Robotic Humanity

I know in my last post I mainly elaborated on the lack of emotions a robot would have, but after Monday's class, I would like to take that statement back. As much as I would love to think of emotions as being human, it is really hard to say that they are only uniquely human. After watching Her in class and A.I. Artificial Intelligence on my own, I'm not entirely convinced emotions are unique to us.

Brian Christian stated that the "Sentence" has been modified throughout time consistently (p. 11). We thought self perception was human until animals displayed it, too. Now, there is research coming out that dogs might actually feel emotions. To what extent, we don't really know. Animal researchers have been able to clarify that dogs can indeed love a human because the traditional love hormone found in humans is also in animals. If it boils down to hormones and chemistry, why couldn't someone program a robot to feel the same type of love humans have? We are constantly searching for uniqueness; yet, time and time again, the "Sentence" belief is only shattered. In the movies Her and A.I. Artificial Intelligence, the robots push the boundaries of emotions.

When discussing a bot that conversed about Shakespeare, Christian remarks, "...these prefabricated poem templates may produce interesting output, but they're static, they don't react" (p. 205). Once researchers cross that static boundary, robots will have reactive capacity. They will learn to love, like in Her, or even imprint on humans like A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Another important concept to imitating "humanity" is merely watching humans in action. On page 271, Christian writes. "I love these moments when the theory, the models, and the approximations, as good as they are, aren't good enough." In Ex Machina, the machine wishes to go observe humanity at a busy intersection. It was an odd wish, but apparently, that's exactly what might help a robot form more human connections. If robots do exist on day with all the workings to be "human." then they will require a social understanding to humans. In relations to my last post, there is still a long way for robots to go and I pointed out a few potential flaws to overcome. If researchers put a robot out to observe, then they will grow to learn. You can't just build a robot and declare it human. Someone will always be right behind it screaming that there's nothing human about it. However, you give it human concepts and throw it out into the world to learn, no one will be able to challenge the concept of its "humanity" unless they know what they're looking for. I'm not quite sure that researchers are close to that yet. Researchers can't expect to throw in a few definitions and call it quits. No, they need to be ready to help that robot experience life.

So, after watching both of these movies and having our class discussion, I think that it is highly plausible robots will exist one day that we deem "human enough."