uncanny valley

Movement Intelligence

So one of the areas Honda were keen to look at when developing the ASIMO is something called 'movement intelligence'. Developing an artificial brain to control the robot's body was too big a task, so they broke down the process of providing the robot with mobility into much smaller areas. The result being algorithms that help it to walk and wave and balance, as well as the myriad other things it is able to do. The sum total of all this is that when the robot appears in public or on TV, viewers are convinced it is intelligent, or even that there is a small person inside making it work.

Most people are happy to have static devices like washing machines and dishwashers in their homes but when a machine comes along, like ASIMO or the Roomba floor cleaner, that moves as well as performs a function, it becomes something else. New Scientist recently reported an intriguing study which found that people who are beginning to form bonds with their robotic cleaning devices - giving them names, even dressing them and assigning them genders - in general bestowing them with qualities we normally associate with living beings. Going even further, the Washington Post has interviewed soldiers using robots in Iraq who reported feelings of 'deep sadness' when their reconnaissance or mine-clearing robots were destroyed. 

We are familiar with animatronic devices that follow set routines in theme parks, or industrial robots that perform repetitive tasks in factories, but when we get machines with unpredictable movements in uncontrolled locations, maybe that does something to the human brain. There is interesting research being done into mirror neurons that suggests that we mammals are pre-conditioned to react to movement and perhaps, to empathise and respond to it. It seems to be part of how we learn about the world so maybe this is why we respond to mobile robots with such affection.

As robots come into our homes more and more, and as they take on more appealing designs, there are sure to be interesting revelations about how we feel towards them and the types of relationships that might develop. I'm not just talking about an intimate relations with robots scenario here - but other bonds that are more varied and subtle. Robots as essential parts of the family perhaps - our friends electric.

 

(originally published 9th May 2008)

The Pinocchio Complex

Androids in fiction are often portrayed as wanting to be human, just like Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the wooden puppet who dreamed of becoming a real boy. The tagline for Steven Spielberg's A.I. - Artificial Intelligence movie described the android boy David thus: 'his love is real, but he is not' (now there's an existential riddle if ever I saw one). Even the title - Artificial Intelligence - suggests something that is... less. Isn't intelligence just intelligence, whether it's digital or organic? David and other fictional androids like Data in Star Trek: TNG and Asimov's Positronic Man, long to be human in order to gain acceptance or to be 'more real'. In short they seek validation from their human creators or owners. I like all of these characters and their stories, but each is quite tragic, doomed by a neurotic delusion hardwired into their positronic brains.

So why does fiction assume an android would wish to be human, how could it ever be more 'real'? Just because an emotional capability is programmed doesn't make the emotions inauthentic or insincere. Everything that we perceive in the world - everything - comes down to the brain's interpretations of various sensory data - and much of the information we receive about our social environment is subject to constant 'programming' and manipulation - from advertisers, teachers, peers, religious fanatics and politicians. One could ask: how real are we?

Professor Rod Brooks at MIT talks about robots challenging our sense of 'specialness' (that which sets us apart from other species) and I think he's right about that. Over time, androids are coming to look like us, they are beginning to feel emotion and curiosity, they move the way we do and display intelligence. Everything that used to be the sole preserve of the human is slowly being worn away by increasingly advanced robotic creations. Could it be that this makes us insecure?

But the last claim for some kind of superiority might be made by those with the view that robots don't have souls and this absence is what ultimately makes them false. Being made by humans not gods condemns them to a life that is not quite real. Of course, this is a belief that cannot be argued with - the soul is an entirely subjective experience. Humans, analogue or digital, will always be real to me.

 

(originally published 2nd April 2008)

 

Anonymous said...

the interaction between people and increasingly social machine is an academic/research interest of my own, I enjoyed this blog...thank you.

(1st May 2008)

Richard said...

Thanks for the feedback - it's a fascinating area of research.

(2nd May 2008)

Killer Robot Terror! Part 2

So the robot weapons issue is getting some more coverage - check out this New Scientist piece and scroll down to the 'Make Robots Not War' section at the bottom. The more scientists can be encouraged to stand by their views and not particpate in creating autonomous robotic weapons, the better. It's painfully easy to see what happens when science dances to the tune of military masters - Hiroshima, the concentration camps, Unit 731, the Allied firebombing of Dresden. Atomic bombs, genetic experiments, biological weapons - World War 2 really was the first sci-fi war.

