Robots have been getting a lot of attention lately, especially from us here at Alien Element.  The interesting thing about artificial intelligence and singularity is that we’re searching for the next best thing when it comes to trying to cheat death.  We are trying to achieve immortality.  But, instead of fighting nature, what if we adapt nature to synthetics and embrace the fact that the cycle of life includes death and rebirth?  Hear me out…

As we’ve seen in the film, Blade Runner, the idea is that replicants live for only a few years before they expire.  The interesting idea is that replicants can expire.  We should understand that we are developing technology that could unravel right in front of us.  This is the theme of a lot of dystopian science fiction in media.

Recently, we’ve discovered that robots have passed the classic Wisemen self awareness puzzle.  (Here’s a link to the story at TechRadar)

Just last year, robots passed a Turing Test. (Here’s a link)

With both of these massive strides forward in artificial intelligence, we’re getting closer and closer each day to figuring out the bigger existential question of self awareness.

At the same time, we are also getting closer to alternative materials, closer to nature, that are being invented to help solve the precious materials issues that can be broken down much easier than metals we use currently.

(Here’s a link to the original story)

There’s an infinite amount of possibilities as to what is going to happen in our future.  New innovations are happening every day.  But seeing trends in biotech and artificial intelligence, we might be seeing a path towards a philosophy of embracing the cycle of life in technology.  We are already seeing that with upgrades in an economically driven society with incremental updates to hardware and software, but eventually, we’ll be seeing a lot of these developments offloaded to robotics.  The trends are slowly moving there.

Just like all biological life on this planet, life is cyclical.  There’s a significance in embracing the idea that Steve Jobs once stated in his famous Stanford Commencement Speech

“Death is very likely the single best invention of life”

Would embracing the idea that we should give a shelf life to technology we’re creating help or hurt our progression in including robots as living entities?  Would including a shelf life on robots allow empathy and humanity’s frailty and mortality to be considered when AI begins critically thinking?