Month: February 2017

After reading Asimov’s Caves of Steel, and discussing it in class, I began to think more about the future roles of robots in society. In the simplest terms, countless robots are already part of our daily lives through machines, computers, and cars. Although we have yet to make the jump from machines to humanoid robots, we are just beginning to see the early stages of development today. For example, the ‘Google Home’ and the ‘Amazon Echo’ have been released into the market within the last year, and they are devices that you can ask questions to and a voice talks back answering your question. This is one of the most recent developments in technology, and one of the main concerns is that Google and Amazon is storing information based on what individuals ask the devices. This is a large fear because it is an invasion of privacy on the owner of the device. I see this fear as a main limitation in the production and development of humanoid robots because I believe that people would be afraid that the device is remembering things about them, storing it as data, and spying on them. Also, there is the issue of gender identity with the robots. What gender would the robots be? What would they look like? Would they have a feminine or a masculine voice? Amazon has addressed the last of these issues by naming their device “Alexa” and giving it a feminine voice. In conclusion, I do not believe that our society is ready for humanoid robots because we have too many issues that we are currently sorting through, and if there was a humanoid robot rebellion I do not think that we would be ready.

In class, I found the similarities between the Barbado’s Slave Code and the rules that robots are to live by strikingly similar. When thinking about the rules that a robot lives by, it doesn’t seem out of place because they are not inherently human, but when these same rules are applied on individuals because of their race, it is un-doubtfully grotesque and awful. The robot laws were seen, in my eyes, as a way to shed focus on the atrocities of slavery.

The rules outlined in the Barbado’s Slave Code definitively reduces Negroes as inferior to Christians. In the slave code, it asserted that the purpose of the slaves is to serve the white Christian man and that any act against a white Christian would be cause for serious punishment. Horrifically, robots are purported to exist by similar structures as well. The difference is, however, while robots are man made and vividly lack human traits and attributes, people were marginalized into the same category as them. The robot laws contextualized the terror that slaves were made to endure by visibly connecting the two circumstances to show the injustice to that of slavery. Comparing the two in this way outlines the inhumane society that slaves lived in with the irrational robot society in the future.

On a personal note, the readings on a robots role in society and the Barbado’s Slave code led me to delve into self reflection of what my understanding of slavery had really been. I have always denounced it and understood how horrific it was, but it was only when I saw it side -by-side comparison with similar non-human treatment that its true implications were made aware to me. The contrast and want for the robots to be seen as human beings which we saw in various readings must have been the same sentiment that  real humans felt during the slavery era.

In class, we were prompted in small groups to discuss what is ethical about introducing robots to society. Immediately our group jumped to discussions of humanity and whether it is ethical for humans to basically enslave these machines in the way that we tend to do. How could we as humans sleep at night if we were forcing these humanoid creatures to do our bidding via their programming? It seemed like a reasonable debate to have, especially as we had just recently discussed the parallels between African American slavery and the robots as “property”. When thinking in this context, then of course it isn’t ethical to introduce robots to society in this manner.

However, in our debate we neglected to differentiate robots from Caves of Steel and the robots that we would realistically be incorporating into today’s society. In Asimov’s novel the robots’ functions are essentially to serve humans, but their presence is realistically over the top. Although the robots can be programmed with qualities that humans may lack, for example unwavering moral compasses, to create these walking, talking, decision making machines to carry out human duties just isn’t feasible or wise for a society like ours. Unemployment is already an issue in our society, so to introduce a machine to do daily jobs like “detective” would be unnecessary and self-destructive.

I think that it’s important to be specific in defining “robot” for the sake of this question, as Asmov’s depiction of them is not the only definition. When it is instead defined as “a machine capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically, especially one programmable by a computer” (by Google) I can undoubtedly agree that their integration into society isn’t just ethical but necessary. There are many jobs that cannot be carried out effectively due to human error, such as surgical procedures and operating vehicles, so it would be wise to introduce mechanical systems to operate these. Ethical systems don’t even have to be considered, as these robots are merely carrying out preprogrammed tasks that a human would be doing in a less efficient and less effective manner.

