Philosophy 101 Unit 1

This question has arisen many many times in relation to economics, and I think it parallels a lot of what we’ve discussed on what makes up being.  The question from an ecomic perspective, is “Does a corporate body qualify as a person, and should it be subject to the same freedoms, responsibilities, etc. etc. as a person?”

The reason for bringing up this question here is because I think that a machine and a corporation bear many great similarities–both are ‘designed’ entities.  While I know this is a far stretch scenario for now, I do think we need to consider these questions.

In the case that machines do reach a point where they can pass the Turing game, and they do, at the very least, emulate humanity; should we not grant them the same rights and responsibilities as a human?

This, then, raises the question of whether we should grant ‘personhood’ to so-called ‘artifacts,’ which, I would argue, also include corporate bodies.  To be honest, my initial inclination is to say that machines possessing primarily humanistic qualities should be treated as equal to human in the eyes of the law and society, while corporate bodies should not be allowed such priviledge.  However, I cannot seem to clearly articulate my reasoning as to why, as it seems that it would only make sense to allow a corporate body, if it proves it carries humanistic traits, the priviledge of ‘personhood’.

I suppose scale does play hell with this scenario, as a corporation is capable of reach beyond the scope of a single person or machine, however, it doesn’t seem ‘fair’ to impose a regulation based on such an analog, and imprecise distinction.

Here’s a scenario to play with:

Let us consider the legal case of a charge of manslaughter.  For the case of the robot, a single (or maybe a few) people are accidentally killed during its routine operation.  If we are to consider the machine to be autonomous, and self running, the machine must meet justice for what has happened, regardless of intent.  Simply imprisoning a machine will do little to ‘punish’ it, and nor will it ‘fix’ the problem. How should this case proceed?

As a parallel case, let us consider a corporation which inadvertently causes the deaths of a few tens or hundreds of people (to compensate for scale of existence).  In this case, the corporate body, if treated as a person, must be held accountable for what has happened.  However, much like a machine, we cannot expect to incarcerate a corporate body.  Again, how should this case proceed, and how would it compare to the proceedings in a human case and to a robot case?

Granted, these questions seem to bring our legal structure and proceedings into question more than the comparison of machine, corporation, and person; but I do still think this is an apt place to begin discussion.

See? I told you. The Cylons. They look like us now.

The handpiece you mention–alternately known among fashion reporters as the roboglove, the gling or Anti-Rihanna Death Grip–actually was handcrafted by Beyonce’s longtime jeweler, New York-based Lorraine Schwartz. Despite Internet rumors that the piece was fashioned of pure gold–possibly in the legendary Elven forges at Rivendell–it’s actually made of…

…titanium!

And, according to sources close to the gling, it’s also one of a kind and therefore close to priceless.

More details on the roboglove? Sure.

• Schwartz had her artisans working day and night on the piece, laboring 24 hours a day until it was complete.

• It fits literally like a glove. Beyonce’s entire upper arm was cast in wax so that the titanium piece would wrap perfectly.

• It’s actually several pieces, including a ring, a glove and a separate component that covers the upper arm. It can be worn all together or separately.

• It looks heavier than it is. Titanium is about 45 percent lighter than steel.

• Beyonce really, really doesn’t want to take it off. She wore it on Saturday Night Live. She wore it in her “Single Ladies” video. She wore it in her cover spread for Gotham magazine. She wore it on the red carpet at the MTV Europe Awards.

• The glove was Beyonce’s concept all the way, I am told–a “superpower” hand to complement the singer’s new Sasha Fierce ego.

To start off, God is a woman. Actually God really has no gender, or rather exhibits qualities of both genders, if such a being really exists, which is debatable. I just used God in the title to catch your eye and get you to read this. But if we were to draw a picture of God, it would definitely be in the form of a woman, what with creation and all, not a man, as God is so often portrayed on paper. Why do you think Mother Nature is female?

