Who you are seeing in the picture above is “Zenbo”. He is a social robot that is actually built to teach children in schools about cyber safety.  We can call him a teacher and this teacher, found in the College School, is teaching the students about safety on the Internet. His main goal is to “to help children learn cybersecurity and good digital citizenship using tools that engage and sustain young attention spans” (2020, pg. 1). Such robot is used to explain to the children the cyber culture and how to be protected in the cyber culture. The cyber culture is inundated with hacks, spams, junks, and many other dangerous aspects, and robots are interacting with humans to teach them about this. The cyber culture is so complex and that is why a complex machine is needed to describe to humans in a better way than how humans could describe it. It can be seen here that robots and humans are peacefully interacting together to make the social life in the cyber culture more peaceful.

However, whom is “Zenbo” protecting the children from? It could be protecting them from hackers, cyber gangs, and many other aspects. However, it is also protecting it from other robots, such as web robots. In this sense, Zenbo is used to protect children from ones of its own. As complicated as this may get, this is what is seen when artificial intelligence, humans, and the Internet interact and connect. There is nothing as simple as humans interacting with robots to have a peaceful Internet experience. The cyber system is more complex than that and that is why the equation of artificial intelligence, humans, and the Internet is blurred. It is more of a complex equation that has no answer. Does Zenbo know he is protecting humans and threatening ones like him? Does Zenbo actually know anything or is he programmed by humans to do so?

There has been an ongoing discussion on what could eventually happen if cyber gangs were able to fully control artificial intelligence. This discussion has been found in many resources, but on wants to focus on it from a business and economic perspective, just like it was tackled in the article in the business site “Raconteur”. As exaggerating as this may sound, but this could drastically shift the economic picture as a whole. By picture I mean ones who are on top of the economic pyramid could be at the bottom and the opposite is true.  Artificial intelligence is powerful enough to detect secret business patterns, money flows, and bank number; hence, when they are under cyber gangs, problems will come flowing. The identity of cyber gangs is not known and the extent to what they could do is also unknown. With such powerful information and resources in their hands, strong companies could completely fall and become bankrupt giving the room for less developed companies to rise. This could be more dangerous than a normal bank heist or a hack even. Those robots are powerful to get the deepest secrets about banks, companies, and many other entities that could put the whole entity at risk. In this sense, I demand for more surveillance protection on those AI. In other words, it has to be impossible for cyber gangs to be able to use them. If they could put hands on them, they at least could not able to use them.  This is bigger than what anyone may think, as countries could drastically suffer economically from such matter.

Who is in control of the Internet network? A simple answer will be humans; however, after reading the article “bot traffic fueling rise of fake news and cybercrime” by Anthony Spadafora one will change such answer.  Under such horrific circumstances the world is going through, the Internet is inundated with searches and questions that humans need answers for. On the contrary, web robots, or as they are also called bots, have been used to deceive the people with fake news. In a nutshell, there has been much information regarding coronavirus and it has become very difficult to distinguish between valid and fake news. There has been an increase in the usage of bad bots after the epidemic. As a matter of fact, the bots were used in “spreading disinformation, spam commenting and more” (Spadafora, 2020, pg. 1). Those bots can actually mimic human behavior by more than 50% (Spadafora, 2020). It is used by cybercriminals to accomplish their goals.

In this sense, not only humans create misleading information, but web robots. Both humans and web robots are building deceiving information. I want to look at this not as a clash between humans and robots, but how humans can use robots for their benefit to create misleading information. In this sense, robots are helping humans with their jobs. At the end of the day, the web bots will not be initiated on their own; specific humans initiate them. Yes, the can function and do what humans are not capable of doing in a specific speed or time spam, but the origination came from the human. In this sense, a specific sector of the society is using web robots for their own benefit. It is seen that humans are working with web robots to get a job done. It was also mentioned, “cybersecurity firm Radware has been using its bot manager to monitor Internet traffic in an attempt to track the infodemic” (Spadafora, 2020, pg. 1). In this sense, humans are in need of those web robots to fight other web robots that are also used by humans to spread fake information. In this sense, it is seen that the cyber culture is not only based on robots and not only based on humans; it is both working hand in hand to reach a goal, regardless of what this goal is.

Riskin, J. (2003). The Defecating Duck, or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life.

