The Bad, the Good, and the Rebellious Bots: World's First in Artificial Intelligence

Introdcution

We are becoming more and more integrated with machines. Today most of us are still physically separated from robotic augmentation devices despite the invasive use of mobile phones which are becoming so much part of us that could be considered as an “external augmentation” (are we humaphones now? Homo Sapiens Telephonicus?), and thus with the positive and negative outcomes and implications in our democracy due to our excessive use of AI. There was even a study called the “The World Unplugged project” (University of Maryland) that proved humans’ withdrawal feelings towards our smart phones as students not using their phone for 24 Hours had the”phantom limb” syndrome suffered by amputees and other serious side effects. Bionic humans/cyborgs already exist, even biological robots are no longer science fiction and we are more and more approaching the robot-human era or Robocene.

World’s first cyborg Neil Harbisson, turned his achromatopsia’s disability into a new fifth super-sense: his antenna implanted in his skull allowed him for the last fifteen years to hear both invisible and visible wavelengths of light, so he cannot see color but he can hear it. He is also the first who was legally recognized in 2004 as a cyborg as he was allowed to have a UK passport photo where he appears equipped with his electronic eyeborg device. In 2009 University of Wisconsin biomedical engineer Adam Wilson posted the first brain-twitted tweet with a brain-computer interface cap (Wired. (2009, April 20). Twitter Telepathy: Researchers Turn Thoughts Into Tweets); while 10 years later we have seen the world’s first mind reading chip called the Brain-Computer Codec Chip or Brain Talker (Tianjin University and China Electronics Corporation). In China even monks are into AI. In 2016 Master Xianfian at the at the Longquan Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Beijing, created Xian’er, the first robot monk; it is a very cute little bot encased in saffron-yellow tunic with a shaved head who chants mantras and explains basic principles of the Buddhism wisdom (Sherwood. 2016). In art, Christie’s sold for $432,500 the first AI GANs 25artwork “Portrait of Edmond De Belamy” created in 2017 by Obvious, An AI art collective based in Paris (Christie’s. 2018). In 2016 DeepBach was launched: it is the first AI designed to create music inspired by Baroque artist Johann Sebastian Bach (Hadjeres et al., (2016). 2020 marks the year of the world's first University of Artificial Intelligence in Abu Dhabi (Technology Enquirer. 2019) and 2021 the first World Olympics featuring robots, to improve the efficiency and accessibility of the Tokyo 2021 Games.

This paper is divided into bad and good sections: it will explore mostly disinformation and influence campaigns, how AI technology could bring to a more dystopian future and what has been done to tackle the issue. The “good bot” section will focus on positive case studies, AI techniques applied from the infinitive small, Higgs boson, to the infinitely large, dark matter as well as climate change and educational projects.