(02-05-2016, 05:54 PM)stevebowers Wrote: Remote-controlled mining and construction robots with a moderate amount of autonomy should be able to extract useful resources from the Moon, resources which could be utilised to make colony habitats at some later date. Why would we need to send people there at all, when robots could do most of the work? I think there would be a future for a human presence on the Moon, doing the things robots can't do, but by the time habitable colonies will be a reasonable option there could be human-level AI available as well. Seems likely to me this might be an incentive to put humans there- if we don't, we would effectively be abandoning the human space program and passing it over to the AIs.

We need to build an federation of Hu and AI in real life as soon as feasible, or we'll lose the opportunity to have bionts in space altogether.