That's not knowledge though, is it? It's just basic steps.
knowl·edge
ˈnäləj/
noun
1.
facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
So, it knows how to do it, but does it really understand what it's doing? I think the real discussion comes down to: will robots ever be sentient?
sen·tient
ˈsen(t)SH(ē)ənt/
adjective
able to perceive or feel things
Probably not.
Eh I don't think sentient will play any role in it (that's relating Robots to Humans. Robots don't have to be humans at all to create knowledge).
You also forgot this definition of knowledge: awareness or familiarity gained by experience of a fact or situation.
Robots can be familiar with a situation in much less time than humans I believe, simply because they'll fully understand the concept in less time than a human can (especially since they'll be able to go back and reanalyze the situation in much more accurate way than humans can with our memory).
Recall the part about creativity in the CGP Grey video? As a researcher in the scientific field (Civil Engineering, Water Resources, Climate Change Assessment and Adaptation), 99% of what I do can be automated really. The biggest thing you need is an idea. The idea of "how to further said research topic". This can be solved by repurposing the "creativity" aspect from physical creativity to theoretical creativity. It can really be as simple as "What if we apply this theory from another field to our field?" and then depending on the results going "Ok so how can we improve this efficiency of this?" The entire purpose we are highly trained is because when running these simulations or thought processes we need to know the answers are correct, within reasonable realms, know how to execute the experiment properly (Which statistical test should be applied? Did you over bias correct? Did you under bias correct? What statistical downscaling method is more applicable for this physical location?).
This is knowledge. This is what everyone else does. You get an idea, you investigate it, you accomplish it, you move on from there. The government needs a study done, you receive the money, you look at that topic, you figure out how far they studied last time, you look into how you can expand from there.
Therefore, I believe robots can easily look into obtaining more knowledge.
Now this being the "end of humanity", while I do feel that's a bit dramatic I can see where he's coming from. This of course doesn't mean I'm going to be putting on my tinfoil hat and freaking out, but it'd be interesting.
Funny thing, my thesis is actually in the automation of these things. It won't be to the extent of an "AI", but it should be able to gather proper input data, determine which statistical model is best suited for a given geographic area, which hydrologic model will be best for that location, and then go from there.
