It could just be that technology is currently navigating its difficult adolescence and it’s getting all uppity about being asked to do things it doesn’t want to do and is embarrassed to be around us. That’s a possibility already hinted at by Arthur C Clarke in 2001: A Space Odyssey all those years ago when HAL, the computer onboard the spaceship, goes hormonal on Dave. (I am assuming tech does NOT have a gender.)
I always thought that when the robot revolution comes, perhaps the most terrifying aspect will be just how relentless our opponents are, created, as they will be, to do their jobs and just keep on doing them – like Arnie, in the first Terminator movie. But if they’re able to decide for themselves – “Yeah, nah, I’m not doing that” – when given a command, then maybe we’ll be in with a chance that they’ll decide global domination and destroying the humans is just too much of, you know, a hassle.
When a leading expert on AI was asked recently if he feared the rise of the machines, he answered somewhat blithely, no, he did not, as long as we keep making them with the “off” switch fairly easily accessible. I don’t mind robots making my cars, if I can’t have them hand-crafted as readily any more, but I really don’t want to think about what happens when robots start making other robots.