uncanny valley

Android Apocalypse...

...certainly makes for a good headline. It's from the Sydney Morning Herald and you can find their original piece here - along with a suitably grim Terminator image.

The article looks at the work of Professor Hugo De Garis, artificial intelligence expert and author of The Artilect War, who envisions a war between humans and intelligent machines before the end of this century. So with Terminator: Salvation currently in production, perhaps it is time to take a look at this issue once more. The great Isaac Asimov cited as one of his major themes that he didn't want to write stories about murderous rampaging robots back in the 40s and 50s, when it seemed as if that's all his contemporaries were doing. This still seems to be the case, certainly when it comes to Hollywood movies. I was interviewed by T3 magazine a couple of years back as they were looking for a quote for a piece on the future of robotics - I came up with something about humans and robots working together as partners etc - instead they went with something more dramatic from Professor Kevin Warwick about how robots will wipe us out / leave us behind if we don't all become cyborgs...

The whole idea of AIs wanting to take over the world is entirely misguided. It presupposes that AIs will have the same ego-driven ambitions as humans - The Matrix and The Terminator are great entertainment, but neither film gives a valid explanation for why the machines sought to destroy their human creators. In reality, these stories just echo Mary Shelley's Frankentein, which itself echoes the Promethean legend from ancient Greece - if we cross over into the realm of the gods by creating life - or playing with fire - it will be our undoing.

Just because human beings are afflicted with urges for violence and control doesn't mean our machines will be too. Much of what they do will be our bidding - entertaining us, caring for us, doing our menial and dangerous work - but I would expect very few autonomous machines to make it out of the research stage, simply because they are not financially viable. Economics will be a great dictator when it comes to robotics - guiding whether we make them and what they do for us. A more realistic future is perhaps one where humans become increasingly lazy and more and more dependent on their machines - just look at the problems the pampered West is having with its obesity explosion now. Maybe in twenty-five years' time instead of exercising with a Nintendo Wii, you'll have a robotic personal trainer to instruct and motivate you as you pound the exercise pod in your living room.

So I don't think for a moment that machines will take over the world. I don't think they'll want to. They'll do some good and some bad - they will certainly be a disruptive technology - but a robotic quest for world domination is an outdated, unimaginative idea best left for tacky headlines and big budget Hollywood movies.

 

(originally published 20th July 2008)

 

Jaime said:

I mostly agree with you.

However:
1-As we said in French "Il n'y a pas de fumée sans feu" (no smoke without fire).
We -whoever is we- shouldn't just say some kind of "this is for hollywood" when the question has been pull up some many times lately. I am afraid I haven't read, heard anything from one side or another that could rationally prove someone in this recursive debate was wrong.
As a matter of fact both sides appear to me has being true, since the merging of "our 2 worlds" looks more evident every day.
The question -to me- is not about machines taking over humans but about the new definition -literally- of "Human" and "Machine".
How can we say who or what is going to fight against who or what when the definitions of the fighting entity themselves are getting more unknown everyday?
An uprising as seen in a Hollywood scenario might be highly improbable, but the reason is not because "the machines don't want power", it's because Humans and Machines won't be any different, as we merge with "them" they'll merge with "us".
Thus the combat seems to be more of those who are convinced science & technology is good against the others (i.e Luddites descendants). AI & Robotics, is of course one of the major concerns, Genetics,A-Life, Nanotechnology, the Internet and even Quantum physics on the other hands would probably put in the same bag by the "luddites 2.0" as we unlock life mysteries. But how to blame the luddites? Is fighting against "chimerias" (mixing Human and non-human DNA) an act of faith in humanity or the contrary?
Ok I think I made my point =D...

2-"Just because human beings are afflicted with urges for violence and control doesn't mean our machines will be too."
And why would it be different? Why would we make them different from what we know? Especially if you link this to your argument about economics dictatorship, for sure venture will go for something they know than for something they don't!
Since you are probably more informed than me on the topic I don't have to mention the current research on "killing algorithms" and the "US Military robot roadmap" (if I may say so), it is public anyway...

After the issue with definition comes the one on the "subjectivity". As the Algorithms and Network Connections get more and more complex how and when do we decide about responsibility? It seemed obvious (because it was only a piece of hardware) that mines couldn't be hold responsible for their damage. But is it going to be always the same? A "killing robot" killing the one who controls it, is that always going to be considered as a claymore exploding in the hands of the soldier planting it? I seriously doubt it...

Thanks for reading.

