdyne Systems T-800 or the Matrix Mainframe, but something called OLAP API. We don't know what that is either, but we can tell you that if any robot descended from it ever attempts to enslave humanity using a virtual world and an unfeasible pod system, rest assured that you will have time to get out of its way.

11 comments:

Noons said...

this is what happens when someone lets o-o folks lose on code generators...

SYSDBA said...

OMG WTF!!

/cry /healme

After refactorization ...

>SELECT SYSDATE FROM DUAL;

/smile

Unknown said...

why we making machines. may this quistion will not serve any answer that can put us to live on.
in the name of revolution we are binding our soul in to limitations
which we dont ever need.but we feel that we are in need.this is just a myth and nothing.we are just trying to rule the other community to show our greatness.we build machine to serve our purpose
why machines,why we so trust on them,we are humans with love to all whom we know and whom we not.
we thnk by making machine we can rule the world.but the fact is one day machines will rule us in terms of saftey of our precious life.how we will feel then , just like prisioners in our own homes.machines without emotions can not live.they can destroy whatever they think is wrong,and that time if we resist we will also wrong....................and it will just a game of torn the flesh................stop this....
break the matrix............think?

William Robertson said...

Thanks for staying with the philosophical angle. Good to have you on our side in any future war against pitiless robot taskmasters.

I'm guessing you didn't get that iPod Nano for Christmas.

Anonymous said...

didn you see da episode of the simpsons when ipods were whipping people with their headphones

Anonymous said...

i think machines will be able to take over the world.

What do you want ? said...

machines of certain generation need the workforce of that generation to become equally sofiticated to maintain it and improve it to get to next level but unfortunately human brain and interest is a gift of god . Even if one generation of Americans screwed their entire life developing machines of various sofistication the next generation doesnt like the fact that life in not all about it . So when the machines loving generation dies the machine also dies . See what is happenning to airline industry . So finally there will be always be a balance between the machine sofistication and human evolution . The problem is due to various factors like country , education , exposure and interest not all humans evolve at same pace and the globalisation is bringing this aspect to light .

Ashley Holder said...

Machines will never take over the world, because there has to be humans to operate them. Humans will always be the main leader in the world.

William Robertson said...

If you watch The Matrix you will notice that there are no humans operating the machines, the machines having built other machines to operate them and order spare parts at discount prices; and that, I'm afraid, is the nightmare discount machine overlord scenario we might someday face.

Madness said...

bud what you dont seem to realise is that sci fi movies are meant to make you think.....they didnt mean that the machines will take over completely....but what happens when they render us obselete. i work in a power station and it needs 40 staff to run and maintain it. a new one is being built right next to it. this one will only need 15 to run and maintain....and this is happening right across the board. look to the future bud. machines are there to support us. and we fund them in turn. we are able to fund them by working and earning a wage...how will we earn a wage when we are not needed? will the machines support us for free......will we be free to do as we wish while machines take care of everything for us free of charge?

Unknown said...

Everyone is assuming that the machines that take over will be from Earth...my question is what if they aren't?