Robot News

The New York Times has a new article today (catch it while it's still hot!) called "Brainy Robots Start Stepping Into Daily Life." The article reports that an "A.I. Spring" is now in progress, with business applications of Artificial Intelligence becoming much more feasible and therefore successful. A.I. is one of those areas that has always overpromised and underdelivered, so I'll believe it when I see it ...

Bringing the Robots Back In

Robots have almost entirely disappeared from "serious" science fiction. (What I mean by "serious" science fiction is writing by the most innovative authors in the field. "Serious" work can be humorous--and much of it is. I know I'm behind the curve with regard to innovation, but I'm thinking of the big splashes of the past couple of decades, starting with Gibson and Sterling and Willis through relative newbies like Nicola Griffith, Iain Banks, Charles Stross, and Ken MacLeod.) They're still around in movies and TV ("A.I. Artificial Intelligence", "I, Robot", "Star Trek: The Next Generation") and in strictly commercial SF writing (e.g., the evil robot Erasmus from the uninspired DUNE prequels), but they're not cutting edge any more. One reason for this is that we already have "real" robots, like the "smart" machines that handle various parts of auto assembly, the silly Roomba vacuum cleaner, and the equally silly Robo Sapien. A more significant reason, I think, is that robots as an idea predate computers. Robots were AIs before "AI" was "invented." Now, it seems quaint that we once thought that human or superhuman intelligence could only be found, or should only be found, in human form. Instead, we have the ultra-smart version of the desktop computer taking over the world. Today's SF features disembodied AIs, on one hand, and "meat puppets" on the other. Humans "upload" into computer storage (see, e.g., Bear's EON or Pohl's THE BOY WHO WOULD LIVE FOREVER), while AIs "download" into human bodies (e.g., Moriarty's SPIN STATE). (People can also download into "real" or artificial bodies, as in Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs books, Brin's KILN PEOPLE, etc.) Or, more frighteningly, humans can be taken over by "hacks" (e.g., Stephenson's SNOW CRASH, Goonan's LIGHT MUSIC) or mind control devices (Vinge's A DEEPNESS IN THE SKY, Stross' IRON SUNRISE) that reprogram their mental "software". Who needs robots when you have "meat puppets"?

I think we can bring robots back in, but they have to be reconceived robots. They're not going to be nice Robbies, but they're not going to be evil Erasmuses either. They're not going to be Pinocchios like Data or the kid from "AI". What do you think? What will the next generation of SF robots look like?

Whose Robot Empire Is It Anyway?

In her essay "Will robots take over the world?" (published this May in Focus magazine), Joanna Bryson says

I believe that *IF* robots take over the world, it will not be the work of the robots. Robots are artifacts we construct, we imbue them with their goals and their abilities. So there is no question of whether robots will take over the world. The question is whether someone else will take over the world *with* robots.

This is actually a very interesting question for AI in general: When an intelligent artifact makes a mistake, who is at fault? The point of the paper I wrote with Phil Kime on this topic is that:

• we already have this problem with all kinds of artifacts,intelligent or not, and
• if they *are* intelligent, nothing changes.

So a robot army going wrong and wiping out a village of civilians is just the same as a dam going wrong and wiping out a village of civilians. The manufacturers & operators of either artifact are the ones who must bear responsibility (& will probably spend a few decades suing each other).

Does this apply to sentient robots (or AIs, in general) with free will, like Star Trek 's Data? If so, this is like saying that if I become a mass murderer, it's not only my parents' responsibility, it is in fact their doing. They committed mass murder through me. (They did, after all, at least try, with regard to their children, to "imbue them with their goals and their abilities.") I don't accept this.

Only if robots are strictly rule-bound do I agree. Even then, there are the problems of interpretation that Asimov had so much fun with. What happens when the rules are fuzzy and the orders given to robots instructions are fuzzy, as they inevitably must be. The sentient but rule-bound robot must bear at least partial resposibility for the interpretations it makes and the actions it takes.

The Tin Woodman's Ambiguous Legacy

In L. Frank Baum's The Wizard of Oz series, an ordinary munchkin lumberjack named Nick Chopper is transformed into a man of metal through the evil devices of the Wicked Witch of the East. The witch does not effect the change directly, however; instead, she curses Nick's axe, and each time he uses the axe, it cuts off part of his body. (This story is told in The Tin Woodman of Oz, which I haven't read. Nick is either not too bright -- hang up your axe, buddy! -- or, more likely, as a man with one salable skill, he has no other choice.) Nick's friend Ku-klip, a clever tinsmith, fashioned replacement parts for poor Nick as the need arose, and pretty soon Nick was completely made of tin. Somehow, Nick managed not only to survive his serial dismemberment, but also the total replacement of his body, including his brain. Except, of course, the clever tinsmith was unwilling or unable to give Nick a tin heart. Artificial body, artificial brain, no heart: Nick has become the stereotypical robot.

