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.

See that image above? That’s right, it’s two robotic Bjorks making out with each other. Sure, it’s sensual…kind of, but there’s definitely something unnatural about it. The act of kissing and fondling is usually an act performed by two humans. So why does it look so silly when robots do it?

Sex is usually accompanied by at least two of the three following emotions: lust, love, and desire. These are very human characteristics that would be difficult for a machine to learn, even with a neural network. Seeing this type of relationship between two machines is difficult for us because emotion is the one thing that we all thought would separate humans from robots.

An androids, a robot with a humanoid form, is an attempt to make a machine with as many human qualities with possible. The video portrayed an attempt to make an android with qualities that separate man and machine. The emotions in the two androids were heavily contrasted by the use of machines that were far less complex than they were. These assembly line robots worked efficiently and precisely, as fine tuned instruments should. But they gave off a cold, sterile, and uncaring feel as they meticulously worked to finish up the android.

This definitely redefined the what the words “robot” and “machine” mean to me. A machine is no more than a a tool, something to be used by someone. A robot, however, has a certain degree of independence and can work on it’s own. The music video portrayed a distant future, one where robots are capable of some level of compassion. The video shows the two androids going through the motions of compassion and erotic love, but I do not think that androids, no matter how realistic, will ever feel exactly what we as humans feel.

Since Frank mentioned it in class, here’s Qrio:

Website (watch his videos!)
Qrio’s Wikipedia entry

Also, here’s the Beck video with nonstop Qrio action: