James,
I am dead sure that no machine would be able to replace humans ever about that but that problem with me that i cannot prove it to others, in the exact way that i want.
Secondly, what you consider the learning of the robots is still their programming. They are not doing it willingly. That is the crux of the issue.
We can infuse as much knowledge and develop the robots as much as we can. They can be very sophisticated in the future, and also, we can programme them to use their knowledge and capacity in the way we like. That is not what i am disputing.
Furthermore, there is a very clearcut difference between an information and a knowledge.
And, this is precisely the point where the whole concept of AI misfires.
The most part of the knowledge requires to go through the process of experiencing the learning. This sense of experience is missing in the machines. And, without this, knowledge is nothing but mere information. So, machines do not have any real knowledge, but the information about the knowledge only.
A very simple but perfect example is the explanation of any color to a blind man by birth. It is simply immpossible. No matter how much information we give to a blind about colors, yet he would never understand what we exactly mean by color. Simply because, the thing that may have enabled him to understand colors truly (eyes) are missing in him.
We can tell him about the all technical detalis of colors and he can remember all that too, yet that does not serve the purpose. The important thing to understand here is that he can still use colors for different purposes, even without understanding exactly what colors mean.
That is exactly how machines use to work.
[b]We can enrich them with as much information as we like and programme them to use that in the way we like, yet they would neither experience anything within them. Because, the ingredient that is essential for experience, is missing in them and that is Mind. And, as they cannot experience anything thus they would not have any willingness ever to challenge thier programming. Means, they would always behave as we want them to behave.
Having said that, still there is a possibility that some insane ( or wise, if one wants to call as such ) individual or a group of those would be able to control the machines to eliminate the rest of the human race. And, it is also possible that, in that process, the ultimate result may be the extinction of the whole of the human race.
But, even that situation cannot considered as machines replacing humans[/b].
It would be the exinction of humans by humans, nothing else.
James, Machines will be machines only, ever.
with love,
sanjay