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Posted by Luminoso on April 25, 2007, 1:58 pm
via BBC NEWS
Robot future poses hard questions
Scientists have expressed concern about the use of autonomous
decision-making robots, particularly for military use.
As they become more common, these machines could also have negative
impacts on areas such as surveillance and elderly care, the
roboticists warn.
The researchers were speaking ahead of a public debate at the Dana
Centre, part of London's Science Museum.
Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely
ill-informed so far, they argued.
Autonomous robots are able to make decisions without human
intervention. At a simple level, these can include robot vacuum
cleaners that "decide" for themselves when to move from room to room
or to head back to a base station to recharge.
Military forces
Increasingly, autonomous machines are being used in military
applications, too.
Samsung, for example, has developed a robotic sentry to guard the
border between North and South Korea.
It is equipped with two cameras and a machine gun.
The development and eventual deployment of autonomous robots raised
difficult questions, said Professor Alan Winfield of the University of
West England.
"If an autonomous robot kills someone, whose fault is it?" said
Professor Winfield.
"Right now, that's not an issue because the responsibility lies with
the designer or operator of that robot; but as robots become more
autonomous that line or responsibility becomes blurred."
Professor Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield, said there
could be more problems when robots moved from military to civil
duties.
"Imagine the miners strike with robots armed with water cannons," he
said. "These things are coming, definitely."
The researchers criticised recent research commissioned by the UK
Office of Science and Innovation's Horizon Scanning Centre and
released in December 2006.
Robot rights
The discussion paper was titled Utopian Dream or Rise of the Machines?
It addressed issues such as the "rights" of robots, and examined
developments in artificial intelligence and how this might impact on
law and politics.
In particular, it predicted that robots could one day demand the
same citizen's rights as humans, including housing and even
"robo-healthcare".
I can imagine a future where it is much cheaper to dump old people
in big hospitals where machines care for them Professor Noel Sharkey
"It's poorly informed, poorly supported by science and it is
sensationalist," said Professor Owen Holland of the University of
Essex.
"My concern is that we should have an informed debate and it should be
an informed debate about the right issues."
The robo-rights scan was one of 246 papers, commissioned by the UK
government, and complied by a group of futures researchers, the
Outsights-Ipsos Mori partnership and the US-based Institute for the
Future (IFTF).
At the time, Sir David King, the government's chief scientific
adviser, said: "The scans are aimed at stimulating debate and critical
discussion to enhance government's short and long-term policy and
strategy."
Other scans examined the future of space flight and developments in
nanotechnology.
Raised questions
The Dana Centre event will pick up some of these issues.
"I think that concerns about robot rights are just a distraction,"
said Professor Winfield.
"The more pressing and serious problem is the extent to which society
is prepared to trust autonomous robots and entrust others into the
care of autonomous robots."
Caring for an ageing population also raised questions, he said.
Robots were already being used in countries like Japan to take simple
measurements, such as heart rate, from elderly patients.
Professor Sharkey, who worked in geriatric nursing in his youth, said
he could envisage a future when it was "much cheaper to dump a lot of
old people" in a large hospital, where they could be cared for by
machines.
Scenarios like these meant that proper debate about robotics was
imperative, he added.
"In the same way as we have an informed nuclear debate, we need to
tell the public about what is going on in robotics and ask them what
they want."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/6583893.stm
Published: 2007/04/24 03:29:27 GMT
*
"Robo-rights" are a bit far off at the moment, our best robots
barely show the gleam of a single grain of intelligence or
"personality". The time WILL come, but not for 50+ years at
the very least. We don't even know why humans are "beings"
yet, much less how to re-create that from scratch.
"Robo-COPS" however, robo-soldiers, robo-docs, robo-nurses,
robo-laborers ... those will come sooner and will be used
to the limits of the technology. If it's CHEAPER to throw
grandpaw into a robo-monitored old folks home, many will.
If the government can save a buck using robots, it will.
If anyone can avoid responsibility by delegating it to
autonomous machinery, they will.
Last years (successful) DARPA rally, where fully-autonomous
vehicles had to navigate a 30 mile trek through the badlands,
wasn't just for fun, it was to develop the technology for
fully autonomous WEAPONS systems. Imagine a small tank-like
rover you can send off to find its way into an enemy camp
or town - equipped with automatic guns that can target and
shoot so quickly and accurately that it could literally
have several bullets in the air at the same time heading
towards different "combatants". Will it be able to detect
a combatant from a non-combatant from a 4-year-old ? How
reliably ? What level of reliability will we EXPECT ?
What's "good enough" for a machine ? A lower standard
than for a human soldier ? You betcha !
Expect the police to use more and more sophisticated
robots every year. They too will be equipped to kill.
They too will be held to a lower standard, so humans
can dodge responsibility.
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Posted by Gordon McComb on April 25, 2007, 2:43 pm
Luminoso wrote:
> Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely
> ill-informed so far, they argued.
Agreed, and they're heading the pack of the ill-informers.
Automation in lethal weapons has been used for the last century. Is this
the same debate about the use of influence mines that detonate
automatically (sometimes decades after they are planted), cruise missles
that use artificial intelligence to home into any of several targets
hundreds of miles away, or radar-controlled gattling guns that can
automatically spray 3000 rounds a minute at an approaching "enemy"? Or,
how about a nuclear arsenal that can carry on even after every living
soul on the planet is fried. Answer THESE questions first, and then you
can tackle robotics.