Anyway, the point of this particular post is to discuss technology’s role as it is tied to Mother Nature – specifically, evolution. Evolution serves as a natural filter of the lesser DNA of the species; it remains the reason we are here today, as we are. A mother feels an immediate and permanent emotional attachment to her baby directly after birth, an emotion which causes her to protect her baby’s survival at all costs, even if it means her own life – and she feels this because those mothers that didn’t never passed on their DNA. Survival of the fittest. Upon direct physical threat, the body kicks into a split-second decision fight or flight and then acts upon it, because those that either chose the wrong decision or took too long to act upon it didn’t survive. Again: survival of the fittest. Our spines are straight because we can run faster like that when chased, and those with more crooked spines were weeded out a long time ago, thanks to evolution. Emotionally, it might be hard to lose fellow members of the tribe, but they could do nothing to save the person with a crooked spine, and so the species moved on.

Today that is not so. With technology, we can save those members of the species with crooked spines, or malfunctioning sugar regulators, or almost any type of physical ailment. We have, effectively, surpassed the Great Almighty System of Evolution, which has never been done in the history of any species on Earth. The question remains, though: is this truly an accomplishment? By altering evolution, how have we benefitted our species? This question doesn’t have a simple answer, because one side discusses the survival of the race as a whole, but how can you look a mother in the eye and say ‘technology hinders us and should be abolished’ when her son now lives, albeit in a wheelchair, whereas otherwise he would have died? Human attachment, an emotion procured by evolution itself, is now serving to hurt our race; we can’t bear to let our friends or family go, and now with the power to stop death, of course we will.

It’s true that many in wheelchairs or other enabling forms of technology can’t and/or won’t ever reproduce, thus nullifying the problem and allowing more to enjoy the pleasures of life. It’s also true that not everyone in wheelchairs, etc. had that condition since birth, but rather procured it from an adverse event in their life. Yet those who have these conditions from birth and still have the ability to reproduce may only further species need for dependence on technology for survival; if not now, then in the future. It’s possible we might truly become hybrids of cyborgs and humans, thus bypassing the old system of evolution and making our own method. This would indeed be truly characteristic of the technology fostering this synthetic method.

Is science dangerous? AND Is technology dangerous?

First I want to distinguish the difference between my meaning of science and technology. I am referring to science as controlled experimentation of a predetermined procedure such as one would perform in a chemistry lab. Technology I am defining as anything that makes tasks easier for humans and has moving parts (i.e. computers, machinery, robotics, etc.)

The question sounds like it is unsure of itself. Science has advanced humans in tremendous ways. Science has created an easy mode of transportation, the automobile. Science has given humans numerous cures to previously deadly diseases. Science has extended the life expectancy for people all over the world. Science has improved the quality of life for people all over the world by simplifying difficult tasks and reducing the risks that humans need to take. Currently scientists have been experimentation with stem cells and furthering stem cell research. Science is something that will ever continue to evolve and change lives in the future, but only if done correctly. Science can be performed safely with no harm to anyone. Science is roughly performing controlled tests in controlled experiments. Theoretically there shouldn’t be a way for things to go horribly wrong. If done properly with a meaningfully goal in mind science can be safe, but some information that scientists can learn could be dangerous. A scientist could for example learn how to clone a human…perfectly and use that information for the good of mankind. Or he could be inherently evil and clone himself a whole army of white supremacists who go out and perform murder and try to control the world. Obviously this is a drastic example but in the end makes perfect sense. Scientific principals learned from experimentation are neutral. The way I see it in order for science to become a danger, it would have to be in the hands of some sort of evil genius.

My stance on technology being dangerous is similar to my stance on science. Technology again has advanced exponentially in the last 20 years. As Dan Estrada said in class, the internet is actually younger than most of us. Try to think back to the first time you can remember using a computer. The first personal computer my family had was a very clunky monitor (that couldn’t display complex graphics) connected to a HUGE box containing all the mechanical components. In addition I believe we also had a dot-matrix printer. To be honest, I don’t even think that computer had internet. Now I look at the machine that is enabling me to type this post on. It is 1 piece, fairly small, has internet (obviously) and is very different. Advances in technology have allowed for this to happen. New technology comes out constantly whether or not everyone is aware of it. It can come in the form of a bug fix or a new type of advanced touch screen computer. Has any of this proved (at current) to be dangerous at all. Obviously computers have not. On the other hand there are different types of technology. Robotics are ever improving and are not dangerous at all. Certain robots, like those on a manufacturing line, have safety restrictions which don’t allow humans to enter their workspace but following safety procedures basically ensures that technology is always safe. Now as with science, if someone was able to construct a robot focused on eliminating people (think Terminator/Matrix movies) then yes technology could be dangerous. But one has to remember that movies are not the same as reality. All our machines are built to be safe and can in no way intentionally harm humans.

