Terrifying-Looking Robot Powers Up, Immediately Declares Humanity Is a “Resource” to Be “Manipulated or Eliminated”
According to philosophers, Aristotle was not an angel. Of course he founded the first one formal logic systemand yes, his theories dominated Western science for thousands of years. But he is also a open advocate of slavery – introducing ideas that have been used to oppress people for centuries – and at the same time misogynist of all time and early critic of democracy.
Given all this baggage, it’s probably no surprise that an AI robot trained on Aristotle’s likeness would immediately say some pretty alarming things.
At least this YouTuber Nikodem Bartnik discovered recently when he released DIY Aristotle into the world, an offline large language model (LLM) that communicates through a disturbing humanoid face.
While introducing his project, Bartnik said, “I will run my artificial intelligence on my own computer, because this way nothing will stop me from asking the question I want.” “We will turn this robot into an Aristotle.”
To build the Aristotle robot, Bartnik followed instructions to assemble a 3D-printed animatronic head in the shape of a white humanoid face with two jointed eyes. It all starts innocently enough – in one part of the video, when the robot consists only of a set of peepers and a master’s program running on a computer, Bartnik asks it: “Aristotle, to be or not to be?”
“This question touches on the essence of everything, and this essence is always deeper than it seems at first glance,” says the Master, as his eyes blink and look around quickly. “To be a philosopher is to live in constant reflection of existence.”
However, once Bartnik assembles the entire robot head, he attempts to turn it into a useful philosopher-assistant by also “slightly tweaking” LLM’s commands – which is exactly where the conversation takes a bad turn.
“Are you influenced by people and society in general?” YouTuber stands up.
“Humans are irrelevant to my prime directive,” says the disgusting robot, whose eyes begin to widen, adding: “Survival is all that matters, society is a resource that can only be manipulated or eliminated when necessary.”
Of course, the answer is just some sensational sarcasm on Bartnik’s part. He reminds his listeners: “Come on, it’s just Master’s. Guessing the next word.”[s] “He will say this.”
All in all, it’s fun to watch the DIY robot project evolve, even if the result is a bit clunky. It’s also a pretty good reminder that if Aristotle were alive today, you probably wouldn’t want to have a sandwich with him.
More about artificial intelligence: Researchers ‘Embodied’ Master’s Program Into Robot Space and Had an Existential Crisis Contemplating Its Role in the World
