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Love and Robots
David Levy has a new book titled Love and Sex with Robots in which he predicts that robot tech will allow for such human-like creations in the near future that we can fall in love with them, that the robots can (at least mimic) that they love us back, and that they will be viable sex partners.
Of course, there is nothing new with the prediction. It's one of the oldest tropes in science fiction. But it raises old interesting questions that can be used to while away slack time at work. The discussion is probably good for that one particular thing only, but seeing as how work is particularly slack right now, it might be a welcome diversion.
Can we become so attached to a machine that we can be said to love it? Would we feel gratified if a machine mimicked loving us back, or would we realize that it was just acting in accordance with programming? Would a robot necessarily be mimicking, or could it possibly begin feeling? For that matter, how can we be sure that other people aren't just mimicking emotions? If Mr. Levy walked in on his spouse using a robot as a sex partner, would he be right to feel jealous or angry?
Of course, there is nothing new with the prediction. It's one of the oldest tropes in science fiction. But it raises old interesting questions that can be used to while away slack time at work. The discussion is probably good for that one particular thing only, but seeing as how work is particularly slack right now, it might be a welcome diversion.
Can we become so attached to a machine that we can be said to love it? Would we feel gratified if a machine mimicked loving us back, or would we realize that it was just acting in accordance with programming? Would a robot necessarily be mimicking, or could it possibly begin feeling? For that matter, how can we be sure that other people aren't just mimicking emotions? If Mr. Levy walked in on his spouse using a robot as a sex partner, would he be right to feel jealous or angry?
Comments
We could ask the same questions about loving animals. Does your dog love you back? Or is he just loyal because you give him food?
I think you'd have to be prrrrreeeeety fucked in the head to fall in love with any inanimate object, or a fully functional robot.
What was it? Was it Stand Alone Complex where a man had a robot wife and they were "in love"? They ran away from it all to be together forever blah blah blah. Really she was programmed to merely act like it. She didn't feel any compassion for him, really. She's a robot. She had learned the idea of love from watching film and translated that in to her life. It's a decent example, I guess, that robots couldn't really love us back - that's not to say you CAN'T love them... It's just weird.
All signs I've seen point to human consciousness (and therefore emotion and intelligence) being the result of electrochemical machinery. So there's no reason, in principle, that an AI based on similarly complex machinery couldn't feel emotion. But if that AI is developed by humans, it could just as easily be said that it has been "programmed" to feel that emotion. Conversely, human emotion can be modified by chemical imbalances in our bodies; even our "natural" feelings are mediated by chemical changes in the brain. This question will be answered, if it can be answered at all, only as our understanding of neuroscience and cognitive systems deepens; personally, I suspect the line is more than a little arbitrary and subjective.
What I'm getting at here is: Why should we just assume other humans have the same emotions as we do? Just because they're human? Have you never seen variations in human emotional response? That is, have you never seen someone moved to tears by an opera while another person sitting nearby is completely unmoved? If that's the case, why can't we go one step further and say that we can never just assume that humans have the same emotional responses and that, since our only indication that they might have something approximating our own emotional responses is our own observations of their actions, that the actions of robots or animals are the indications of emotional responses that are just as valid?
The only way I could see this field advancing significantly is if someone were to begin 'Nazi-style' controlled human experiments. I would hate to see that happen for obvious reasons.
It becomes a philosophical question. How can you be assured that someone is feeling an emotion that's the same or similar to the ones you feel? I'm saying here that it's only through their actions, e.g. their body language, vocalizations, and so forth. Now if this is so, why shouldn't we be satisfied to ascribe those same emotions to a robot that can mimic the same actions?
So: If you had a child robot that spilled milk on the floor and then looked up at you with big dewey puppy dog eyes, quivering lips, and said in a small, trembling voice, "I sorry Papa", what would be so wrong about ascribing some emotions to it? How would the robot child be any different than a meat child that performed exactly the same actions?
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Of course the possibility exists that different people have brains that are 'wired' differently. The point I was trying to make was that it seems like emotions are magical because we are unable to study it to the point of perfect information. Maybe one day, we will discover a technology that will enable us to better understand the biological cause of each emotion, even to a point where we can manipulate it.
Are emotions that cheap? What about free will?
The best we can say is that we feel as though we control our actions. I believe that the more effective people in the world are better at controlling their thoughts and actions than others, and that people who strive to achieve greater control have, effectively, more free will.
Slightly off topic: Glowing cats, Glowing pigs, mice genetically modifed to have no fear of cats - Is it just me, or are does anyone else think that the genetic researcher dudes are at the point that they're just trying stuff to see if it works?
Genetic Researcher #1: Gee, I'm bored. What abomination can we come up with today? Let's see . . . I wonder if we can make a snake that wears galoshes and has bat wings?
Genetic Researcher #2: I don't know, let's find out . . .