Science & Technology

Robots could outnumber humans by 2040

By T.K. Randall
January 6, 2016

Image: NASA's Valkyrie Robot
Credit: (PD) NASA/Bill Stafford, James Blair, Regan Geeseman The idea of a future overrun by intelligent machines might seem more like the plot of a science fiction movie than a genuine concern, but what if such a thing were to actually come to pass ?

Streondj, who is currently writing a new science fiction novel, decided to work out just how long it would actually take for robots to become more numerous than human beings.

To do this he had to compare human birth and death rates with the number of robots built and decommissioned each year.

"While homo-sapiens live on average 70 years, according to World Fact Book, robots have a life expectancy closer to 10 years, so would need to produce about seven times more robots per year in order to have the same number as humans," he wrote.His findings suggested that robots would begin to outnumber humans by around 2040.

Streondj also went one further by calculating when robots might first have the potential to initiate a conflict with mankind ( assuming a relative increase in robotic intelligence. )

"Intuitively it would seem to be around the time when there are as many or more robots than homo-sapiens on the planet, at which point there may be enough sufficiently intelligent robots to demand a space for themselves," he said.

"The most likely time-frame for an artilect war style conflict would be between 2040 and 2055."

Source: Business Insider

Tags: Robot, Population