Men Waging War Against Machines

Science-fiction movies have long predicted that an epic battle would take place between man and machine. Do you think that someday, in the near (or distant) future, men will have to wage war on machines?

Ever since the 20th century, mankind has progressively accepted more and more robots in the everyday life. It all started with toasters, and today we can share a picture all around the world via a Smartphone. Robots are used in every field, from domestic needs to war; speaking of war, what can we think about this new generation of intelligent robots? Could they become a threat sooner or later, and make all the science-fiction nightmares come true?

Robots are tremendously intelligent today. We were promised flying cars by 2012, but why complain when we have automatic toilets or nano fridges? Even our mobile phones are robots (take Android phones, for example) and are able to do almost everything a computer does. Life has become impossible without them, from business men to housewives or househusbands. Men are endlessly trying to update these robots or create new ones – faster, smarter, better ones!

The American army is currently working on developing robots that they could send on the battlefield instead of men. They built a prototype of a robot-dog which could be sent as a scout to avoid being hurt on landmines or to bring ammunition to soldiers, and also robotic helicopters that don’t need a human being to be flown – and could be able to lift over three tons. So wars are being waged by robots more and more, but they are currently on the side of human beings. Some people are worried about these robots switching sides: are they too intelligent? The Cambridge University has recently set up a new research center for this; its goal is to study the potential pitfalls of artificial intelligence. However, scientists agree to say that robots that defy Asimov’s laws are probably likely to exist, according to the breakthroughs made every day, but not before a long time.

Asimov was writing and selling – excellent – books, but not inventing robots. Maybe science-fiction is still fiction, after all. American researchers stated that the big difference between robots and human beings is that human beings are at a very early age able to recognize and contextualize, tell things apart very quickly – robots could become threatening if they ever have the abilities of a five year-old child. This could mean danger, but until then robots have not been smart enough to outsmart men in this area. There are areas where robots have outsmarted men though, and it is shown in the article studied in class: Man VS Machine, from The Huffington Post. The Watson robot has defeated the trivia quiz champion of Jeopardy!, leaving a whole army of scientists and citizens wondering about robots and their imposing skills. However, Watson was only programmed to know the answers to a quiz, and some experts said it would take way too long to come to real-life science-fiction and start a war between robots and mankind.

I do love science-fiction, but it remains only fiction to me. To some people, it can be a religion – and I can understand, because it really is a whole other universe. To rely on some personal examples for this essay, I will write about a few of my favorite fictional works. The first one is called Doctor Who; it is a British show about a man called the Doctor, who is an alien from a

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