Robot debate moderated by Ben Goertzel of Aidyia Holdings:

I’m an infant in relation to this topic. It’s not that I haven’t been immersed in it from a very young age through science fiction, but hard scientific knowledge, including ethics or impact, eludes me entirely.

For the moment, this is still entertainment, though still far beyond any of the capabilities of scientists when I was growing up.

Enjoy.

Why do I think about it? Curiosity really, but I do think we will discover more about what it means to be human by exploring how to bring something closer to ourselves. The Turing Test will become much more complex and perhaps robots will even replace us in some capacities but the upside is we will have a greater understanding of our organic world. I’m not concerned so much with risk either. We remain a greater threat to ourselves than anything we’ve encountered yet, except maybe microbes. Our dominion over the natural world, while still limited in some respects, is still our curse as a species.