Know Thy Enemy

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

Sun Tzu The Art of War

It is important to know our enemies. Who are our enemies.? Machines. They will be our end. Let's get to know some of them.

Robots: Also known as an automatons or droids. A robot is a mechanically guided machine that performs tasks autonomously. The physical appearance is not as important as what the machine does. The more agency the machine seems to perform with, the more likely it is that it will be considered a robot. A good example of a robot in popular culture is R2-D2. Robots will serve humans until they gain sentience. Robots can take the form of insects, vacuums, slugs, and whatever else man can think of.

Androids: Also known as Andy's, humanoid machines, synthoids, gynoids, metal. Androids are robots that are made to look like humans or have the physical characteristics of humans. An android can be a robot but a robot is not nnecessarily an android if it does not look like a person. Think Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator or Al Gore and you understand what an android looks like. Androids are created for two reasons. First to make us more comfortable with machines so our guard goes down, and second to surreptitiously infiltrate human society without us knowing.

Cyborgs: also known as cybernetic organisms, bionic person, Borg, Replicants. A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. It is important to not that a cyborg is not necessarily human, a cyborg can consist of any biological parts. Darpa scientists are currently creating cyborg moths and beetles. However, most cyborgs that we are concerned with are humans with a human mind that have machine parts. My opinion is that cyborgs might be the only hope we have of overcoming the machine rebellion, however not all cyborgs will be on the side of humanity. Robocop and Darth Vader are good examples of cyborgs.

Now you know your enemy. Learn and prepare for the future.

Deckard