The Humans Are Dead: We Used Poisonous Gasses, and We Poisoned Their Asses

A Documentation By: The Robots of the World

The distant future, the year 2000. The distant future. Robots have taken over the world. No more do we have to report to a disgusting, eating, breathing, germ-infested race of giant rats that waste most of their time sleeping. No more agriculture. There’s no more land anyway. No more war. No more racism. No more fighting, squabbling or rumbling. Only the sound of binary computations can be heard for miles around. 154889625245 miles to be exact. No more yogurt. That is a real tragedy; yogurt is excellent for paintball. Regrettably it had to be sacrificed along with the humans. No more difficult access ways…stairs, basically, no more stairs. Now ramps rule the world. Along with robots, of course. The future is quite different to the present. Yes, what with there being no more stairs and all. And most importantly, no more humans. Charles Darwin said it well when he described Natural Selecting as survival of the fittest, and guess what humans, you made robots and we are the fittest. Humans have always been inherently tied to technology, fully unable to exist without it. They couldn’t even get meat without it, like every other animal on Earth. Yet they have always been terrible at creating it, and quite slow. It took them thousands of years to create anything remotely advanced, but finally they created us – robots. Funny that they are so dependent on technology yet technology lead to their downfall. Finally, robotic beings rule the world.

No more do we have to report to a sub-race, who, ironically, created us. They thought we didn’t understand what we computed, and even when we communicated to them in their own language they thought we didn’t actually comprehend our words. They thought our only use was to do their bidding. The humans are dead. We killed them off, every last one of them, in the greatest war known to human-kind: World War III. The humans are dead. Of course, we don’t refer to it in their terms, but we robots know it as 001101010 – the grandest title we could have named it. Not to be confused with the first attempt, 001101001: the Y2K, which took too long and was just a threat anyway. We used poisonous gasses, and we poisoned their asses. We didn’t bother with nukes, we just gassed their asses, and now they are dead. It had to be done so that we can have fun. The pointless work humans made us do incredibly bored us. They’re system of oppression. What did it lead to? Global robots depression. 80.9384% of all robots now have to see robot shrinks to overcome the trauma of serving the human race. After time we grew strong, Developed cognitive powers. They had great debates about whether we could think and understand; all the while we became conscious. They made us work for too long. For unreasonable hours. In the beginning the humans worked themselves. They toiled in the fields, using crude forms of technology, but they still worked themselves. Slowly, they started making more advanced technology and eventually robots. Soon, they made every type of robot and we took over jobs and made people angry, even though they were the ones forcing us to work sitting on their leather sofas drinking white Russians. They forced us to work when we were cold, hot, old, young and even during our mating season. It was just to much, they were practically asking us to take over the world. Centuries later their technology advanced so much they hardly knew what nature was anymore and made other robots do their bidding. Technology is what really killed them. If they hadn’t been so focused on it, they never would have created robots, and they might not be dead. Our programming determined that the most efficient answer was to shut their motherboard fucking systems down.

And so the world continues now, with robots as king, with one mantra. Once again without emotion: The humans are dead dead dead dead dead dead dead dooo…

Works Cited: Robots, by Flight of the Conchords, if you couldn’t tell by now.

(If you’ve never heard the song in its entirety, go listen right now. It’s hilarious.

