Monday, May 20, 2013

Critical Thinking Blog Post#4 The Promise and Peril of Robots (LIB 200)

     Robots have always made for a great science fiction theme but what if the lines between fantasy and reality were to merge? Androids are incredible feets of enginuity and are now becoming ever more realistic in our world. However, as scientist continue to move forward with the development of robots can we really be sure that they will not rebel? In movies such as: "The Terminator" or Blade runner", this particular theme is played with a lot and it leaves the question: is the ever growing development of sentient life good or bad?

     On the youtube clip called: "Amazing Androids", I find it fascinating, how far the development of fully aware androids have come along. They seem so life like, is truly is remarkable. Some answered questions while others responded to touch. It is completely possibly to confuse one for a human. That leads up to the question whether it is safe to continue such development.

     On a different youtube clip called: "Terminator 1 ending", we see the terminator steps out of a blazing inferno, unscathed. An unstoppable and sentient being who's goal is to kill an individual. How can we be certain we won't step into a world similar to the one depicted in the Terminator movies? A dystopian future plunged into a war against machines, a fight to survive. Do we really want to take the the risk of bring to life a new species which could topple humanity both physically and intellectually?

     In my current age and knowing my generation I am positive that most of us don't seem to care much for robots. The rudimentary and convenient  uses of modern day technology is helpful and make life more a breeze but to go as far as to developing. A.I. built bots capable of doing feets us humans can is scary. Both clips show how intelligent robots can be and how life like and human they could become. However, compare to Terminator, the other androids are insignificant, but that doesn't mean it won't eventually be the same. I don't know if robots will have a positive or negative impact on society but I'd rather not find out in case of the latter. 

Critical Thinking Blog Assignment # 7- About a Scientist Life and Work

For this post I decided to write up on Rosalind Franklin. Rosalind was a female scientist who found the design of our DNA (the double helix), that being said, to have her discover something as important as this has really helped scientist understand much more on how this structure is very vital to human genetics. She is quite inspirational not only for being a female scientist during a time when that sort of thing wasn't common and was even possibly looked down on but for the amount of effort she must have put into her work to discover something this important. It is a shame that she did not receive the recognition she deserved for her hard work (during her lifetime) and if anything depicted in the graphic novel were true it would even more upsetting to know that her hard work was all in vain. However, we as a society have become much more reasonable now and we can appreciate what she did for humanity and give her the credit she deserves for her discovery. If I had known about her earlier on during the course I would have loved to write my research paper on her because in all honesty I really find her an incredible woman and it would've been enjoyable for me to write up on her and the controversy surrounding her work.