The notion that this is new with "robotics" is laughable. So is the
notion that there is anything debateable in a lethal robot made to
patrol the Korean DMZ. Aren't they aware standing orders (on both sides)
to human solders are to shoot-to-kill? These researchers need to first
confront the political and military doctrines that apply to orders given
to humans, and to the systems that are already in place. Who takes
responsibility there? Why would it be any different with a robot, and
why is that different than any guided missle operated by any nuclear
nation?
Silly concerns for things like robo-rights, to which there is no
supporting technology currently in sight, is premature. I'll worry about
it when I can fly to work in my oewn personal heli-car.
-- Gordon
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Posted by Luminoso on April 25, 2007, 5:13 pm
On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 11:43:00 -0700, Gordon McComb
>Luminoso wrote:
>> Discussions about the future use of robots in society had been largely
>> ill-informed so far, they argued.
>Agreed, and they're heading the pack of the ill-informers.
>Automation in lethal weapons has been used for the last century. Is this
>the same debate about the use of influence mines that detonate
>automatically (sometimes decades after they are planted), cruise missles
>that use artificial intelligence to home into any of several targets
>hundreds of miles away, or radar-controlled gattling guns that can
>automatically spray 3000 rounds a minute at an approaching "enemy"? Or,
>how about a nuclear arsenal that can carry on even after every living
>soul on the planet is fried. Answer THESE questions first, and then you
>can tackle robotics.
They will and are answering "those questions", but each
level of automation will create different and more complex
questions and probably less and less satisfactory answers.
Take a pseudo-tech example, the common "police dog". Their
main use seems to be to torture 'black' people the police
dislike. Thing is, the dog is semi-intelligent, it has
a certain amount of will, certain internal goals, a certain
amount of unpredictability. When the dog chews the hell out
of someone, the cop can offload some of the responsibility
to the dog and the dog/'suspect' dynamic. If the cop had
inflicted identical damage himself, he'd be in big trouble.
We will be able to build robo-dogs long before we'll be
able to build robo-humans. A robo-dog is a few levels
above a 'dumb' device like a mine, a couple of levels
above an automated gun or cruise missile. As the weapons
get "smarter" though, the question is how much the humans
will defer responsibility for undesireable outcomes to
the "smart" device.
During the recent invasion of Iraq, there were numerous
instances where "smart" technology failed. Cruise missiles
went off into civvie neighborhoods, "smart" bombs didn't
follow the beam, automated guns didn't seperate babies
and armed opponents. The standard excuse was that the
technology isn't perfect and many more would have died
if older techniques had been used. In short, THEY were
not responsible, the MACHINE was responsible. A massacre
on the scale Lt. Calley was imprisoned for is totally
ignored because the MACHINE screwed up.
>The notion that this is new with "robotics" is laughable. So is the
>notion that there is anything debateable in a lethal robot made to
>patrol the Korean DMZ. Aren't they aware standing orders (on both sides)
>to human solders are to shoot-to-kill?
Yes, but there IS still that element of judgement you get
with a human. People can discern subtle details about a
situation no current machine can discern. They can even
disobey orders if it's the right thing to do.
>These researchers need to first
>confront the political and military doctrines that apply to orders given
>to humans, and to the systems that are already in place. Who takes
>responsibility there?
The lowest-ranking officer who can't come up with a
good excuse as to why he isn't responsible. The Abu
Ghraib prison scandal comes to mind. Now it's Tillman,
the football player who didn't keep his head down, and
the subsequent information managment scheme.
>Why would it be any different with a robot, and
>why is that different than any guided missle operated by any nuclear
>nation?
No matter HOW smart the robot - at least until it's clearly
at the human level both in congitive abilities and emotive
responses - it can't be prosecuted or persecuted. As time
goes on the robots will become smart enough to stalk and
kill and enjoy it in their own special way just like any
human, and that just makes it easier for the humans who
are supposedly in charge to escapt responsibility, to
blame the robot. Won't do any good to excute a robo-dog
or whatever though, no 'justice' there.
>Silly concerns for things like robo-rights, to which there is no
>supporting technology currently in sight, is premature. I'll worry about
>it when I can fly to work in my oewn personal heli-car.
When I was a kid they promised us personal ATOMIC POWERED
heli-cars. I'm still waiting.
"Robot rights" is indeed a bit premature. However, noting
how far the law lags behind the technology these days, it
might not hurt to write a FEW laws, some basic ground-rules,
that can be used when the the robots really DO become smart,
or smarter, than ourselves. S.Korea actually did this a few
months ago.
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Posted by Gordon McComb on April 25, 2007, 7:33 pm
> As the weapons
> get "smarter" though, the question is how much the humans
> will defer responsibility for undesireable outcomes to
> the "smart" device.
There are ethical questions related to the use of all technology for
warfare. Concentrating on robotics as the next frontier to the ways
people can be unkind to eachother misses the forest for the trees.
The American government has never officially acknowledged responsibility
for the high civilian loss in the fire bombing of Dresden, and that was
a deliberate planned attack that with hingsight was unncessary in
bringing down Nazi Germany. War brings out the worst in us, and terrible
things happen. During it no one can accurately foretell the outcome. But
when the dust clears, if governments can't accept responsibility for the
things they do intentionally, there's no chance they'll accept it for
the act of machines. In the end, this is a circular argument that has
nothing to do with technology or machines. Framing it around "robotics"
is a cynical attempt at appearing cogent.
-- Gordon
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> ill-informed so far, they argued.