Topic 174

Processing power in relation to the capabilities and limitations of robots by Andrew

The processing power of robots is limited to their size. The smaller the robot the smaller the processing power and the bigger the robot the bigger the processing power. Though, how much processing power is needed in a robot? And for what kind of robot are we talking about? But also as technology grows there will be less space needed to be taken up by robot parts because we will be able to make parts smaller and more efficient.

According to my sources, by 2010, robots will be able to have a processing power of about 3000 MIPS or millions of instructions per second. This is about the intelligence of a lizard. These robots which are relatively large, about half an average human size, will be able to carry out basic tasks such as cleaning, delivery, or even basic factory jobs.

In about 2030 a robot should be able to have about 3 million MIPS. This is the equivalent intelligence of a monkey. These robots will be able to generally understand things of the world. It can define items from other items, and what each one is for. For example, if the robot sees an egg, it will be able to see and learn that it must be picked up gently so that it will not break. These skills will be learnt through simulation and practice to perfect new tasks before attempting them. The robots will also be able to read a general facial expression and mood of the person if the robot was a maid. The robot can also be a maid.

By about 2040, robots will have an MIPS of about 100 million, which is the equivalent of a human. The robots will be able to speak and understand speech and also think creatively. Not only can they do what was explained above, but they will also be able to anticipate what will be results of their actions far in advance. This is a good thing because if the robot had thought of killing someone, it would know that it would be decommissioned. With the reasoning power that is given to the robots, hey will be at or even beyond the human level and so generally the robots will be as competent as people.

The only thing about robots is that they will not have the fast reactions for they have to calculate everything before making a move and by that time, what ever that was going to happen would have happened. Though in some situations, it would be useful for a robot to be around. Something such as bomb defusing, the robot could defiantly calculate the chances of the bomb going off and make a smarter choice then a human. If the robot were to have done the wrong thing when defusing a bomb, there will be no loss of a human which is generally the most important thing to the human race.

After a while if we do le the robots die, we as humans will need to build in a code that makes robots sacrifice themselves for human beings. This is because if we do not, the robots will later on learn of what we are doing to their robot friends, and will not save us but instead cower away and not do what they are told to do. Robots are the coolest idea that could have been created, but they will be hard to control.