Article:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150715-how-robots-mess-with-our-minds
Analysis:
“How Robots Mess With Our Minds” is an
article written by Alexander Reben. Reben is the creator of the Blabdroid, a
robot Reben sent to various places around the world to interview people. The
idea was to create a documentary with the various interviews and see what
answers they Blabdroid would receive. Reben and his partners quickly discovered
that people were engging with the robots on a level that they would have never
expected. People were engaging with these robots for on average 30 minutes, and
revealing very personal things to the robots.
The article goes on to talk about how
humans can very easily give personality and “enthropomorphise” inanimate
objects. For example: some soldiers are known to mourn their bomb-disposal
robots, and owners of Aibo dogs in Japan have staged funerals for their robotic
pet dogs. This raises the question, how will this affect our future when AI
inevitably becomes more human-like?
This article makes me think of movies
like “Her” and the new one that came out this year “Ex Machina,” movies that
are addressing the very questions so many people are having. Could we possibly
“fall in love” with our machines in a sense? As the philosopher John Campbell says:
“One of the possibilities this opens up is automating aspects of our emotional
lives where we usually depend on other people for sympathy and support. Rather
than relying on your partner to listen to the problems you’ve had at work all
day, why not explain them to a sympathetic robot that makes eye contact with
you, listens with apparent interest, making all the right noises, remembers and
cross-indexes everything you say?”
Globally:
Population goes down because we start
“falling in love” with our machines, and stop reproducing as much?
Nationally:
The USA is typically very advanced and
ahead of it’s time when it comes to technology. What happens when we are one of
the firsts to create social robots? Will the rest of the world follow? Will our
society crumble or flourish?
Locally:
Do our friend groups get smaller and
less engaging once social robots take those places?
Personally: I go to my friends a
family often for my problems. What happens once a robot starts being more
engaging, and offers better advice than my friends and family?
Impact over time:
I visualize a world similar to
“Theodore’s” (Joaquin Phoenix’s character) in “Her.” He walks around with his
“robot girlfriend” in his headset and tells her about his troubles and life. He
is going through a divorce and finds refuge in talking to “Samantha” the robot
about his troubles. It’s understandable to see how this appealing because
“Samantha,” much like a therapist, is an unbiased entity there to help you.
Would it be that strange to see “robot therapists” in our future? Right now we
are seeing apps and online chat rooms that help people struggling with
depression and anxiety. I could very well see this idea expanding into
psychology and therapy in the future.
Positive outcome:
If robotic therapy became the norm, we
could see a more mentally stable world because therapy would become affordable
for those who don’t have the money to afford it, and/or convenient for those
who don’t have the time to go to a therapists office during their busy
schedule.
Negative outcome:
We see a less social world. People become
so used to talking to robots about their problem they forget how to socialize
with people that aren’t programmed to “make eye contact with you, listens with
apparent interest, making all the right noises, remembers and cross-indexes
everything you say,” as Campbell puts it.
And in conclusion, I think this
paragraph of the article sums it up wonderfully:
Once we accept a machine is alive, any
relationship we form with it will be on the same level as any other living
thing. Thus, robots are truly alive in our minds; which is perhaps more
significant to the future of human-machine relationships than any Turing test. A
robot doesn’t need to convince us it is human – we’re ready to believe it
already.
Lens:
Super-tech
Human-tech/Social-tech