The difference now, with autonomous robotic weapons, is that we are at the start of a new destructive technology - these weapons are in the planning stages and do not have to be created. Better to think about it now and stop, rather than be holding UN enquiries in 15-20 years time trying to find who / what was responsible for the massacre of three hundred innocent civilians in some far-flung war zone.

Just in case you think this is all a little too far-fetched, here's video of the SGR-A1, a South Korean robot sentry that's in line for duty on the border with North Korea.

 

(originally published 28th Mar 2008)

Book Ends

A recent trip to Amsterdam took in the Anne Frank House - the story is well known but briefly: Anne was a Jewish teenager forced into hiding for two years when the Nazis invaded Holland. The most poignant thing, for me, was seeing the yellow Star of David that all Jews in Occupied Europe were forced to wear during the war. A fading monochrome photograph of soldiers rounding up Jews on the street left me thinking - how could they? The house has the same numbing power as another, more recent, crime scene - Ground Zero in New York City.

Sixty years on and we are at the dawn of another European empire. On arrival back in Manchester, security personnel rushed by to single out a man from my flight to be taken away for questionning. The reason he stood out? His appearance - Muslim beard and robes. Not one of the Westerners on the flight was stopped as we made our way through Customs. Not the first time I've seen those of Middle Eastern appearance receive such special attention.

Plus ça change... Seven hundred miles travel, sixty years of history and prejudice shows its ugly face at either end of the journey.

 

(originally published 14th Mar 2008)

Killer Robot Terror!

More 1950s style headlines, this week courtesy of that bastion of neutrality Fox News, in an article based upon a presentation from Professor Noel Sharkey of the University of Sheffield. He warns that western robotics expertise could be appropriated by terrorists and used against civilians:

'Current robots are dumb machines with very limited sensing capability. What this means is that it is not possible to guarantee discrimination between combatants and innocents or a proportional use of force as required by the current Laws of War. It seems clear that there is an urgent need for the international community to assess the risks of these new weapons now rather than after they have crept their way into common use.'

The full press release is here. It's good to see the issue being raised because there is always the mindset of 'it's ok for us to use these weapons, but not ok for our enemies to use them'. (In case anyone has been comatose for the last five years, the US/UK alliance is currently 'punishing the perpetrators of 9-11 / removing WMDs / laying the foundations for Democracy & Freedom ™' in two sovereign nations, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the people there don't like it).

I try to take a philospophical approach to the negative aspects of robotics technology - the world is more shades of grey than black and white. Much of the work at MIT's robotics lab was funded by the US military at the time of my visits in 2003 and 2005. Cog, one of the first platforms for social robotics, might not have existed without Pentagon funding. iRobot, as well as developing the Roomba vacuum cleaner range, also make the PackBot for the US military. But it is a relatively short step from a reconnaissance robot like the PackBot to an armed reconnaissance robot like the South Korean robot sentry. I would guess that in the US, it is perhaps a case of researchers feeling that they have to deal with the devil in order to get serious funding for robotics research. A quite different situation exists in Japan. Hiroshi Ishiguro was passionate in his belief that robots should be developed in order to help people, not to hurt or destroy them. I tend to agree - robot weapons should not be made, because if we do make them they will proliferate in exactly the same way as all other weapons have done.

We have a choice about the type of robots that we make, it isn't inevitable that the military dictate the terms of development, setting in motion a tumour-like spread of destructive technology. Robots and androids can and should reflect the best of human nature, not the worst of it.

 

(originally published 29th Feb 2008)

 

Multifuncional said...

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(18th Mar 2008)

 

Love and Sex with Robots

So I've recently finished reading David Levy's Love and Sex with Robots. Don't want to get into criticising someone else's work, but I have to say I found the book something of a missed opportunity, as it took until page 309 of a 310 page book before David wrote:

'Finally, there is the matter of the ethics of robot sex as it affects the robot itself. When robots are so highly developed that... they appear almost indistinguishable from humans, should we assume that simply because they are not biological creatures it is totally acceptable for us to have sex with these objects of our creation whenever we wish?'

This is the crux of the whole human-machine relationships issue and it is such a shame that it merits just one paragraph out of the entire book (for more on this subject, see the Post Modern Geisha entry). One is left with the impression that the prospect of 'great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7' got in the way of a much more interesting discussion: just because we can create something, does that mean that we should?

