It is an old movie cliche - the rise of evil robots and the fall of Mankind made most popular in the 'Terminator' series which will soon have new life breathed into it by Ah-nuld.


However the foundational premise of this old cliche is becoming harder and harder to ignore in our exponentially advancing technological age where ideas such as the Singularity and the Internet of Things have taken a firm grip on the imaginations of the public.

However these same two concepts when you take the time to think about how they will be (and are) being implemented means that some of our darkest fears about the rise of the evil robot overlords which is in essence the primal fear of finding ourselves (humanity) being displaced as the dominant species shall not take place in some kind of winner take all bloody conflict but slowly over time we shall gladly hand over the reins of control to our robot overlords.

I came to this thought while thinking about libertarian ideology versus a more liberal ideology (government-centric) view of the world. In my opinion there is no ideology that is free from its problems. In my personal life I am a libertarian mostly but I also have my problems with libertarians especially as a minority because so often those who advance the cause of liberty only seek to do so for themselves and those like them and not for all.

In a nutshell, the problem (imho) with liberals who look to government to solve their problems is they forget or ignore that government is a service-oriented institution and every time you add a new service it creates a huge bureaucracy in order to oversee whatever new rule has been implemented. And all this costs money because someone has to be hired to do insure the rule is followed, someone else has to be hired to make sure the person making sure the rules are followed is checked up on every now and again to insure they are doing their jobs right, etc. ad infinitum.

On the other end of the spectrum as mentioned there is little government and regulation (thus fewer expenses/taxes) however (imho) a
far greater opportunity for power on a local level to be concentrated around 'majority rule' and as a minority that idea gives me pause.

So what does this have to do with Skynet and the Terminators?

Come see me in Part II

It occurred to me while these other thoughts were going around in my head (and for the record I was thinking about this stuff due to the shootings in Las vegas which led me to looking up the two suicide-murderers which led me to looking up about the Bundy ranch which led me to a whole host of other things that got me contemplative about my so-called libertarian fellows out there) that part of the problem inherent with government (i.e. bureaucracy) is highly solvable.

I propose at this point that given a high enough artificial intelligence and the implementation of what is being called the 'internet of things' we will eventually fulfill the promise of both liberal and libertarian ideologies AT THE SAME TIME. The technology will both enslave and free us.

How the technology will enslave us is already underway. You can Google any number of articles about surveillance and how the police use data-mining in order to help catch criminals. However this is only the tip of the iceberg when nearly everything around you will be 'online' and communicating with each other, and more importantly that this data will be overseen and having inferences being made by an artificial intelligence(s)(Skynet)that over time will know each person better than they know themselves to a degree. Welcome to the age of Google NOW.

How this solves many of the inherent problems of bureaucracy is that once you have the internet of things backed up by Skynet you can eliminate one of the biggest sources of cash output the government has - labor. To put it more simply, Skynet enabled with the IoT would be far better equipped to instantly and in real-time manage many if not most of the tasks the government pays people to do.

How now brown cow?

Come see me in Part III

I should mention that I have worked for the federal government for over a decade. Nothing all that flashy, I am your typical federal employee. As a federal employee I can say with all honesty that I am highly replaceable by a computer at this very moment. More than half the things I do on a day-to-day basis is complete and utter BS that I could think of any number of ways to do cheaper and more efficiently but I don't mention these things because I gotta pay the bills or my wife will leave me!

I am speaking out my arse at this point but it would not suprise me at all if you could eliminate half the government jobs in America with a decent sized investment in CURRENT technology much less next-gen technology and the internet of things.

Simply imagine if it was law that they build sensors into every device at a chemical plant (one that in the past has been known to do illegal dumping into nearby rivers) as well as placing sensors into the river itself. Then invest in a fleet of surveillance drones that are hooked up to Skynet to report anything out of the ordinary (including things down at the river).

All this data is constant and real-time and once again most importantly is being overseen by an 'artificial intelligence' which can make inferences, draw conclusions, and take action all without human involvement.

In the future scenarios like this and more will effectively derail one of the main functions of 'big' government - oversight. There will be so much real-time surveillance you won't need to send anyone until a problem is noted by Skynet.

Also the more and more we automate jobs and functions that used to be done by human beings the less and less beholden we are to government ultimately. Here is where I get even more philosophical and possibly confusing by the way.

Basically as society becomes increasingly automated (less human labor) we need fewer or much smaller government agencies to oversee all of that labor. As we get rid of secretaries, janitors, and most low-skilled labor and even some medium-skilled labor it will eventually beg the question as to why we need to pay income taxes to run what should be a shrinking government...


Which brings us to how technology will FREE us.

Ultimately in my possibly optimistic view. society will trade in its rights to privacy for the reward of having less government to keep things private from.

As a libertarian I envision that Skynet will remain under human control but will be so ubiquitous as to have the semblance of a robot overlord. I envision a society where the vast majority of the population has been freed of the requirement of labor through society-wide automation of most services and that most people are free to do (within reason) what they want. Government will still exist but it will be much smaller in scope (because most of the services government provides at that point will be automated).

This is why I said earlier it is the realization of both the liberal idea of 'big' government and the freedom of the libertarian ideaology at the same time.