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The word “robot” was used for the first time only about 80 years ago, in the play “RUR” by the Czech author Karel Capek. The robots in that book were artificial humans, chemically synthesized using appropriate formulas. Robots at present and in the future will be made largely of inorganic materials, both mechanical and electronic. However, some form of hybridization between electromechanical and biological subsystems is possible and will occur. I believe that the major developments in robotics in the next 100 years will be the following areas:

Robot intelligence. The ability of a robot to solve problems, to learn, to interact with humans and other robots, and related skills are all measures of intelligence. Robots will indeed be increasingly intelligent, because:

- High speed memory, long term storage capacity, and speed of the on-board computers will continue to increase. Futurist Ray Kurzweil has predicted that the capacity of robot brains will exceed that of human brains within the next 20 years.

- Neuroscience is rapidly obtaining better and better models of the information processing ability of the human brain. These models will lead to the development of software to enable robot brains to emulate more and more of the features of the human brain.

- Research in learning will enable robots to learn by imitating humans, from their own mistakes and from their successes.

Human-robot interaction. This is an area of significant research activity at the present time. I believe that during the coming decades robots will be able to interact with humans (and with each other) in increasingly human-like ways, including speech and gestures. Robots will be able to understand the semantic as well as the emotional aspects of speech, so that they will understand the significance of increasing loudness, irritation, affection, and other emotional aspects in spoken utterances, and they will be able to include these aspects in their own speech as well.

Humanity’s robotic future

Further, robots will be able to understand non-verbal messages from facial expressions, gestures and body language, and to react accordingly. Advances in brain-robot interfaces also imply that it will be possible to send messages to robots using thoughts rather than either speech or body movements. Hence, robots will share the dwellings of humans, where they may act as maids, cooks, butlers, teachers, babysitters, companions to the elderly, chauffeurs and body guards. Robots and humans will be able to collaborate in manufacturing tasks, where each will be utilized so as to maximize their specific abilities and contributions.

Functions in society. Robots will assume an increasing number of the functions needed by modern urban societies, so that they will function as janitors, police, door operators, traffic controllers, street sweepers, traffic light maintainers, delivery vehicles or taxis. The latter does not imply a human-like driver in an automobile, but rather autonomous robot vehicles, capable of responding to verbal commands. Robots will play an increasing role in the health care system, by becoming nurses, orderlies, and even physicians and surgeons.

Robot-robot interactions. Just as human-robot interaction and collaboration will improve and increase, so will interactions among robots, making them capable of acting in teams when required. Examples of such collaborations are in fighting forest fires or certain military campaigns. A robot army would include humanoids as well as robotic vehicles on land, in the air, on or under water.

Legal and social and issues. The forecasts for the development of robotics described above do not include the major and significant issues related to the legal, social and ethical dimensions of robotics. At present we have no legal framework for handling human-robot interaction. The socio-legal system is largely based on rewards and punishments as means fo regulating human behavior. Punishment is not an appropriate method of regulating robot behavior.

During the next 25 to 50 years various countries will develop new laws and procedures for allocating responsibility and regulating robot behavior as well as robot-human interactions. A major issue will be the the question of responsibility for robot behavior that violates laws or customs, i.e., does responsibility for robot behavior lie with the machine or the designer or the builder or the vendor of the robot?

Rulers of behavior. The so-called “Asimov’s laws” are no longer valid, even at the present time. These “laws” concern the duty of robots to always obey humans, not to injure humans and to protect themselves. In the future, these laws will be drastically limited and modified. Robots will not obey every human, but only certain humans whom they will be programmed to recognize. Unless programmed to do so, robots will not respond to humans by violence, even if insulted or attacked. Of course, the major exception to this rule is the use of robots by the military or security and police services.

