Your Future With Robots

Read my previous blog: Start Preparing Ourselves For The Artificial Intelligence Realities
Watch videos on my other blog.

A remark made by@sjaubert on my Twitter account inspired me to write this blog. He said, in French, “intéressant cette tendance antropomorphique qui prête de l’esprit à ces machines qui ne font que des calculs.”

which basically means that he found our anthropomorphic tendencies toward robots interesting, since robots can perform computations much faster, more efficiently than humans.

Yes, what about our anthropomorphic tendencies?

It is a tendency to attribute human characteristics and qualities to non-human beings, objects, natural, or supernatural phenomena. It has shaped religious thought. It is used in in art, literature, and film to convey the author’s message through a symbolic animal or object with human qualities. And in robotics, we use anthropomorphism to engage human beings intellectually and emotionally with machines or computers.

I asked myself how this tendency (anthropomorphism) will affect empathy?
I searched for articles on this question, and I found the following:
How anthropomorphism affects empathy toward robots It says:

Our results indicate that people empathize more strongly with more human-looking robots and less with mechanical-looking robots.

The puzzling thing about anthropomorphism is that humans exhibit strong anthropomorphic tendencies and empathy while at the same time they greatly exploit other human beings and non-human animal life.

My next question: What would it take to build a software for A.I. capable of passing the Turing test and interact with us on a social level?

A robot by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.

We need to look at our history, the history and evolution of our civilization.

Since the beginnings of civilisation man has had a fascination for a human-like creation that would assist him. Societies in the early part of the first millennium engaged in slavery and used those slaves to perform the tasks which were either dirty or menial labours. Having slaves freed the enslavers to carry on their society and concentrate on what they perceived as more important tasks such as business and politics. Man had discovered mechanics and the means of creating complex mechanisms which would perform repetitive functions such as waterwheels and pumps. Technological advances were slow but there were more complex machines, generally limited to a very small number, which performed more grandiose functions such as those invented by Hero of Alexandria.

Read more ….

And under the heading History:

Many ancient mythologies include artificial people, such as the mechanical servants built by the Greek god Hephaestus (Vulcan to the Romans), the clay golems of Jewish legend and clay giants of Norse legend, and Galatea, the mythical statue of Pygmalion that came to life. In Greek drama, Deus Ex Machina was contrived as a dramatic device that usually involved lowering a deity by wires into the play to solve a seemingly impossible problem.

Read more ….

The Wiki article raises some questions about the social impact and ethics.

Sometime early in this century the intelligence of machines will exceed that of humans. Within a quarter of a century, machines will exhibit the full range of human intellect, emotions and skills, ranging from musical and other creative aptitudes to physical movement. They will claim to have feelings and, unlike todays virtual personalities, will be very convincing when they tell us so. By around 2020 a $1,000 computer will at least match the processing power of the human brain. By 2029 the software for intelligence will have been largely mastered, and the average personal computer will be equivalent to 1,000 brains.
“Once computers achieve a level of intelligence comparable to that of humans, they will necessarily soar past it. For example, if I learn French, I cant readily download that learning to you. The reason is that for us, learning involves successions of stunningly complex patterns of interconnections among brain cells (neurons) and among the concentrations of biochemicals known as neurotransmitters that enable impulses to travel from neuron to neuron. We have no way of quickly downloading these patterns. But quick downloading will allow our nonbiological creations to share immediately what they learn with billions of other machines. Ultimately, nonbiological entities will master not only the sum total of their own knowledge but all of ours as well.

As this happens, there will no longer be a clear distinction between human and machine ….
Read more ….

Rodney Brooks, former iRobot CTO, describes the limitations of today’s “stiff” factory robots. Looking forward, Brooks envisions a future where people interact with robots in the same way we now work with computers.
Rodney Brooks asks, “What if ordinary people could interact with robots, and use them? …What will it take for robots to be added to the toolchest of the makers of American manufacturing, so that they can increase productivity, provide better jobs for American workers, and compete even more strongly in our globalized world?”

Complete video at: Click Here

Philosopher and scientist Dan Dennett argues that human consciousness and free will are the result of physical processes and are not what we traditionally think they are.

Watch video on TedTalks

                [To Be Continued]

UPDATE!

Rethinking artificial intelligence: Researchers hope to produce ‘co-processors’ for the human mind : gearing up for a massive ‘do-over’ of the whole idea.

From treating depression and Alzheimer’s to decoding how thinking and emotions work, Stanford researchers are starting to “crack the code” for how the nervous system creates our mental lives.

Related Topics :
Bill Gates, in his article, “A Robot in Every Home,” predicts that the next hot field will be robotics.
(2) Future of robotics
(3) Rise of the Robots–The Future of Artificial Intelligence
(4) What has AI in Common with Philosophy?
(5) The Robotic Busboy: Steps Towards Developing a Mobile Robotic Home Assistant
(6) HERB: a home exploring robotic butler
(7) A.I. | The Turing Test
(8) Can You Build a Better Brain?

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