Saudi Arabia makes robot citizen: But who will listen to Sophia's warning?

[Michie]

The robot Sophia had enchanted the world with her advanced artificial intelligence, but human beings may be missing her implicit warning that human moral conduct will determine our future with AI-robots.

Continued below.
Saudi Arabia Makes Robot Citizen: But Who Will Listen to Sophia’s Warning?

 

[Hieronymus]

Propaganda bot Sophia...

 

[alsughasoughaiuyfygh]

.

 

[MoonlessNight]

Sounds like humanity wants a new god for themselves.

Billionaire CEO of SoftBank: Robots will have an IQ of 10,000 in 30 years

AI is God: Ex-Google Engineer Creating New Religion

I really do think that there is a strong connection between the idea of "Hard AI" and idol worship. Both is taking something which is not alive, and which know really isn't alive, but fooling ourselves into believing that it really is alive.

Of particular interest is the fact that the AIs which particularly capture the public's attention are usually not those which display the most "intelligent" behavior, but those which have the most superficial similarities to humanity. Even something as simple as physical appearance of a robot, or the avatar used by an online bot, can inform people's opinion of its intelligence. As such, people seeking to create an AI which will be accepted by the culture as "a real intelligent being" are better served by using cheap tricks than in seeking to understand actual intelligence.

I mean, when I was a kid I had a 2XL robot, somewhat like the one in this video:

I never thought that it was a real intelligent robot, but I thought it at least had a computer in it, since it responded to my decisions and seemed to remember things that I had previously told it. In reality, however, it's just an 8-track player, and the tapes are set up in a clever way to try to disguise this fact.

A lot of the current attempts to beat the Turing test are just modern variations of priests of Zeus trying to convince the public that Zeus really was talking to them through his statue (ignore the fact that his voice sounds quite similar to the one priest who currently isn't in the room.)

 

[chevyontheriver]

The robot Sophia had enchanted the world with her advanced artificial intelligence, but human beings may be missing her implicit warning that human moral conduct will determine our future with AI-robots.

Continued below.
Saudi Arabia Makes Robot Citizen: But Who Will Listen to Sophia’s Warning?

Women get to drive and Robots are citizens. Are women considered citizens yet in Saudi?

 

[MoonlessNight]

Sophia in particular is a great example of what I'm talking about. At the end of the "interview" it is explicitly said that the interview was scripted (though with the caveat of "not completely"). And yet people are still treating the things that Sophia "said" as the dire predictions created by a self-aware robotic being.

You could do the same thing with a marionette and a ventriloquist.

In the end AI reveals a lot more about humanity's desire to fool itself than it does about the nature of intelligence.

 

[Michie]

Well there is talk is using these bots as sex toys as well. Something else to take into account. That in itself opens quite the Pandora's box.

 

[MoonlessNight]

Well there is talk is using these bots as sex toys as well. Something else to take into account. That in itself opens quite the Pandora's box.

Quite honestly, not really.

That is to say, there could be problems in that area, but they largely won't be new problems. Everything will just be an extension of the problems we've already been given by the sexual revolution and the proliferation of pornography.

What might be more significant is the development of robots (well, AI holograms really) which are not sexual but instead fill the purpose of "having even one person in your life who cares about you":

 

[Michie]

I disagree. I think it could lead to a whole host of problems. From a Catholic pov especially.

Quite honestly, not really.

That is to say, there could be problems in that area, but they largely won't be new problems. Everything will just be an extension of the problems we've already been given by the sexual revolution and the proliferation of pornography.

What might be more significant is the development of robots (well, AI holograms really) which are not sexual but instead fill the purpose of "having even one person in your life who cares about you":

 

[MoonlessNight]

I disagree. I think it could lead to a whole host of problems. From a Catholic pov especially.

I'm not saying that it's clear skies ahead, but the main problems I see is that it would encourage people touch, to become socially withdrawn, and to devalue other people (and especially women).

But all of these things are major problems already.

To me issue seems like complaining that blu-ray will make pornography so high quality that it will cause major problems. I guess that's true to some extent but it's so small of issue in comparison to where we already are.

 

[Michie]

I one just needs to look at sex slavery among among the other myriad of ethical implications it poses having this sort of thing available.
A new report showed all the different ways that sex robots could be used in society

Would Sex With Sophisticated Robots Be Ethical?

And more- all sort of info out there reflecting on the subject.

 

[MoonlessNight]

I one just needs to look at sex slavery among among the other myriad of ethical implications it poses having this sort of thing available.
A new report showed all the different ways that sex robots could be used in society

Would Sex With Sophisticated Robots Be Ethical?

And more- all sort of info out there reflecting on the subject.

I don't think that "Hard AI", i.e. AI which possesses actual thought is philosophical possible.

But even if it were possible, it's clear that we are nowhere close to it at the moment.

That doesn't stop people from treating the current level of technology as if it thought, like the Saudis who made the move of granting a robot citizenship, but in the end it's not an different from a young child insisting that his robot dog must be no different from the neighbor's dog down the road, since he loves the robot dog so much.

And if you play so loose with the standards of what makes a robot "alive," I'd think that you would have to declare many factory robots also to be "alive" and functionally slaves. You could even make the same argument about roombas. I of course don't think that they are anything more than machines, but they are as advanced as other types of robots which people feel more inclined to call thinking. So if we really think that robot slaves are possible, they are already here, and the abolition should begin.

There is one danger I will grant though: while we won't see "enslaved robots" in our lifetimes it is highly probable that people will think that we will, because as I mentioned people are very skilled at fooling themselves about such things. And if they convince themselves that robots are just as real as people, and that it's okay to "enslave" robots, the logical conclusion would seem to be that it's okay to enslave humans as well. Gene Wolfe wrote about this sort of scenario in "How the Whip Came Back."