Ethical issues. Underlying many questions of robot uses in society are issues of ethics and morality. Even today there are serious ethical issues surrounding the use of drones for lethal actions against either military or civilian adversaries. These issues will become increasingly complex as robots increase in complexity, intelligence, and behavior versatility. There will be changes not only in the legal framework concerning human-robot interactions, but in the patterns of what will be considered acceptable behaviors of humans toward robots.

New technologies, new moralities

Religious and other organizations will define and attempt to regulate the ways in which human treat humanoid robots, since they will be considered quasi-human, sentient creatures that must be treated with respect and not abused. Thus, the changing legal and social framework will deal with the proper use of robots by humans as well as the proper behavior of robots toward humans, and new sets of “post-Asimov” laws will emerge.

Finally, a few concluding thoughts. The rapid increase in the number and sophistication of autonomous systems, including humanoid robots, lead to dramatic changes in society. Robots will assume an increasing share of human work and responsibility, thus creating a major social problem with unemployment and the relations of humans and robots. I believe that new frameworks for these interactions will emerge within the next 25 to 50 years. If they do not, there may be neo-Luddite rebellions, in which humans will attempt to destroy large numbers of robots. Those of us who design, program, and implement robots have a major responsibility to assist in the creation and implementation of patterns of behavior and legal systems to ensure that robots and humans co-evolve and co-exist for the benefit of society.

Robots are here to stay. They will be smarter, more versatile, more autonomous, and more like us in many ways. We humans will need to adapt to this coming world.

Read more in this debate: Ben Scott, Tomáš Sedláček, George Friedman.

Via Szabolcs Kósa

One of the consequences of radical life extension is the potential for a gerontocracy to set in — the entrenchment of a senior elite who will hold on to their power and wealth, while dominating politics, finance, and academia. Some critics worry that society will start to stagnate as the younger generations become increasingly frustrated and marginalized. But while these concerns need to be considered, a future filled with undying seniors will not be as bad as some might think, and here’s why.

Indeed, the human lifespan is set to get increasingly longer and longer. And it’s more than just extending life — it’s about extending healthy life. A common misconception amongst the critics is that we’re setting ourselves up for, as political scientist Francis Fukuyama put it, a “nursing home world” filled with decrepit old folk who are leeching off society’s resources.

A Genuine Possibility?

But nothing could be further from the truth. If we assume that the aging process can be dramatically slowed down, or even halted, it’s more than likely that the older generations will continue to serve as vibrant and active members of our society. And given that seniors tend to hold positions of power and influence in our society, it’s conceivable that they’ll refuse to be forced into retirement on the grounds that such an imposition would violate their human rights (and they’d be correct in that assessment).

In turn, seniors will continue to lead their corporations as CEOs and CFOs. They’ll hold onto their wealth and political seats, kept in power by highly sympathetic and demographically significant elderly populations. And they’ll occupy positions of influence at universities and other institutions.

And we have the precedents to prove it. Politicians, including senators and various committee members, do a good job holding on to power and influence in their legislatures. U.S. judges can serve for life. Non-democratic countries are particularly notorious for setting up gerontocracies, the most notable example being the Soviet Union during and after the Brezhnev era. And religious institutions, like the Roman Catholic Church, are especially sympathetic to senior leaders.

It’s also a prospect that’s been covered extensively in scifi, including Bruce Sterling’s Holy Fire in which gerontocrats wield almost all capital and political power, while the younger populations live as outsiders. Frederik Pohl’s Search the Sky features a gerontocracy masquerading as a democracy. It's a theme that was also addressed in the 1967 novel Logan's Run, written by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. In this story, an ageist society, in order to thwart elderly influence and a drain on valuable resources, executes everyone over the age of 21.

The Concerns

Indeed, much of the worry has to do with concerns of social inequality and the marginalization of the younger generations. Already today, graduates have a hard time finding jobs and “breaking in” to the corporate world. Life and health extension could dramatically reduce job turnover even further. Feelings of inter-generational resentment and angst could start to creep in.

