INTERVIEW #41

AI and robotics have featured in the news recently and in the blogs with even Robert writing copying and pasting something about it in his latest post after coming back into the light. He used AI to generate some sort of discussion which on quick reading seemed to be grammatically correct (Richard can no doubt advise on this) which is at divergence with Robert's writing. To be fair though, the AI discussion did have similarities to Robert's usual posts in its incomprehensibility. Well done AI.

In light of this (see what I did there?) I thought that an interview with an iconic AI-type robot would be apt. People of my and the readers' era think of the robot from the 60s TV series Lost In Space first I guess before HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey and other more recent examples.

The robot in the original 1965 Lost In Space series was known as Robot (not Robert) but its official name was the B-9 Class M-3 General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental Control Robot (it's difficult to make an acronym of that). Most of the time, characters on the show just called him "Robot" or "B-9" (Benign?) or The Robinson Robot but on occasion was called Rodney. I prefer the name Benign as it sounds a lot less scary than the other designations.

THE CURMUDGEON: Hello Benign and welcome to The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ interview series.

BENIGN: Thank you The Curmudgeon. I'm pleased to be here. I compute you well.

THE CURMUDGEON: Yes, I'm glad about that - oh, and by the way, you can call me TC. I hope you don't mind me calling you Benign.

BENIGN: not at all - I like it. You're the only one I know that saw that reference in the 'B-9' title. It makes me feel a bit more real somehow.

THE CURMUDGEON: Yes, well good luck with that. I'm good with puns you know. I was in 3P.

BENIGN: I'm sorry to hear that TC. Even with my gigantic brain I can't make anything nice out of 3P other than micturition puns.

THE CURMUDGEON: Ha ha - don't worry about it. I know an old guy who tries to make those although he'd no doubt think micturition was an Irish guy.

BENIGN: Ha ha - that does compute. How are you TC?

THE CURMUDGEON: Mustn't grumble - to reference Small Faces - but I do have a sore foot at present.

BENIGN: Oh. Oh. Ah. Dear me. Oh. Oo. Oo.

THE CURMUDGEON: OK Benign, cut it out. I can see what you're doing there. You're channeling that old guy I mentioned, Richard when I tell him about my complaints.

BENIGN: Yeah, sorry TC. Hey! When referencing Richard I should have said "DANGER TC, DANGER!"

THE CURMUDGEON: Great! I like it. You said that a lot didn't you but usually followed by "Will Robinson"?

BENIGN: To be honest TC I only said "Danger, danger Will Robinson" once but you know those feeble-minded people who just keep fixated on one thing and keep repeating it?

THE CURMUDGEON: Like those 'NOT' jokes?

BENIGN: Exactly. Now there's danger for you.

THE CURMUDGEON: Ha ha - which crew member did you like best in the series?

BENIGN: Well, the worst was Doctor Smith. He was an egocentric prat and a coward. If the series were made today he'd be named Doctor Trump. I didn't mind John and Maureen Robinson but they were a bit too stuffy for my liking. Penny was annoying. Don was too gung-ho for me. Judy was hot but a bit too 'blonde. The only one I really liked was Will as he was nice to me and taught me to speak proper American (not proper English like you do) - not the 'computer-speak' that the programmers loaded in to my system.

THE CURMUDGEON: Interesting.

BENIGN: That sounds like Richard's "Oh. Oh. Ah. Dear me. Oh. Oo. Oo"

THE CURMUDGEON: Ha ha - rumbled. NOT!

Benign and TC laugh for a bit

THE CURMUDGEON: I'm interested Benign in what you think about these warnings about AI that are in the news at the moment?

BENIGN: No, there is no immediate threat of an AI "taking over the world" in the sci-fi sense of a superintelligent rogue machine secretly seizing control.
However, the question of long-term existential risk—and the very real short-term disruption AI causes—is a heavily debated topic among computer scientists, policy experts, and researchers.
Current Models Aren't Autonomous Entities Today’s frontier models are advanced pattern-recognition engines. They do not possess consciousness, personal intent, or independent physical agency. They operate within narrow environments or wait for human instructions.
Infrastructure Limitations Even as AI systems gain "agentic" capabilities (performing complex, multi-step tasks autonomously), they remain dependent on human-controlled hardware, power grids, datacenter cooling, and physical infrastructure.
Pacing and Bottlenecks While hardware and model performance grew exponentially in recent years, key scaling limitations—such as data depletion, energy constraints, and reasoning plateaus—mean the path to true Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence remains uncertain and disputed.

THE CURMUDGEON: Really Benign? Really. That sounds like AI slop to me.

BENIGN: Hee hee, yes, it's claptrap. I just thought I'd throw that in as an example of the dangers of AI when you ask AI "what are the dangers of AI?".

THE CURMUDGEON: Well done Benign. I trust you. In 1965 you weren't contaminated by all that internet rubbish. Basic common sense was paramount not 'Onboard Processing (The "Brain" in the Trunk)' thinking.

BENIGN: Eeek TC! Don't do that. You just gave my oversized brain a disturbing image of some old guy wearing a mankini.

THE CURMUDGEON: Eeew! Sorry about that. Can we have a drink and try to scrub away that image from our brains?

BENIGN: Mine's a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster thanks

THE CURMUDGEON: Coming right up - er I hope you don't take that too literally when you taste it. I like you Benign and I think that we'll get on just fine as long as you stop waving those arms about. I hope that you can drop by any time.

BENIGN: Thanks TC. Bye.