. I don't know of any scientists who took absolutely sterile materials and created a living creature out of them without any infusion of living material.
Nor do I... yet. I was saying by 2050. I guess if you want synthesis from atoms up it would take another 50 years... if anyone could be bothered <g> Remember, they've made (simple) amino acids from basic 'protean soup' experiments, so there ought to be enough groundings within a century. If mankind can keep itself going that long, anyhow - by then, it may be vital.
And whatever would self-aware robots, created from inorganic materials by man, select for gods...? Ours, theirs or none...? I'd want to keep them away from the more savage forms of Darwinism and the destination of less-fit beings, at least unless the 3 Laws could be incontrovertibly hard-wired! But I was referring to something on the level of canine awareness, not self-actualisation: still, I'd be sure that will follow.
I suppose it depends how you define self-awareness, but however you define it I believe a sufficiently powerful computer could develop it - maybe, given the right starting program... which itself need not have been defined by human programmers - especially as computer algorithms can 'evolve' at MHz rates...
Here's a poser... if - as does now look possible, in medium future - the totality of a human experience can be transferred to a computerised system, so that it has until transferral the same experiences, memories and reactions of the flesh body, is it still human? If it thought it was?[LOL - and would it have a soul?] |
