Month: March 2017

This week we read two of Asimov ‘s short stories, and a piece on machine bias. There are similarities between Andrew, the robot from The Bicentennial Man and Multivac, the giant computer from All the Troubles of the World and The Last Question.

In All the Troubles of the World, Multivac is a huge computer used to predict the future, greatly reduce crime, and protects individuals from themselves and each other. Multivac can also answer questions that people ask and print out a response. In this story though, Multivac seemed to have a mind of it’s own, it was able to decide its own course of actions. Multivac ordered a boy to attempt to assassinate Multivac itself. This request showed that it was very possible, with more practice, Multivac would be able to learn deceit. Multivac was acting like a living being and in the end, when asked what it wanted, Multivac said “I want to die”.

This is very similar to Andrew. For Andrew, he started out as a robot, taking care of the Martin family. He starts showing signs of having a mind, feelings, and other human characteristics, like Multivac. Still, Andrew had to obey the three rules of Robotics. This is similar to how Multivac couldn’t stop being a machine. Multivac couldn’t prevent reporting that itself was in increasing danger, and Multivac wasn’t able to hide the instructions it gave to the boy when the Corrections officers requested the record. Both Andrew and Multivac lived lives as robots with a mind that was able to think for itself. In the end, both Andrew and Multivac wanted to die.

A side note is that we also discussed the way Asimov portrays his female characters. Most of the characters in his short stories were men and the women characters were often described as shrill and less than the men.

What I have been finding interesting is our discussion on how in almost all cases that we have seen and read, the robots in some ways have found a way to be like humans. In the short story we read about the computer system, in the end, the system named Multivac was able to feel what humans felt in some way because it constantly received so much information on everyone’s thoughts, the actions they were going to do etc. In the episode of Humans, some of the robots developed feelings and did not follow all 3 rules of robotics. In this sense, the robots all rose above what their original purpose was and in fact were superior over humans. Asimov’s short stories and his interactions of robots with humans makes me believe that if robots ever were to be created, they too would one day realistically rise above man kind and we will no longer have control over their actions. We program a robot to act and do what we want. Therefore, because it is programmed by humans to complete our tasks it is essentially a human and capable of a “growing brain”. In this sense, the robots with human like brains are able to continue to grow past the original programming that we gave them as they are taught to store information, process information and be able to keep up with our brains.

It also was interesting when we discussed the idea of probability especially in terms of the election. Many people predicted Hillary to win over Trump by a great deal. However, what everyone failed to recognize was that while the outcome did not coincide with the prediction, the prediction was not totally wrong in that it had a greater than zero chance of Trump winning. This means that throughout the whole election process, Trump had a chance to win because his probability was non-zero. I realized that many things we interpret in the world are wrong or we are misguided in our conclusions that we draw of probabilities. What we seem to be true is not always true and sometimes as a society we think too absolute rather than thinking realistically. If someone told us there is a 5% chance robots will one day overcome us. Everyone would think that that chance is very small and that it would never happen. However, we must think logically and realistically, that it is a non-zero number, and therefore can very well happen.

Going off the assumption that we are in this plane of existence in order to live, while being quite a big assumption it makes sense because there is no other subconscious direction that we are given, I believe that the assimilation of a human mind into a robotic body is the natural evolution of the human species. Because if our only true purpose is to live, is there any better way than to combine with an undying body that can carry our, seemingly, unkillable minds forever. The concept that we would not enjoy the presence of robots in our daily lives is an understatement as we hate sharing the world even with each other let alone a, vastly, superior being. However, my prediction is that living with robots as our slaves is only the first step towards total robotification of all humans as there does not seem to be a reason not to. And if that is the case, the singularity would not be when robots realize they no longer need us, but when we realize we no longer need our mortal bodies and metamorphize into our final forms. The ultimate, imperfect, being…unkillable, and ever-collecting knowledge of a world where we were born in order to live. Forever.

I found it very interesting that Asimov pretty much made Multivac and its decedents represent God. I think he was trying to show that that is the path we are going down with technology, even though he did write this awhile ago. We are never satisfied when it comes to technology, we always want something faster and more powerful. This combined with the tech industries rapid advancement of technology is brining us down a path were we wont be satisfied with our computers until they are pretty much Gods. We’ve discussed before that if we don’t program robots with Asimov’s laws in mind that they could take over the world yet we still keep pushing forward with technology with no hast. This represents human mentality at the moment, we want the best no matter what the consequences are. In my personal opinion, I would say we are getting close to the point with robots and artificial intelligence that we may want to hold up for a second and think about the implications of making artificial intelligence that is smarter than humans has. I don’t have the answer to that question yet but I think we should start discussing it as a society.

To start out the week, we watched a very intriguing episode of “Humans” that left me wanting more. “Humans” is set in a world where humans have introduced anthropomorphic robots called “synths” that are used as servants. It examines how socially, culturally, and psychologically transforming the effects of being dependent on the synths are. The idea of integrating the synths into society is being heavily pushed and is becoming normalized. As a consequence of Asimov’s three laws, the robot slaves are being used to do our bidding. In the first episode, we follow a family where the mother is not home a lot because of work, an elderly man whose wife has passed away, and a scientist that has implemented consciousness somehow into four synth robots and is being hunted for that reason. In the family, the robot synth is brought into the family dynamic by the father because he cannot manage the household chores without the mother. The mother is horrified by his decision because she believes that they are unnecessary and teach her children to feel like they are entitled to feeling lazy. She is very wary to their robot servant and is uncomfortable with its presence and how it interacts with her children. The robot-human relationship is shown in another light when the elderly man is due for a new model of a synth, but he refuses to let go of his because of the relationship he has created. He treats him as if he were his son and it also seems like he is holding onto the synth because of all the memories it has stored of his wife that has passed away. The synth represents a part of his wife and he desperately wants to hang on to those memories. Lastly, the scientist and the few robots that he successfully made conscious are in hiding because their true identities render them dangers to society. This iterates the fact that humans fear being the inferior species. This is why the synth robot company is taking violent action to capture the conscious robots and make sure that they function like any other robot in society. With their human-characteristics plus consciousness, the robots have the ability to assimilate into society. Just like in Asimov’s short story “The Bicentennial Man”, society is hesitant to accept these robots and fear the possibilities of what they would be capable of.

This brings us back to the question of whether we can create a robot as a free moral agent. In this parallel universe portrayed in “Humans”, it seems like society is straying away from giving robots freedom and rights. We are simply treating them as slaves and using them as a means to an end in order to complete the tasks that we do not want to do. They are used to make humans’ lives easier and less stressful. If we are to integrate the synths into our lives to the point where we are incredibly dependent on them and we feel as if there is no point in applying ourselves because a robot can be programmed to do that job, then we have to have a lot of trust in them. To be a big part of our lives, we give them our trust to make the right decisions. This could be scary because they are programmed to make certain decisions, but instinctive humanistic values could alter which situation is best. It is hard to match human decisions because we can be very irrational and inconsistent.