Enlightened Confusion Less signal, more noise…

Robots != Machine Intelligence

I watched the series finale of Battlestar Galactica last night. For the first hour and a half, it was wholely befitting of a show which has attracted the cult follow that BG has. The last half an hour was a bit of a disappointment for me, particularly the ending. The close featured a montage of the crude humanoid style robots that the current state of technology can muster, and a goofy warning that it will all happen again.
It has always amused me that people associate robotics with machine intelligence. Having worked in robotics, I can assure you robotics is much more about PID loops, sensors, and servo motors than it is about an artificial self awareness or machines having a soul. Anyone with even a passing interest in AI knows that it’s going to be an awful long time before we have to worry about an army of sentient machines taking over the word. Really, there is no need to fear your Roomba.