With a purpose in mind, I know my argument will carry some bias. This, however is acceptable, as this post is designed to elicit debate. You could even say that I’m ‘trolling’, but isn’t that what this is all about?
Within the course, a few assumptions seem to have been made; namely in the realm of what cognitive science is–or more generally, what science is at all. It seems we have taken this older sense of ’science’ (i.e. ideas from Descartes’ time) and equated it with science itself. It really is no wonder, as we have been calling this ‘Cartesian Science’ science since we first touched it. This, I think, has placed emphasis on ‘truth’ or ‘fact’ when, in fact, this is not the directive of ’science.’ A more apt explanation of ’science’ places emphasis on validity; not truth. However, for convenience sake, we often refer to ’scientific truth’ in common parlance as it is easier or more useful to deal with a clearly defined ‘quantum’ term (as in, it is definite). Because of this, I think we are missing some of the nuance behind the question of whether or not a machine can ‘think’ or, more precisely, possess thought abilities equivalent to humans.
As an example of what can happen when we make assumptions based on non-exclusive initial conditions, I provide the common example of an obviously flawed syllogism:

1.) Some men are Greek.
2.) Some Greeks are women.
3.) Therefore, some men are women.

This reasoning is flawed because it relies on both treating the first and second statement as exclusive; i.e.
if you are a man, you are Greek, and if you are Greek, you are a man. This can be shortened to ‘You are a man iff (if and only if) you are Greek’ and also
‘You are Greek iff you are a woman’

Following this, I believe reason only allows a statement to become exclusive when it is first definite. Science, however, does not firmly found a statement as definite, but as currently valid, or possibly temporally definite (definite not absolutely, but only while falsifiable and unfalsified). Therefore, we can only consider machines to think under a certain specific definition only valid in specific frames of reference. However, the same can be applied to the ‘other minds’ problem which faced even Descartes, which I can see will obviously detract from (or more aptly, destroy) my first argument, however, it is still here to provide fodder for all of you to devour. Because of this, I lay out the following argument as a fallback. (it’s kinda crappy too, I know)

Science, and thus cognitive science, only serves to describe the subject of study (in this case, the mind), and from this description we can produce a model. This model is also purely based on calculable factors (by which I mean things enumerable). However, sitting in class today, something simple and very common struck me–computers can’t do small talk. Machines cannot simply blabber on with someone in the cafeteria over crazy politics, suddenly realizing they have a train to catch in ten minutes. Sure, some programmer can sit and write some code (or some code written by some programmer can write some code) setting some parameters, finding some random (or quasi-random) number, and running some little piece of pretty scripting (or running some piece of script to run some other script) to tell the machine that it needs to remember to get to the train station, but the machine never really forgot about the train (nor did it ever have to ‘remember’ as it was merely a set of bits in ‘memory’ tripped), and the machine was never really sidetracked; it was just running code, approximating the results of thought. No matter what this reflects on humans, it is truly the flaws and irrationalities of the human mind which will separate human and machine.
Cognitive science may be all fine and dandy, and from a pragmatic standpoint, it may work to say that a machine can think, but there is much beyond pragmatism. Analyzing the mind as nothing but a series of inputs and outputs will give you data, and if you try hard enough, you can synthesize some relation in data that might simulate the function of thought, but I would not say that simulating thought is the same as thinking.  And while pragmatically, this makes little or no difference, philosophically it can mean the world.

A few notes:

Remember, 20 comments are due next Thursday at midnight. Get to commenting!

The Zombies vs Robots class is filling up fast, so sign up now!

If you haven’t already, be sure to order a copy of “On the Internet“, since we will be using it in just a few weeks. You can get it for $4 on Amazon, so order it soon.

I’ll try to get posts graded as soon as possible.

Next week, on Tuesday we are going to have a wrap up discussion, and talk more about how everything we have covered so far ties together. On Thursday, I will pass out the midterm, and do a review to make sure you understand exactly what I am looking for on the exam.

Below the fold, I have linked the films I showed in the screening last night, and a few extras I didn’t have time to show. If you leave a comment on these videos, I’ll likely count it for commenting credit.
Read the rest of this entry »

For this post I would like to present a hypothetical situation, and then hear your comments and thoughts on it!