Another fear is that society could start to stagnate and become risk-averse. The common charge is that seniors are, by their nature, conservative and “set in their ways.” Social and cultural progress, like marriage reform, could come to a grinding halt.

Similarly, there’s concern that gerontocracies could hold academics back. It may become increasingly difficult for radical and unconventional scientific concepts to gain acceptance. As the quantum physicist Max Planck famously said, “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”

Adapting to Extended Lives

But not everyone’s convinced this is going to be a problem. One such voice comes from the sociologist and futurist James Hughes who works at Trinity College in Connecticut. I asked him if a gerontocracy is something we genuinely need to be concerned about.

“There are so many more important forms of unequal power in society that it is hard not to see hand-wringing about gerontocracy as an attempt to distract from corporate malfeasance, patriarchy, white skin privilege, lookism, and so on,” he told io9. “But yes, gerontocracy is one form of power, and there are some ways that our democratic society has ensured health insurance and income stability for seniors that it hasn't done for working adults simply because seniors are more likely to vote. Is that gerontocracy, though, or the way a democratic society works? People who can't get themselves organized to demand and defend services get less of them.”

But this inequality, says Hughes, will quickly be erased. His suspicion is that, as we adapt to radical life and health extension, one of the fights that’s set to settle in is the raising and eventual elimination of the retirement age. It’s a fight, he says, that will make the worries about a gerontocracy seem quaint.

“Optimally, however, this struggle will not just sharpen generational antagonism, as portrayed in Christopher Buckley's novel Boomsday,” he says, “but lead to a more equitable and universal system of income support and social services not based on age.”

So I asked Hughes how society could be hurt if an undying generation refuses to relinquish their hold on power and capital.

“Again, the question should be, how is society hurt when small unaccountable elites control the vast majority of wealth?,” he responded. The age of super-wealthy is pretty immaterial, he says, especially when most of the people in their age bracket will be as poor and powerless as younger cohorts.

“If the wealthy avail themselves of longevity treatments and cognitive enhancements that the hoi polloi can't afford, and thereby start a feedback loop of privilege — ability and longevity that threatens to create a super-aristocratic master race — then the demand for making those therapies available to everyone will become politically irresistible,” he says. “It’s not that it will happen painlessly, but the democratization of the wealth and longevity technologies of elites is more or less inevitable.”

Simple-minded Futurism

Hughes also doesn’t buy into the argument that radical life extension will result in the stagnation of society. If anything, he thinks these claims, such as risk-aversion and inflexibility, smack of ageism and simple-minded futurism.

“Gerontology has dispelled the notion that people become any more conservative as they age,” he told me. “They do maintain many of the tastes and beliefs of their youth, and since older cohorts in the last century were always less educated than the younger cohorts, they tended to have less of the cosmopolitanism and liberal outlook of younger cohorts.” But the dramatic evolution of older cohorts' views on issues like minority, women's and gay rights, says Hughes, show that age is no barrier to changing your mind on deeply held values.

And as to the “abysmal futurism of the geronto-phobes,” (he's thinking of Francis Fukuyama and Leon Kass in particular) the principal thing, argues Hughes, is that they’re overlooking the ways in which scientists are figuring out how to boost the body's natural production of stem cells in order to repair disease.

“Seniors' brains continue to make stem cells,” says Hughes, “and when we are able to boost neural stem cell generation in order to forestall the neurodegeneration of aging, older people will become as cognitively flexible as younger people.” Hughes points to Sterling's Holy Fire as a prime example of this possibility.

Ultimately, says Hughes, what the growing literature on aging, emotions and violence does suggest is that an older world will be more serene and far less violent.

“Younger people experience more swings of positive and negative emotions, and young men are responsible for the bulk of violence and crime. Older people are more satisfied with their lives and have more of an even keel.”

In a world awash with technologies of mass destruction, says Hughes, a strong dose of senior wisdom may be precisely what we need.

Via Szabolcs Kósa