            Critical Inquiry, 29(4), 599–633.

            In Jessica Riskin’s journal article The Defecating Duck , or, the Ambiguous Origins of Artificial Life, she clearly mentioned that ones who create robots do so with the aim to “attempt to produce life in machinery” (2003, pg. 608). As the idea that machines could produce life may be an indication of development and advancement, this poses a challenge to humanity. It is not development, but suppressing humanity. The term “produce” has a negative connotation for it. Producing life is way different than adding to life. When life is produced from machines it could be a threat as machines could outweigh humans. It is like replacing human life with machinery life. I felt that it is like posing war on humans. A war does not need to be physical war; it could be a mental war. The power of machines and how they are trying to mimic humans is improving throughout the years.

Nevertheless, I do not think that it is possible. Humans yes have to take their precautions, but the fact that that it will produce “life” is just impossible. Regardless of how accurate machines are, they cannot become “life”. There is always something missing in machines. For example, in this same text scientists wanted to produce a flute player that plays the flute just like a humans. They were able to produce one, but it was not same as a real life human playing a flute. Hence, what one is trying to say from such phrase is that yes machinery is dangerous, but it cannot be like “life”; humans are humans and machines are machines at the end. They are different, as there is always something missing in a machine.

In the episode “Be Right Back” in the British TV show Black Mirror the power of machines was strongly portrayed. After the death of her boyfriend, Martha was offered a robot of her boyfriend that was created from his social media posts and his texts. At the beginning she thought it replaced him; however, she started realizing that he is not real as he is just data and information collected. However, she did not let go of the robot. She actually could not get rid of it regardless of how unhappy it made her feel. This episode strongly elucidates how power powerful robots can be. As seen in the image below, this was the first time Martha met robot Ash. The robot made her feel that she could touch Ash once again.

She could talk to him, cry with him, and even have sexual intercourse with him. This shows how artificial life and robots can be very deceiving. With everything the robot can do, Martha believed for a while that this robot is really Ash. Even after realizing that he is no longer Ash, she did not get rid of him. For instance, when she wanted to kill herself she programmed the robot to tell her not to kill herself. Robots and the new artificial life can be more powerful than humans. They are not 100% accurate, but they are accurate enough to make humans be deceived. They can play with human’s minds and make them do things they do not want. They go beyond human’s thoughts and capabilities. Who would think that they could see a beloved one who died? The idea that this is even apparent can play with anyone’s mind. As the presence of this type of robot not really apparent now, the meaning behind this is important. It just shows how robots and machines can overpower humans, especially when it comes to emotions and feelings. Humans must be aware of how powerful science can be and how it can change one’s life in an unknown way. This episode was a wake up call for humans to see the deception of science and how it can influence us.

Steenhuyse , J. (2017, November 30). Artificial Life Breakthrough After Scientists

            Create New Living Organism Using Synthetic DNA. Independent.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/artificial-life-synthetic-dna-scientists-living-organisms-create-scripps-research-institute-floyd-a8083966.html

            According to an article in the Independent newspaper, there was another breakthrough in science, which was the creation of living organisms by using synthetic DNA. This living organism was created through natural and artificial DNA. The four letters of DNA have expanded into other letters and those new letters were used to create this new living organism. The power of science and artificial life has gone beyond cloning and artificial changes in animals; it can now create on its own living organisms. The point I want to claim is that this living organism is not completely real. Regardless of how real it is, it is not completely alive. The organism was created from artificial DNA; regardless of how much natural aspects were implemented to create it, it still has artificial DNA. To add, this organism was created from E. coli bacteria that has two “unnatural letter” from DNA strand. The term “unnatural” questions the reality of the living organism. The question here is that how can it be called “living organism” if it is made from “unnatural” aspects?

In addition, such living organism will be subjected to a lot of questions from religion. Religious jurists will question how humans can create living organisms, as God is the only entity that we have known that creates living aspects. As there has always been a clash between science and religion, such discovery will magnify this clash. Creation of life is under the hands of Gods, as mentioned in religion; hence, one cannot come and say otherwise. In this sense, the field of science has to be ready for the backlash that it will be subjected to.  All of this shows that the field of science has to be sure of what they are saying and showing the world before announcing such huge outbreak.