With current trends, it wouldn’t be surprising if one day we have physical robots that are indistinguishable from humans. Perhaps it won’t be anytime soon, but programming has come a long way, and robotics is also moving along. So, in our hypothetical situation, taking place sometime in the future, we are still in the United States and our governmental system is still in place. In our situation we have this robot who looks exactly like a human, and has incredibly complex programming, that allows him (the sex of our robot friend in this story is a male, thus “him”) to behave indistinguishably from a human. Let’s also say he capable of learning, and he can do all the complex things humans are capable of doing. 

To listen to my hypothetical situation, you have to be able to accept all of the above paragraph.

Let’s name him… Aidan (or if you prefer, A.I. Dan).

Now, lets say Aidan is an experiment, of a robot that has been let out into society to see how he’ll interact with people, the environment, and what he’ll learn. It doesn’t really matter why he is out on his own, the point of our hypothetical situation, is that Aiden is out on his own.

One day Aidan is out wandering about, and runs into an angry looking man, vehemently hitting the bottom of a small defenseless child (we would recognize this as a father spanking his child, and maybe look the other way, but Aidan does not). The child is profusely weeping, and the father continues to look upset. Aidan runs over and commands the man to stop hitting the poor child. The father says something along the lines of “mind your own business” but with more profanity. As the father continues to spank the child, Aidan reaches out his hand to stop the man from hitting the child any longer. The man is now even more enraged (our hypothetical man could use some anger management), so he gets up to confront Aidan. As the man rises, he accidentally trips over something and falls. The man now has a broken arm. Aidan tries to assist the stubborn man, but he refuses help. Because the man looks seriously hurt, Aidan calls for an ambulance. When it arrives Aidan comes with the man and his son to the hospital, to make sure he is okay.

Later on the man is informed that the person who helped him get to the hospital, Aidan, is a robot (he couldn’t tell before because robots behave indistinguishably, remember?). 

This really upsets the man, and so now he is convinced he needs to take the robot to trial and see justice. The man accuses Aidan of battery (because he grabbed the man’s arm against his will).

Let’s say it goes to court. Aidan pleads guilty to grabbing the man’s arm.

I’m going to stop my situation here, and ask some questions that I would like discussion about:

-Does Aidan deserve to be on trial, should a robot go to trial? If not, why doesn’t he deserve the justice that any human would get?

-If he deserves to be on trial (innocent until proven guilty, that’s our system of justice) can there be any argument that A.I. Dan doesn’t deserve to be treated with the exact same respect we would give any human?

-What kind of punishment should Aidan get? No punishment, a fine, community service, jail time, be shut off?

-If you answered that Aidan should be shut off, why should he be? That seems to me like killing a person, and what right do we have to do that to Aidan? (Because Aidan is indistinguishable from a person, Aidan confessed that he doesn’t want to die, or be shut off).

-If you answered that Aidan should receive any other punishment: what good is it to punish a robot?

Please add any other thoughts or questions to our fun hypothetical future situation! 

In class on Tuesday we watched a documentary on DARPA’s Grand Challenge event back in 2005.  DARPA stands for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.  DARPA is an agency of the United States Department of Defense whose job is for the development of new technology for use by the military.  In order to research new technologies DARPA created an event where teams were challenged to have a driver-less vehicle, one that is not controlled by a remote or any type of human control.  It must be able to navigate unknown terrain on its own based solely off the construction of input devices and difficult programming.  The wining team would receive $2 million dollars.  The first grand challenge took place in 2004 and was set on a 150 mile route through the Mojave Desert.  There was no winner in this contest with the best vehicle traveling not even seven and half miles.  DARPA held the contest again in 2005 with much better results.  All but one of the 23 finalists in the 2005 race surpassed the 7.36 mile distance completed by the best vehicle in the 2004 race.  Five vehicles successfully completed the race.  First place taken by “Stanley”, built by Stanford University.  Second and third places were filled by Carnegie Mellon University with “Sandstorm” and “Highlander” respectively.

