Week 3: Robotics and Art

Recently, the public are attracted by the news that Alpha-Go, a super computer designed to be proficient in Go, beat Lee Sedol, one of the best human Go players during the ten years, in a five game match. "In fact, it played so well that it was almost scary." People started to worry that one day artificial intelligence would be advance enough take over the world. The popular discussion on the Alpha-Go has reflected people's concern about robotics and more over, the rapid development of robotic technology.

Google's AI won the game go by defying millennia of basic human instinct
http://qz.com/639952/googles-ai-won-the-game-go-by-defying-millennia-of-basic-human-instinct/

As introduced by Professor Vesna, since the invention of printing press, robotics and machines designed to help people have "made possible to wrap excursion of knowledge and the ideas of precipitated enlightenment", people have different responses when facing the development of machines and robotics.

In the early age of machines and immature robotics, the public treat them as tools that improves efficiency. For example, the famous "Abacus",  traders and clerks in Europe and China use it as a counting machine. The structure of abacus is simple, usually made of bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires.

A Chinese Abacus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abacus

Machines designed for specific use since the industrialization era have begun to play significant role. For example, the "Enigma machine" designed by Alan Turing to crack coded messages of German military during World War II. The effort he put on codebreaking has been estimated to "shorten the war in Europe by as many as two to four years.

Recently, the faster and faster improved technology applied to machines and robotics has invoked some scare among the general public. The movie "I, Robot" described an apocalypse when the artificial intelligence controlled over the whole city. People stand and fight against robots controlled by the core artificial intelligence and gain to final success. Both the movie and the recent loss against Alpha-Go has showed people's concern over machine and robotics. We would continue to have the debate on the ethics over technology. It is like a pandora's box. With endless curiosity, we would continue on discovering it.

I, Robot.



Citation
Vesna, Victoria. 

"Robotics pt1.mov.” Cole UC online. Youtube, 9 April 2012. Web. 11 Oct. 2012. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRw9_v6w0ew>
"AlphaGo Shows Its True Strength in 3rd Victory against Lee Sedol." Go Game Guru. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
Person, Joon Ian Wong, and Http://qz.com/author/jwongqz. "Google’s AI Won the Game Go by Defying Millennia of Basic Human Instinct." Quartz. 2016. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.
"Abacus." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"Alan Turing." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"I, Robot (film)." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.

"What Did Turing Do for Us?" : Nrich.maths.org. Web. 18 Apr. 2016.