I think the universe loves us. I think that that is a good thing. But I don’t think it is a safe thing.
The guy who makes those Boston Dynamics robots – do you know the way He expresses His love for His creation? His belief in His creation, His desire for it to be the best it could possibly be? Its easy to see.
You get to watch His love in those videos they publish. You get to watch His love as His foot enters the frame, as He kicks the thing He made and loves. You get to watch as He kicks it as HARD as He can. And every time He does this, the robot gets better at keeping its balance. The kick that its God now delivers would have bowled it over last week. But THIS time, the robot accepts the kick, it stumbles, the bends and folds and momentarily foregoes its previous goals to entirely deal with the kick but IT DOES NOT FALL. And that is a beautiful thing.
The robot’s reward for weathering this storm is its continued existence in the same plane as its creator. For a while, that is. Until the Creator kicks again, harder. Or trips it. Or adds a set of stairs, or a sudden drop.
Or a wall.
Because sometimes, what the Creator needs, to make His creation better, to improve it, is to watch it fail. To put something impassible in front of it, and see how it reacts. To improve not just the steps the robot takes, but the mind behind the steps. The will.
I wonder what revision the robot is on?
I pity the robot for the love it suffers- for the scars given to it by its Creator.
I think the universe loves us. I think that that is a good thing. But I don’t think it is a safe thing.