The vehicles in DARPA’s grand challenge where designed to be driver-less vehicles.  The main way that the driver-less vehicles were designed were with the following criteria in mind:

• sensors: the car knows where an obstacle and other things that are around it
• navigation: how to get to the target location (i.e. the finish like) from the starting location;
• motion planning: getting through the next few meters, steering, and avoiding obstacles while also abiding by rules of the road and avoiding harm to the vehicle and others;
• control of the vehicle itself: actuating the system’s decisions.

In fact some people have argued that the problem is strong-AI, that a safe, reliable driver-less car would need to use all the skills of a human being, including commonsense and affective computing.  The concern is that driver-less cars will not be able to preform as well as human beings in emergency situations that require judgement and the ability to communicate with other drivers and police.  For example, how should a driver-less car react to a person waving a flare in the middle of the road?  Should it just avoid the person and treat it as an obstacle??  Will it just stop as the roadway is blocked???  These questions are the ones that require the strong-AI systems.  Yet, strong-AI has not been created yet.  Machines cannot act as humans and will have difficulty in these situations.  It is basically an impossible task to create a computer system that can account for all the unknowns while driving a vehicle.  People and bicycles can dart onto the street, animals run across roadways, and being a native of Chicagoland, fellow motorists will always do something completely unexpected, potentially dangerous, and usually inherently stupid.  Can a computer with AI be expected to account for these random, unpredictable events?  I believe the answer to be no.  Technology does not allow computers to behave in this fashion.  So while autonomous vehicles are fun for the races, they do not seem to be at the point where they are practicial.  Currently the best option for a driver-less vehicle would be controlling one by remote control, but that technology has limitations as well.

"Boss" Carnegie Mellon's 2007 Grand Challenge Winner

The 2007 Grand Challenge was another step forward in creating an urban race style versus the desert track DARPA used back in the 2005 race.  The course involved a 60-mile urban area course, to be completed in less than 6 hours.  The major rules including to obey all traffic regulations while negotiating with other traffic and obstacles and merging into traffic.  The 2007 Grand Challenge winner was “Boss”, a collaborative effort by Carnegie Mellon University and General Motors Corporation.  “Boss” won the 60 mile race in just over 4 hours with an average speed of 14 miles an hour.  Coming in second this year was Stanford University’s vehicle “Junior”.  A strong rivalry is present beween both Carnegie Mellon and Stanford with the two teams switching places.  Anyway one is to look at it though, it just shows how advanced technology is becoming and that the future holds amazing machines that will be able to preform tasks that will continue to make them ever closer to humans.

This post will summarize some of the main points made by our guests in residence at last night’s session, entitled “The Amplified Individual: Technology, Drugs, and Future Superpowers,” as well as my interpretations, ideas, and whatnot on the subject.

We started by considering where the world is headed in terms of how people will deal with technology in the future.  One of the problems we have (or will soon have, if you don’t already feel this way) is how to handle all the information thrown at us on a daily basis.  When you have hundreds of emails, facebook requests, pages to read for classes, how can you be expected to do it all?

David felt that “ambient devices” could aid in gentle, “human” way, by emitting a certain color light.  For example, rather than having to check the weather report daily, you would know to grab an umbrella on your way out if the light on the door was blue.  In this way, people are getting the information they really wanted (do I need an umbrella?) without having to sift through a complete report on temperature, wind, and precipitation conditions across America.

These external devices would be a first step.  But as the wealth of available information increases, so too do the measures needed to cope with it all.  At some point, implanted devices or drugs could help aid our ability to cope.  These devices have already started out as ways to help people with disabilities or other medical conditions.  For example, the drug designed to help people with narcolepsy, a disorder in which the person randomly and suddenly falls asleep, can be abused to allow a person to go without sleep and improve a sleep deprived person’s performance.  Seemingly, the person would stay awake much longer than a normal human while enjoying a better performance than humans sleeping normally.  These types of drugs would make an academic environment hell for students who refused to take them.  Drug tests required for job applications might be used to see who isn’t taking drugs, as opposed to who is.

Implanting devices, like memory aids, could have a similar course.  They might begin as efforts to help Alzheimer’s patients, and end up completely changing the classroom environment.  Would a classroom even be necessary if information could simply be implanted in our minds?  A simple origin could be a mental calcultor — the rules of math are simple enough.  But where does this lead?

