THE ‘COOL’ FACTOR OF THE HUMANOID IS A DANGEROUS DISTRACTION

(The following text was written without ChatGPT, etc. it is a 60 second read.)

Hello - 

I'm piecing together a list of reasons why I think the Humanoid Robot should be banned. Here's one: 

Their COOL factor is a dangerous distraction... 

In recent months, we’ve seen a growing spectacle of fantastically capable humanoids: they can run faster than humans; they can engage in hand-to-hand combat; they can mimic us in speech; we can even customize them to look like our favorite movie characters; or we can make them our dutiful butlers.

These are inarguably phenomenal achievements.

And while the average person may not have the same enthusiasm as the robot makers themselves, it seems to be part of our species’ survival strategy to appreciate well crafted, or exemplary tools. Or anything that may give us some special edge.

But with machines THIS capable, any simple enthusiasm is concerning in and of itself. Why? Well, from a purely technical perspective, their ‘cool’ and unprecedented capability must be equal to their capacity for destruction. And it stands to reason furthermore, that if we have any gap of vision in how these machines can be used for the betterment of humankind, then we’re likely to suffer dearly for this lack.  

Thank you for signing our petition.

Sincerely,

Michael Christensen-