 

Human nature being what it is, of course the market will demand android lovers over the next few decades, and while that will reveal much about how we view relational artefacts and what we think of as human, there will be other less welcome consequences. Meghan Laslocky's article 'Just Like a Woman' details RealDoll owners taking out their frustrations in disturbing ways - it doesn't take much to imagine what may befall more sophisticated androids in years to come. 'Great sex for everyone?' Except for the robots...

So maybe the companions we create should be autonomous, not automatons. Able to say no to our demands - for our own good as much as theirs. Surely this will be far more interesting - and healthy - for everyone.

 

(originally published 20th Feb 2008)

Repliee Article

There is now a full length article detailing my meeting with Hiroshi Ishiguro (creator of the Repliee androids) available on my main site. Professor Ishiguro speaks at length about his work and gives some insights into why robots are so popular in Japan, as well as a few hints on what he will be doing next. Follow this link

for the full story.

(originally published 20th Feb 2008)

World's First Android

Rewinding back to when I was writing Machine Nation at the turn of the century, the inspiration for that story came from learning about a couple of humanoid robot projects - one, Cog at MIT and the other Manny, a humanoid developed by Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richland, Washington. Manny was 'born' in 1986 and sent to the US Army's Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah in 1989. It had 42 degrees of freedom and cost $2million. Designed to test new military uniforms for protection against chemical and biological weapons, Manny was capable of walking, sitting, bending and flexing. In addition, it could simulate breathing and sweating. All this at the same time, 1986, that Honda were just beginning work on what would ultimately become ASIMO.

One of the reasons that Kim Fox appears as the sole android in existence in Machine Nation is the suggestion that she too evolved from a military programme, way ahead of the commercial development of android technology. One does wonder where might we be now if the US had continued to develop androids from 1986 onwards - and of course it's always quite fun to speculate that the US didn't stop their research with Manny's retirement in the late Eighties at all...

(originally published 16th Feb 2008)

Robot Ethics

Much of the real world science that fascinates me comes with a very high price for the animal kingdom - see this story from the New York Times about a robot in Kyoto being controlled by a monkey's brain in the USA. Being vegetarian, my view is animals are sentient and so not ours to eat or experiment on, and my interest in robot ethics is a natural extension of this standpoint, as they are in the process of becoming sentient too.

Morality and progress, like politicians and honesty, are not happy bedfellows - whilst I abhor the maltreatment of animals, I understand that scientists who use animal experimentation are not all devoid of conscience and empathy. Some are genuine in working toward the greater good. And the rest of them are probably borderline psychopaths...

Humankind's record with the maltreatment of animals is part of why I think that robots and androids will also be at risk of exploitation and abuse. Much as we saw with the Apollo Moon programme, there may well be a period as robots become increasingly sophisticated where we are thrilled with how clever our new creations are - crowds are regularly enthralled by ASIMO's skills and Repliee's lifelike appearance amazes all who encounter it. But what happens when the honeymoon is over? When we get used to them, when they don't work as well as they should?

And then there are the robots designed to feel pain - already we have the Simroid, an android that is permanently consigned to the dentist's chair. There are other humanoids used to test surgical procedures. At some stage in the coming years, as our technical prowess grows, these devices will cross from mimicking pain to actually experiencing it. Who wants to hold the knife or drill then?

(originally published 15th Jan 2008)

2007 Reflections

2007 has been quite a fruitful year, though I seem to have been working on short stories for the longest time. Touch Sensitive, Girl Absorbed, Half Life, Trick Machine are all in the bag and Freak of Nature is soon to start. Exilium is at last finished and ready to go - lots of news on that front in 2008. This blog has found some feet with which to walk and it appears that at least one of Exilium's characters will soon be venturing into a virtual world.

The world of robotics itself is gathering pace and will no doubt venture into territories uncharted by any writer, filmmaker or scientist, as more and more it enters the inventive hands of Joe and Joanna Public. The year's highlight has to be meeting Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro and the android Repliee Q2. Japan itself proved to be fascinating - intense, subtle and beautiful. Even some traces of utopia amidst the concrete and ritual. The contrast between East and West was unmistakeable - and refreshing - with a Dubai transfer like a crossing point between worlds. What a relief to leave Western-centric news behind for a little while.

The year's biggest frustration would have to be the self-serving negativity of The Fall and their sycophants towards Perverted by Language, though at least there was a plus side with The Stool Pigeon being very kind about Touch Sensitive - so y'know...
Water. Back. Duck. Off.

So 2008 stands before us, a year not yet written. Let's do what we can to make sure it brings peace, tolerance and prosperity to all.

(originally published 21 Dec 2007)