Why you can't backup people

In the latest episode of Futurama Bender discovers that he has a serious design flaw, he was built without a backup device, making him mortal like a "meatbag" instead of immortal like most robots. He naturally does not take the news well, what he doesn't realize is that even if he did have a backup device he would still be able to "die" because all the backup would be is a copy, it wouldn't be him any more than those robot duplicates of Fry and Leela from the first episode of the season. Of course, no one would be able to tell the copy from the original, he would have the same kleptomania as the old Bender, but there would be no continuity between the original and the copy, that is what's important.

These robots have the right idea:

From Freefall by Mark Stanley

Armor and Authoritarianism, a possible connection?

As well everyone knows, the shiny knights of the Middle Ages were made obsolete by the invention of guns. Many also realize that with the invention of a very deadly, easy to use weapon it became much more difficult for rulers to maintain control of their subjects. It is no coincidence that governments, in particular authoritarian ones, don't last as long as they used to.

With those in mind I looked at the Wikipedia page on Roman military equipment and my suspicions were confirmed, Roman soldiers wore considerably heavier armor after Caesar took power than when Rome was a republic. Able to survive attacks that would kill someone less well protected, courtesy of their emperor, the Roman legions were able to put down peasant rebellions easily. Their successors after the empire's fall were even better suited to enforcing the will of their feudal lords. That all disappeared when the peasants became able to kill a knight at 100 paces; within a few centuries the only monarchs who hadn't been deposed were those who turned over most of their power to democratic institutions such as Britain's.

In short, when personal armor technology can effectively protect against the most commonly used weapons technology, authoritarianism thrives because armor is too expensive for the average peasant to acquire. These days most authoritarian regimes die with their first ruler. However, while the bulletproof vests given to most soldiers can be easily penetrated by a civilian hunting rifle, there have been considerable advances in personal armor tech within the last 50 years. It is possible that within a century soldiers will be nigh-invulnerable against anything short of heavy explosives.

Personally I welcome the Terran Federation and the Mobile Infantry, will be better than this democratic chaos.

Avatars and Surrogates: A new theme in Science-fiction?

Three movies this year involve technology that has been practically non-existent in Hollywood, teleoperation. First there was Gamer in September, where people were mind-controlled and used as players in video game like bloodsports. Then a couple weeks later came Surrogates, which was a more realistic portrayal of teleoperation, where people stayed at home and used remotely controlled "Surrogates" to live life. Next month is Avatar, about marines using genetically engineered "avatars" to conquer an alien planet. How did Hollywood learn about this?

My guess is the popularity of MMORG's, especially Second Life. Surrogates in particular seems to be referencing the internet. It could be a suggestion that people are increasingly trying to escape real life through the net, that would of course be the obvious one. Well, Gamer and Avatar are trying to emphasize the whole Humans are Bastards meme that is so popular now.

Techlepathy, how cybernetics could assist the mentally disabled

"I don't know what you're thinking Paul, you have to tell me," something I've heard in many of my conversations with my mom, I'm trying to explain something but can't describe it in words. As many of you know I have Asperger's Syndrome, essentially a very high-functioning form of autism, and one of my symptoms is that I find it difficult to put my thoughts into words because many of my thoughts take the form of images or sounds instead of words. During one of my difficult conversations I recalled the Cyberpunk anime Ghost in the Shell, where telepathic communication via neural implants or techlepathy is common.

I began to think that since communication over the internet isn't solely text one with a brain-computer interface could hypothetically send more than just words to others with similar interfaces, but also images of what they are thinking and their emotional states. One of the difficulties that autistics have with communication is a lack of empathy, they cannot pick up other's feelings as easily as neurotypicals can, a BCI or possibly just some sort of wearable computer could help them with that. This could have the disadvantage that autistics with BCIs would only be able to effectively communicate with people who also had BCIs, but if computer technology becomes small enough it might be possible for a worn or implanted computer to host an AI program designed to "interpret" for the user. Unfortunately, we have no idea when any of those technologies will become available, most Cyberpunk takes place in the 2030's or 40's but that is an optimistic guess, if the Singularity happens BCI's will either become necessary for humans to keep up with AI or unnecessary as humanity's biological existence comes to an end.

Why a Robot Revolution is unlikely to happen.

It is a common theme in Hollywood movies, robots rising against their masters and attempting to exterminate humanity. But why would we make laborers smart enough to rebel in the first place? Robots that are no-where near sentient are already used with great effectiveness in manufacturing, and both construction and agriculture make extensive use of machines that could easily be run on autopilot. The only jobs that sentience would be needed for in those fields are design and supervision, which would likely be filled by humans. Essentially the only things that near-sentient automatons could be used for would be personal assistants and millitary. Note that the robots designed for the purposes below could be bioroids instead of completely metal or plastic automatons if biological components turn out to be cheaper.

Japan is currently interested in humanoid robots mostly because of their lack of population growth, so that they can fill the gaps in their workforce caused by the aging population, and to help the increasing proportion of their population that is retired. Assisting an elderly or disabled person might require a significant amount of decision-making, but it is unlikely that human-level intelligence would be necessary. This would probably lead to android companions owned by perfectly healthy people and at least some would probably be Sexbots, so gynoids would probably be more common than androids. The problem is that there would be the potential for abuse of these androids and some manufacturers might make them more intelligent to seem more realistic. If abused androids were able to communicate with one another and able to feel pain they could organize and attempt to get back at their owners, possibly obtaining upgrades to make them more intelligent.

Military robots would be a far greater risk, combat situations often require more problem-solving ability than following a blueprint so robots designed for combat would either have intelligence compareable to a human or be remote controlled by human soldiers. It is inevitable that robots will be used for war as humans don't like to be killed, the problem is that if the robots are smart enough they might decide they don't like being destroyed either. For that reason it might be recommended that robots be designed with something like Isaac Asimov's three laws and only used for non-lethal force, and the only robots designed for lethal force would be teleoperated. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if human soldiers with cybernetic enhancements or power armor saw more use with the military than fully autonomous robots capable of lethal force.

Overall there is little threat of a robotic revolution due to the fact that there simply wouldn't be very many robots with the intelligence to rebel.