Philosophy 101E

Robots Inherit Human Minds

by Hans Moravac, who also appeared in the movie Love Machine screened last week.

Our first tools, sticks and stones, were very different from ourselves. But many tools now resemble us, in function or form, and they are beginning to have minds. A loose parallel with our own evolution suggests how they may develop in future. Computerless industrial machinery exhibits the behavioral flexibility of single-celled organisms. Today’s best computer-controlled robots are like the simpler invertebrates. A thousand-fold increase in computer power in this decade should make possible machines with reptile-like sensory and motor competence. Growing computer power over the next half century will allow robots that learn like mammals, model their world like primates and eventually reason like humans. Depending on your point of view, humanity will then have produced a worthy successor, or transcended inherited limitations and transformed itself into something quite new. No longer limited by the slow pace of human learning and even slower biological evolution, intelligent machinery will conduct its affairs on an ever faster, ever smaller scale, until coarse physical nature has been converted to fine-grained purposeful thought.

Here are links to most of the videos I showed tonight. Its a little much to embed all these videos, so I’m just linking them. Feel free to post any comments you have on any of these videos, or link to others you find interesting.

Music Videos
Bjork - All is full of love
Bjork - Bachelorette
Bjork - Hyperballad (we didn’t watch this one, but its worth seeing)
U.N.K.L.E - Rabbit in your headlights
Daft Punk - Technologic
Aphex Twin - Rubber Johnny
Aphex Twin - Monkey Drummer

Robot Videos
Big Dog
Robot Chair
Film Making Robot (Some additional commentary)
You can see lots more robot stuff on my website.

Misc
Interactive Display
Stelarc (This is referenced in Clark’s book)

Since the “movie screening” tonight (in quotes because it was loosely a movie screening and more of a jumble of interesting and pertaining videos) is the freshest thing in my mind, I decided to write about that even though many people weren’t there.

First, the thought of art and the videos was intriguing. Not just the first video about the robot video making art, but also the Camera video. I said it in the room, but I’m going to say it again; if a robot made the video the way he thinks is good, then there could be a robot that is shown the same pictures that would think the video was great. That would actually make an interesting experiment if it would react positively to the video. Just like how twins are brought up the same way and they are different people, would two same machines “grow up” to be different? If they are learning from the pictures they are looking at and studying, like students, would they develop different “thoughts” and ideas of what is being presented to them. That is almost the idea of how nature reveals itself to us and we make perceptions of what our understanding is. I was thinking about how to relate this to another topic and I was thinking it is like phobias. People interact with objects once and if it is bad, then they can be scared of that object forever just due to the first understanding.

Next, I was thinking about the old man, the camera, and death. We talked about how the camera captures the death of the moment and how we don’t think that is a good way to think about things. Looking back on today’s lecture, I completely understand why the old man thinks about the death and not the positives of the moment being captured to share forever. Because death is the ultimate conclusion and that man is closer to his time of death (at least more likely to be closer), he is demonstrating his authenticity and realizing death is adamant so he is relating it to other objects like the moment and the camera. I think once he thought about the kids using the camera after it is pretty much obsolete, made the guy happy to think that after his death people will still “use” him, such as in stories.

Well, the movies were all interesting and they actually had me thinking about other videos about technology. So I searched YouTube and I found one funny video that I just want to share because it talks about the dangers of technology. Yes, it is Gary Busey and he is crazy, but I think it is funny and he is thinking about the dangers of using technology for our own purposes.

So today in class we talked about humans and if we were obsolete. Are we only here for a special purpose and once we are done with that is that the end for us. When we go to the store we often purchase things that we know will not last us forever. When a maker makes something it only last for a certain amount of time. The stuff often only last for as long as the manufacturer said it would after that most of the times the thing start to give you problems. For example when we go out and buy a car the manufacturer offers a warranty for up to a certain amount of miles but after that it begins to break down. Ones it has reached that point that they have given you warranty for the car begins to need parts changed or little touch up here and there. While listening to all this the idea that first popped in my head was that of our race the human race being replaced. I began to think that is it that we are obsolete just like machines and cars. Are we going to come to and end and be replaced by something else? Are we going to reach to the point when we are out of date and something else is in complete control?

All of this kept me thinking about how machines are getting to powerful and one day are going to be able to think. I know it sounds kind of crazy but maybe is not. Maybe we are making machines to smart maybe in the future they will be able to think for themselves, I think that if that happens then that will be the time when we come to an end. Just like we do to machines now it will be done to us.

What will happen to us in the future? Everyday we wake up and do something we decide what to do. We have the freedom to make choices or at least we think we do. But are we making the best choice or are all the choices we are making today the wrong choices. Are they going to come back and bit us in the ass? Are we becoming obsolete? Are we making our selves come to and end?

Today in lecture, we discussed many different topics. One thing that stuck in my mind was the end of lecture when we touched on the idea of being obsolete. Obsolete is defined as “no longer in general use,” and “of a discarded or outmoded type; out of date.” In the discussion, we simply said that something that is obsolete is something that is not used anymore. Even though the object, whatever it may be, can be used – it isn’t- this is because we have newer, better objects that replace the older ones. We also talked about planned obsolescence. This is when manufactured machines are only designed to have a lifespan up to their warranty, then afterward- these objects die (break).
This reminded me of my PlayStation 2. After about 4 years of using my game system, I noticed it did not read discs well. My friends, who also had PS2s, also had trouble with their game systems. How convenient of Sony to start marketing the new slim PS2s around that time, as well as the eventual release of the PS2. These systems will get us by for a little while, until many Sony game system users want to get the new PS3- which comes out soon.
Looking at the idea of planned obsolescence in a bigger picture, an interesting idea came into my head. What if God has a “planned obsolescence” for mankind? Like we said in our discussion, according to Heidegger – we care about being because we are going to die. When you are authentic, as humans are, your projects matter because you can see their significance. But as Christians believe, one day the World will end through Judgment Day. Is this God’s way of taking everything away because it is obsolete? The way humans replace, upgrade, and create new technology to advance and “better” our lives could be the same way in which humans, through death, are made into something better.
As humans, we are thrown into events and situations that we must interpret. But, like in the discussion, we said that the ideas of Heidegger claim that we don’t have any control over what these situations are. Does that make us just a little bit better off than the pieces on a chess board? Even though we are in situations in which we appear to have no control, we are capable of harnessing the use of technology to better our situations. However we can doubt, as Heidegger says, the need to adopt technology. So, like we said in our discussion… Heidegger’s philosophy can help confuse the needs and wants of technology.

Tonight we screened David Cronenberg’s Camera, and had an interesting discussion of the differences between this portrayal of photography and the way film is presented in Waking Life. For those that missed the video, you can watch it here:

It is worthwhile to think about how the Actor relates to the camera, and whether or not this constitutes anthropomorphism, especially as he describes the ‘obsolescence and death’ the camera has to deal with. An interesting contrast with this short is Wes Anderson’s Ikea commercial from a few years back:

I’d be very happy if someone wrote a post discussing Camera (hint hint).