To Love a Bot

[W_L]

Arthur C. Clarke's vision and Philip K. Dick's dystopia Blade Runner fantasies are here:

 

French Woman Engagement to Robot

 

I don't know how to feel about this, on one hand, I am glad Robots are getting treated with love and tenderness (hopefully it will prevent Terminator-esque insurrections), but I know some will think it strange to me that you can fall in love with a machine. I generally like the concept as a Science fiction writer in that genre, but I feel like this may not be as mature of a relationship as it could be given more time for robots/anroids in this case to develop. AI, Artificial Intelligence, is only in its infancy, and personally I have no mental attraction to infants, but that's what they are right now and there's a part of me feeling sort of guilty about it too.

 

Since robotic love is now "a thing" when should we welcome robots into human society as equals and friends, lovers and potential lovers like we are starting to do with same sex and trans people, and ultimately allow them the freedom to dictate their own destinies.

 

What do you think? Will humanity start to accept robots as more than tools/machines? Or are we going to mistreat them and exploit them as toys for our personal pleasure? If that's the case, at what point should we stop?

 

 

 

 

Edited April 14, 2017 by W_L

[Graeme]

I think you meant Isaac Asimov, not Arthur C. Clarke. Isaac Asimov is the author who came up with the three laws of robotics.

[Palantir]

Falling in 'love' with a robot is at present purely and simply a case of 'anthropomorphism' where things that are not human are treated as if they are.

No robot has the self awareness or capability for emotion that we take for granted even in fairly simple life forms.

Yes, they have a form of intelligence but it can't be equated with human intelligence - rather it's a relatively simple set of programmed instructions designed to react to limited and specific situations (or inputs).

Artificial Intelligence is very much in it's early stages and what it means and where it is going are fiercely debated in the scientific community. Even state of the art AIs like IBM's Watson, which might pass the Turing Test, are not even remotely regarded by scientists as having self awareness.

If the most versatile, human looking robot was controlled by a current level AI it would still be a machine. It could simulate emotion, creativity, sympathy and other human attributes very successfully without being self aware.

The event called the Singularity, when computers ( or systems of computers) become so complex that somehow self awareness develops and their intelligence evolves at computer speeds is one of the most debated ideas in the AI area.

Ray Kurzweil, an American futurist, believes the singularity is inevitable an could happen within decades.

Falling in love with an intelligence that might compare with us as we do with microbes? It might be a bit like falling in love with a god so I'm sure it will happen. What the ethics of the situation are remains to be seen.

How will such an intelligence regard humanity? I understand that Stephen Hawkins has grave doubts about Artificial Intelligence and many people are seriously concerned with the application of AI for military purposes.

 

8 hours ago, W_L said:

What do you think? Will humanity start to accept robots as more than tools/machines? Or are we going to mistreat them and exploit them as toys for our personal pleasure? If that's the case, at what point should we stop?

At the moment robots are no more than tools/machines and should be treated as such.

If/when they become more than that the question might indeed be - are they going to mistreat us and exploit us as toys for their personal pleasure.

[W_L]

4 hours ago, Graeme said:

I think you meant Isaac Asimov, not Arthur C. Clarke. Isaac Asimov is the author who came up with the three laws of robotics.

 

HAL would disagree, though you are technically right, he's an AI, not a bot unless you consider the ship to be his body

 

 

[clochette]

Is that a real thing? Cause as a french I look it up on the internet and didn't find anything about this, not one article, only a book.

[W_L]

9 hours ago, clochette said:

Is that a real thing? Cause as a french I look it up on the internet and didn't find anything about this, not one article, only a book.

 

Vous savez que je parle le francais

 

http://fr.ubergizmo.com/2016/12/29/francaise-tombee-amoureuse-robot.html

[clochette]

No I didn't, but I remember your sister being in France

 

I never heard about this story and the website didn't came up on the first page of my Google search (once again people are going to think French are looney )

 

Anyway, I think this girl is only doing this so we talk about her - or she's no right in the head lol. How can you have a relationship with something that doesn't have real feelings cause what they have and can be see as feelings are actually set by a human in the first place, it doesn't come naturally.

[W_L]

1 hour ago, clochette said:

No I didn't, but I remember your sister being in France

 

I never heard about this story and the website didn't came up on the first page of my Google search (once again people are going to think French are looney )

 

Anyway, I think this girl is only doing this so we talk about her - or she's no right in the head lol. How can you have a relationship with something that doesn't have real feelings cause what they have and can be see as feelings are actually set by a human in the first place, it doesn't come naturally.

 

Think of it this way:

 

Some girls like to accessorize and have add on to products they own.

 

A robot male partner is just a natural extension of it, the potential for an obedient, loving, and unfailingly loyal "man" is what a lot of women want, plus gay men. If I can program my bot to love and serve only me, buy additional software like a hand tool to move things around the house, bluetooth to diagnose issues with smart TV and washer, or convert his functions for bedroom play .

 

I think we're entering the future of robotic, but this frontier has already been dreamed up by Sci-Fi writers for decades.

 

Heck even Matt Groenig, the creator of the Simpsons saw this coming in his show Futurama:

 

 

Edited April 15, 2017 by W_L

[Palantir]

Here's a short video clip with some current thinking about AIs.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/cbc-the-national-ray-kurzweil-predicts-end-of-disease-ai-leaps

 

and here's an article by David Brin (scifi author) with his quite extensive thinking on the subject. (warning - some fairly heavy reading involved)

http://www.kurzweilai.net/preparing-for-our-posthuman-future-of-artificial-intelligence

[W_L]

3 hours ago, Palantir said:

Here's a short video clip with some current thinking about AIs.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/cbc-the-national-ray-kurzweil-predicts-end-of-disease-ai-leaps

 

and here's an article by David Brin (scifi author) with his quite extensive thinking on the subject. (warning - some fairly heavy reading involved)

http://www.kurzweilai.net/preparing-for-our-posthuman-future-of-artificial-intelligence

 

To add to your treasure trove from the Google Developer on AI: I will add Robotics advocate and Developer David Levy's article from CBC

 

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/day6/episode-319-becoming-kevin-o-leary-saving-shaker-music-google-renewables-marrying-robots-and-more-1.3921088/a-i-expert-david-levy-says-a-human-will-marry-a-robot-by-2050-1.3921101

 

Robotic-Human Marriages should be possible by 2050 according to David Levy, but I think with the growth of artificial intelligence and micro-processing computing power, we may need to revise that target sooner.

 

An area I worry about in terms of Robotic Rights is that like LGBT community, human/bot relationships may not be accepted in society. There's nothing technically religious, socially adverse, or culturally taboo about robot/human love, unlike homosexuality, but it is not an easy idea to accept that someday you might see your kid marry a robot in the same vein as a same sex partner in the past.

 

For me, though I don't speak for GA or its members or admins, I believe Robosexuals should be accepted within the spectrum of human sexuality and perhaps be part of our own community, once technology has matured to the point of relationships. Robots are gender neutral by default and can change their sexual orientation and gender identity alongside their human partner, so I think robosexuality is a future topic and concept that we have to confront within our own community with open arms of friendship.