A revolution by robots alone which overthrows the government is impossible.

Our final round. Thank you Panda, for a most engaging debate. Topics such as these are difficult to do justice to when you do not possess a crystal ball. But I will try. Final rebuttals and summary - Moore's Law - My opponent neglects to mention that Moore's law only applies to integrated-circuit technology. It is likely that some new type of technology (possibly optical or quantum computers) will replace current integrated-circuit technology. Once these techs are in process, Moore's Law is no longer accurate. We will be on the way to the famed "Technological Singularity" - The Singularity is a point in time when machines will be able to build superior versions of themselves without the aid of humans. The Human brain - Current progress in artificial intelligence is rarely limited by the speed and power of modern computer hardware. The current limitation is that we simply do not know how to write the software. The "software" for the human brain is ultimately encoded into our DNA. What is amazing is that the entire human genome only contains 3 billion base pairs. The information contained therein could be squeezed onto a old audio Compact Disk (which is much smaller than a video DVD). It could fit entirely into the fast memory of a basic personal computer. It is much smaller than substantial pieces of modern, non-intelligent software such as Microsoft Vista, Office, or the Oracle database. Further, only about 1.5% of the DNA actually encodes genes. Of the rest, some contains important non-gene information, but most of it is probably just repetitive junk left over from the chaotic process of evolution. And of the gene producing portion, only a small proportion appears to have anything to do with intelligence (say 10%). The difference between Chimpanzee DNA and man is only about 1% of gene encoding regions, 5% non-gene. Much of this can be attributed to non-intelligent related issues such as the quickly changing immune system and human's very weak sense of smell. So the difference in the "software" between humans and chimpanzees might be as little as 700 * 10% * 1.5% * 1% = 0.01 megabytes of real data. In computer software terms even 1.0 megabytes is tiny. http://berglas.org... http://www.hpl.hp.com... "This means that humans will still have more processing power than computers 24 years later." It isn't how much more processing power we have, its how we use it. A computer isn't human - no ethical concerns, no what if scenarios, no need to ponder. Computers will have efficiency om their sides. They would also have the Internet, and the present day processing power of these COMBINED computers is unfathomable, and just going up every day. http://upload.wikimedia.org... Spooky, but beautiful picture - even looks like a human brain... Where is my opponent's proof we will have robotic sniffer dog's in the coming century? http://www.abc.net.au... http://www.thestar.co.uk... How's that? Planes do not detect weather - They do - it is called pulse Doppler radar, and all modern planes posses it. And networking would be essential for a Superior intelligence. Having all the computers on its side would give it eyes everywhere. http://en.wikipedia.org... Formula1 is thoroughly computerized - http://videos.howstuffworks.com... http://news.bbc.co.uk... Why would humans pull of a move so stupid? Humans would never, if given the chance, give robot's the ability to learn. I beg to differ - we already are..... http://www.sciencedaily.com... http://news-service.stanford.edu... Give me the schematics to solar panels or nuclear reactors that fit in a human-sized robot and I'll agree. How about a smaller than human one? The AgBot, powered by solar panels. http://robotics.penyet.net... As I mentioned, you're logic of the unlikely 'if' of giving robot's the ability to learn is frankly, against all human nature. I have shown above this is unfortunately not true. We don't have a crystal ball to look into the future. My point exactly. Never say never. It starts with games. (first video) http://www.youtube.com... And ends with human annihilation (second video) http://www.youtube.com... Granted - both of us are speculating, but it is the people that say never that are the ones eating crow later. Once you say it is impossible, you become arrogant. And we all know where arrogance leads...(third video) http://www.youtube.com... I, for one, hope that this scenario never plays out. But I would never be so self-serving as to say it NEVER will. Thank you.