- Salim Huerta
- Flat Rock
- United States Minor Outlying Islands
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The plausibility of artificially intelligent robots becoming conscious and therefore becoming slaves of humans and the ethical implications.
It is becoming increasingly clear that with advances in technology and esoteric subject areas we are going to develop conscious or conscius simulating robots that will become commercially available.
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Theodore A. Hoppe 200+
Sherry Turkle describes a situation she encountered: "We're developing robots, they call them sociable robots, that are specifically designed to be companions -- to the elderly, to our children, to us. Have we so lost confidence that we will be there for each other? During my research I worked in nursing homes, and I brought in these sociable robots that were designed to give the elderly the feeling that they were understood. And one day I came in and a woman who had lost a child was talking to a robot in the shape of a baby seal. It seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. It comforted her. And many people found this amazing.
But that woman was trying to make sense of her life with a machine that had no experience of the arc of a human life. That robot put on a great show. And we're vulnerable. People experience pretend empathy as though it were the real thing. So during that moment when that woman was experiencing that pretend empathy, I was thinking, "That robot can't empathize. It doesn't face death. It doesn't know life." And as that woman took comfort in her robot companion, I didn't find it amazing; I found it one of the most wrenching, complicated moments in my 15 years of work.
She adds "We expect more from technology than we do from each other."
We do not need to create a robot with consciousness. We already have devices, such as computers that speak to us, that carry implications for our own psychology.
Fritzie Reisner 100+
Salim Huerta