(originally published 23rd July 2008)

Richard said:

Interesting comments - thanks. If the robots ever do get too aggresive, we can always set the Crazy Raspberry Ants on them... full story here http://www.techworld.com/opsys/news/index.cfm?newsID=101522&pagtype=all

(originally published 27th July 2008)

Will Artificial Intelligence Help Journalists Do Research?

A recent piece in the UK's Guardian newspaper by Charles Arthur gives a good example of a) poor journalism and b) ignorance of what artificial intelligence researchers are actually trying to achieve. The original article is here, but if you'd rather read it later then allow me to summarise - the piece is entitled Artificial Intelligence: God Help Us If Machines Ever Think Like People and in it, the writer argues that:

Machine intelligence shouldn't be modelled on the human mind because we are inherently flawed beings, caught in an eternal battle between logic and instinct. Any machine with a brain modelled on the human mind will thus end up neurotic and ineffectual.

The piece shows little understanding of why AI researchers are trying to create machines and systems that possess high speed sensory processing, vast memory reserves, the ability to adapt to fluid environments, objection recognition in a variety of locations from small amounts of basic data, adaptability, language, sense of self and so on. There are a whole range of things which we humans are quite brilliant at and which any robot should be endowed with in order for it to be able to function successfully in our world. So why wouldn't scientists want to model their machines on proven biological models?

Articles of the God Help Us... variety often appear anytime someone or something pops up that is left of field or is in some way visionary. When mainstream outlets like The Guardian publish these non-think pieces, one could be forgiven for concluding that their goal is not to inform but actually to permeate a state of ill-informed, post-modern ennui.

 

(originally published 3rd July 2008)

 

Dr Ian Hocking said:

Hey Richard - Just thought I'd pop by and say hello. I read 'Robophobia' a couple of years back and enjoyed it. Feel free to pop around to my blog (http://ianhocking.com) if you fancy an interview on the blog to publicise your new book...

Cheers
Ian

 

(15th July 2008)

Human-centricism

Excellent news this week that the Spanish government plans to enshrine in law rights for Great Apes - giving them the right to life and freedom from torture and experimentation. Campaigners (for website see here) have argued that the great apes are capable of displaying emotions and have what is known as 'a sense of self'. They understand that they have a past and a future. As regular readers may know, I'm a vegetarian and thus believe that these rights should be extended to all creatures - though I will spare you all any rants on that particular topic ;-)

So again, this has implications for robotics. A sense of self is key to creating robots that are intelligent and self-aware. When I visited MIT in 2003 one of the devices there, Kismet, had been created with 'drives' for companionship (in the form of human presence) and play (through interaction with brightly coloured objects). When people were present and when they showed the robot its toys, the robot achieved homeostasis, and what we might term as contentment. When deprived of company and play, it moved out homeostasis and became what we might term agitated or subdued. Similarly, Sony's Aibo robotic dog calls out for its owner when it hasn't seen them for a while, and asks to be stroked and played with when contact has been withdrawn.

We could debate forever whether a robot can truly feel. Are its emotions programmed? Are they 'genuine'? It could be argued that many human emotions, beliefs and behaviours are merely responses conditioned by different forms of programming, those of social engineering and peer pressure - e.g. music fans fainting in the presence of certain stars, people queueing all night for the latest mobile phone, any prejudice you care to mention, each religion's contention that its view of god is the right one and so on...

Perhaps the important thing when considering the rights of other species is... why do we think it's up to us to decide who or what is intelligent?

 

(originally published 27th June 2008)

The Age of Extinction

A recent report by the Zoological Society of London, stated that 'humans are wiping out about 1% of all other species every year, and that one of the "great extinction episodes" in the Earth's history is under way, at a level unprecedented since the extinction of the dinosaurs'. One wonders if these extinctions are making way for other species, in the way that as the dinosaurs' dominance ended human beings ascended.

It seems as if we are in a period of great flux - it's ironic that as we move into what physicist Michio Kaku calls the Age of Mastery - where we are becoming masters of genetics and robotics - we are also in an Age of Extinction. Time will tell how much these two themes might be related.

Species fade out, global warming changes the face of the planet - what will the world look like in 25, 50, 100 years time - drowned, frozen or scorched by a blazing sun? The new novel Exilium explores in some depth the world we might find in 2032 - flooded cities, frequent hurricanes, disappearing icecaps and species - these all might have seemed alarmist, worst-case scenarios when I started the book two and a half years ago. Sadly, with the accelerated fragmentation of the ice caps brought on by global warming, I haven't had to make any changes to the bleak environmental future predicted in the book.

 

(originally published 16th May 2008)