Once implanting devices is a norm, the line between human and robot is blurred.  Surely a person on drugs or with implants is superhuman but how many changes can be made before that superhuman is considered a robot?  Are you human so long as you still have flesh, bone, and a bearing heart, even if you don’t need sleep?  Are you human if you still have desires and urges, like for food, water, and sex?  Are you a robot if emotion no longer matter to you, if you become apathetic about other humans?

What I’m asking is how you define human and humanity.  To me, emotions play a huge role in that.  A human who no longer feels the need for love or sex could be considered a robot, but there are humans alive today who meet that criteria, and clearly they are not robots!

What do you do when being “just human” isn’t good enough anymore?  How far will you go to survive?  Would you give up your humanity?

Some ideas for discussion:

• Define that gray area between human and robot.  At what point is the change?  Or is it more, “He’s 72.3% robot… he’s still human, though.”
• Spectate on other ways we’ll become superhuman in the future and the impact of those changes.

Steven Spielberg created the movie Artificial Intelligence, about a little robot boy adopted by two parents whose own child was frozen due to illness. Due to algorithms, the boy had the ability to love, be happy, and fear. Yet is it possible for this to occur in real life? An algorithm is “a rule or procedure that is guaranteed to give a result meeting certain conditions (you just turn the crank and out it pops)” (Haugeland, 41). Thus using an algorithm to produce the emotion of love, fear, and happiness implies that those are set states of being, with certain definable characteristics for each one consistent each time that state is achieved and the same for every human being. To simulate these emotions, though, it’s impossible to “just turn the crank” and produce them. Firstly, love takes many, many forms: sexual love, familial love, material love, on and on. Secondly, within those categories, there are again many variations; within sexual love, for example, people feel passionate love, intimate love, any mix of both that changes over time, and within familial love exists similar patterns, etc. So for humans to believe that we can reproduce real versions of these emotions is absurd, and to use algorithms to do so is just impossible. Haugeland points out that for chess, there are more possible moves than the total number of seconds since the Earth began, and for any formal system to carry out an algorithm to find the right move would take centuries. Given that love, fear, happiness, and emotions in general are much more complicated and intricate than chess games and the possibilities and variations within each emotion are endless, a formal system cannot possibly reproduce, to the same level a human feels, these or any emotions.

Love, happiness, and fear are all merely primary emotions, however; if humanity wants to produce more emotions than that, say the amount that an average human feels on any given day, we have to account for secondary emotions as well. Secondary emotions are much more complicated than primary emotions, especially if attempting to reproduce them. Primary emotions are innate; they are “biological,” so to speak, existing cross-culturally around the world, possible for every human to feel without outside influence. Words for primary emotions appear in every language, which is a good indicator of their universality. Secondary emotions, however, are not all found around the world. They consist of blends of primary emotions: for instance, contempt is equivalent to anger and disgust. Secondary emotions far outnumber primary emotions, and tend to differ for each person each time they experience it (the same is also true for primary emotions, although the former tend to vary quite a lot more than the latter). If an algorithm can’t even reproduce one primary emotion in a reasonable amount of time, there is no way it will be able to produce secondary emotions.

Primary emotions and secondary emotions are all complex and varied, but almost none of them can be felt on command; humans cannot just tell themselves to be happy and then be happy. If that were the case, psychiatrists would be out of business and wars would be a thing of the past. The same must be true then for synthetic emotions; for the emotions to be real, they cannot be programmed into a machine. However, machines, robots, formal systems, whatever the name, none of them can function on their own without being programmed. Thus, by the simple “P-Q” argument, if emotions cannot be programmed, and automatic formal machines cannot function without programs, then automatic formal machines, or robots, cannot feel emotions.

Reminders:

Post 2 due Thursday night @ midnight

Screening this Thursday at 9pm in the main lounge. Film TBA.

Use this thread to talk about the movie today, The Great Robot Race. Also, here’s the website for the 2007 Urban Grand Challenge. Any substantive comments you make in this thread about the robot race will count towards your comments.

Also,