Learning to love robots
(The Guardian)
27 March 2008
London, 1977: the international grandmaster Michael Stean is losing to Chess 4.6, a computer programme developed at Northwestern University, Illinois. Stean is steamed: he is losing. Chess 4.6 is, he says, “an iron monster”. When finally he admits defeat, however, he does so with grace, declaring 4.6 a genius.
…How complex does something have to be before it passes as human? The answer seems to be not very. A consortium led by the University of Plymouth has just won a £4.7m grant to teach a humanoid robot named iCub how to speak English. Its theory of mind may depend less on intellectual potential than on the scientists’ willingness to treat their charge like a real infant.
Let’s hope it grows into a sociable little thing. The bald fact is, we need him. The US Census Bureau has estimated that the nation’s elderly population will more than double by 2050, to 80 million. But there are simply not enough young to look after them. A study by Saint Louis University, Missouri, shows robot dogs are as much of a comfort to the elderly as real dogs. In 30 years, robot carers will be required for practical help, as well as solace, for old people.
Here is the full article.
This is quite an interesting topic and as for a definition of life, that is one thing, but “intelligence” is quite another. Could it be simply “Cogito ergo sum,” as Descartes put it? Leibniz once made an interesting analogy: He said that if you could enlarge a brain and actually be able to walk through it, you’d see blood, vessels, tissue, but never anything such as a “thought.” So, is there a difference between the “brain” and the “mind?”
Well, artificial intelligence is a growing topic within epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Technology will, one day, create a humanoid/android/”thinking” anthropomorphic machine. My guess is that it will still be perhaps two or three centuries before you have true “thinking” self aware androids of the type depicted in Star Trek (“Data”).
Sticky ethical issues arise if robots become sentient: Will they have rights? Will they be slaves to humans if they are truly self-aware?
It’s a far cry from having a robot learn a language and having it be self-aware, sentient, and capable of making ethical decisions.
That day will come…but I suspect that before there are sentient robots, humans and technology (for example, nanotechnology) will blend…and in 1000 years, perhaps humans will be utilizing technology to such a degree to enhance human performance that the concept of the “Borg” in Star Trek the Next Generation isn’t such a far off idea…it’ll just take several centuries.
I disagree. I believe that there is a fundamental essence of man that cannot be duplicated in a robot, no matter how advanced our technology becomes. We can program a robot to talk English, we can program it so that it performs complex tasks. But can we give it a mind or a soul? The answer, I firmly maintain, is no.
This concept is brilliantly explored in the sci-fi novel, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. A complex robot suddenly attains sentience and can interact in ways it could not interact before. But in the course of a galactic war, the robot is destroyed. Its creators recover the remains and reassemble them exactly as they were before…
And find nothing.
The soul cannot be created by man.
SCience will discover one day that we as humans are truly “Stangers in a Strange Land”.
The human soul is just a vistor to this world. Our bodies simply allow the soul to occupy 4 dimensional space.
Science and Religion will reconcile this fact once machinery is complex enough to detect multidimensional entities such as our souls and other entities.
We are poor savages atetmpting to mimic our Creator by attempting to breath intelligence into metallic and wooden men. An ancient Mayan legend said God tried to create men made of sticks, but the stick-men were cruel and beat their dogs.
These artificial men made of metal and wood would be equally cruel since they would have no soul to temper their intelligence.
Instead of creating artificial people, why not try to improve real living people through love, charity, and education? This is a much better pursuit. Improve peoples lives through the pursuit of chess and excellence.
Forget Star Trek’s “Data;” I’m afraid of Cylons!
Forget Cylons! I’m afraid of “Big Brother”!
Pass it on!