Reading the Caves of Steel by Isaac Asimov has been one of my first experiences with science fiction.   Since the book was released in the mid 1950’s, it has an interesting view on what a possible earth could look like. My desired field of study in biology is evolution and ecology, so the topic of climate changes, rationing, and population expansion is very real to the field I am interested in. The idea of 8 billion people on the planet was probably alien to Asimov in 1854, when the population of the world was only 2.7 billion (the current population of China is 1.4 billion, or 52% of that). The current world population is estimated at 7.4 billion, as of August 2016, and it does not seem to me like we are approaching the point where we need to live in caves of steel. However, the estimated carrying capacity of the Earth is about 10 billion, which will be reached in our lifetime. The fact of the matter is that we are changing the Earth at a rate that has only been seen a few previous times, which happened to be the other 5 times that we had major extinctions on this planet. A major extinction is defined as more than 50% of species of life going extinct on earth, losing massive amounts of biodiversity. One of the hottest topics in science right now is how we are pushing Earth to the brink of the sixth mass extinction. The industrial revolution combined with modern technology (cars specifically) has released enough gas into the atmosphere to raise the temperate of our atmosphere, raise the temperature of the ocean, and dissolve massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the ocean creating sulfuric acid. This buildup of sulfuric acid is unknown to most people (myself included until last year) and has already created miles of dead zones in the Mediterranean Sea area that cannot support life anymore. This is due to the sulfuric acid acidifying the ocean, dropping the pH level slightly. Any change in pH causes large changes in ecosystems. For example, if human blood changed more than a few tenths of a point, our bodies would not be able to hold oxygen in your red blood cells, and therefore die. Not only will sulfuric acid destroy our marine ecosystems, but also commercial fisheries will be completely tapped out by approximately 2050, and there will be little to no food coming out of the oceans. Along with a rapidly growing population, this will put much strain on the agriculture industry to ramp up production, possibly driving food prices through the roof if we do not increase agricultural production/technology.

Science fiction shapes the future in some ways, as we strive to create these fantasy worlds that past authors talked about. I hope that we are in contact with nature when Earth reaches 8 billion people, but there will most certainly be a time when we will be dealing with rationing supplies and space. I intend to read more classic science fiction as I find author views of futuristic Earth fascinating.

This week we discussed the book The Caves of Steel by Asimov. The booked was placed in the future where there was life on other planets and where robots were widely accepted. On Earth, Asimov predicted a population of 8 billion and a situation where humans lived inside domes and never left the ventilated air and process food. The way Asimov painted Earth is not so different today. The population today is 7.4 billion and growing, and in cities, many buildings and transits are connected, sometimes underground or by enclosed walkways. On Earth, robots weren’t widely accepted.

Personally, I don’t think we are ready for change. For one, humans resist extreme changes. I think these days we love to update every electronic we have, yet if we introduced robots into the daily lives of people, I think there would be a lot of pushback. I think one of the many reasons for pushback would be our right to privacy. We often get worked up when we learn that websites track what we search online, that our emails and phone calls aren’t completely private, or that some streetlights take photos and videos of cars. I think since robots have to take in their surroundings, using them to violate personal privacy would be something the government or other organizations may try to do. Also there are people who could try to reprogram the robots for their individual benefit. This brings in the real problem we have been studying about how to make robots ethical.

The other big topic we talked about was how the women in The Caves of Steel are portrayed. Jessie was the main women character in the story and during our class discussion, we talked about how she was often considered hysterical, weak, bitter, impulsive, and other negative attributes. Jessie was like a robot to society, she had a husband and son and was treated as a robot. Her husband thought of her almost less than him, someone whose only job was to support him and whose hobby was to gossip in the bathroom. The other woman mentioned in the book was Elizabeth, an old maid who was Jessie’s co-worker and a Medievalist. This negative portrayal of women in Asimov’s book is not as surprising as some may find. The book was published in 1954, which was in between the first and second waves of feminism. If the book was published now, I think Asimov would get backlash and more people would criticize its lack of female characters and the way they are shown. We see the negative portrayal (or the empowering portrayal of men) all the time in stories; consider the fairy tales that we read to children. The women are beautiful, helpless, and their goal throughout the story is to find a husband. I know I am generalizing, but most fairy tales depict the men as heroic and the women as purely dependent on the men.