It was Nick's heart that got him into this trouble in the first place -- he fell in love with the Wicked Witch's servant girl, Nimmie Amee. When the powerful witch ordered him to stop distracting her maid, Nick stood up straight like a good republican (the ideology, not the party) and said that he was nobody's servant and what he did was none of her business. (No one ever said that standing up to power was safe.) Romantic love put Nick in jeopardy, and manly pride set him on the path that led to his, um, things getting chopped off. It's worth noting that Nick's cyborgization was seen by the witch as defiance, not as a sign of her victory. In fact, Nick liked his metal parts and so did Nimmie Amee. (Once he's been completely sliced and diced and has become the man of tin, his would-be fiancee says that he'll be the brightest -- shiniest -- husband in the world, and that since he doesn't have to eat and doesn't make a mess, she'll be one of the freest wives in the world.) Without his heart, however, the Tin Woodman finds that he no longer has the capacity to love, and he sets out on the journey that eventually brings him into contact with Dorothy.

In Littlefield's allegorical reading of The Wizard of Oz, the Tin Woodman represents the dehumanized factory worker of late 19th century industry. This interpretation brings us back to the pre-Asimovian world of the Czech play "Rossum's Universal Robots". As you may recall, Mr. Rossum invents and sells robots, which are living, breathing, but non-human workers. Here is a scene from the play where a lecherous factory manager tries to impress a young, female potential customer as he gives a history of Rossum's products:

Manager: So the young Rossum said to himself : A human being. That's something that feels joy, plays the violin, wants too for a walk, and in general requires a lot of things which - which are, in effect, superfluous. ... A gasoline engine has no need for tassels and ornaments, Miss Glory. And manufacturing artificial workers is exactly like manufacturing gasoline engines. Production should be as simple as possible and the product the best for its function. What do you think? Practically speaking, what is the best kind of worker?

Glory: The best? Probably the one who - who - who is honest - and dedicated.

Manager: No, it's the one that's the cheapest. The one with the fewest needs. Young Rossum did invent a worker with the smallest number of needs, but to do so he had to simplify him. He chucked everything not directly related to work, and doing that he virtually rejected the human being and created the Robot. My dear Miss Glory, Robots are not people. They are mechanically more perfect than we are, they have an astounding intellectual capacity, but they have no soul. Oh, Miss Glory, the product of an engineer is technically more refined than the creation of nature.

Glory: It is said that man is the creation of God.

Manager: So much the worse. God had no notion of modern technology. Would you believe that the late young Rossum assumed the role of God?

Frankly, however, this isn't Baum's Tin Woodman. The Tin Woodman was an independent tradesman, not a factory worker. He liked being his own man, and he didn't have enough of the subordinate's sense to know that you don't mouth off to the boss--you hold it in. It was his heart and his pride that did him in, not his willingness to do mindless work at someone else's behest. The Tin Woodman may have no heart, but he is not emotionally heartless. He may not be capable of romantic love--he doesn't have the right parts--but he is still capable of human compassion, a fact that is only confirmed, not inaugurated, when the Wizard gives him a "Kind Heart instead of a Loving Heart."

So, the Tin Woodman has human compassion and other human emotions, he enjoys human company, but he has no sex drive. He does attempt to track down and marry his old sweetheart, but only out of a sense of duty. Is the Tin Woodman a eunuch, a castrated male? He is a fusion of human and machine--a cyborg. Being part human, can he ever be neuter, like the robots from the film "I, Robot," who appear to be born without gender? In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway says,

A cyborg body is not innocent; it was not born in a garden; it does not seek unitary identity and so generate antagonistic dualisms without end (or until the world ends); it takes irony for granted. One is too few, and two is only one possibility. Intense pleasure in skill, machine skill, ceases to be a sin, but an aspect of embodiment. The machine is not an it to be animated, worshipped, and dominated. The machine is us, our processes, an aspect of our embodiment. We can be responsible for machines; they do not dominate or threaten us. We are responsible for boundaries; we are they. Up till now (once upon a time), female embodiment seemed to be given, organic, necessary; and female embodiment seemed to mean skill in mothering and its metaphoric extensions. Only by being out of place could we take intense pleasure in machines, and then with excuses that this was organic activity after all, appropriate to females. Cyborgs might consider more seriously the partial, fluid, sometimes aspect of sex and sexual embodiment. Gender might not be global identity after all, even if it has profound historical breadth and depth.

I'm not positive, but I think she's saying "who knows?" Or perhaps, it's the Tin Woodman who knows, and he's not giving interviews, especially not about sex and gender.

One last comment on the Tin Woodman. When he finally seeks out his old lover, The Tin Woodman encounters a rusted-solid Tin Soldier. The Tin Soldier, formerly Captain Fyter, looks just like the Tin Woodman and has an almost identical story: he fell in love with the same woman, the witch cursed his sword, his sword hacked him to pieces, and Ku-klip patched him up. The worker and the soldier were both betrayed by the tools of their trades, but only after those tools came under the spell of a malevolent power. In our world (in contrast to Oz), losing a limb is a big deal, and there are plenty of working men and women laboring in dangerous occupations where such losses are common. Meat packing, unsurprisingly, is one of the most dangerous occupations -- much more so than police or fire -- and I wouldn't be surprised if logging is pretty high on the list. Of course, the war in Iraq is producing a new crop of men, women, and children who will need prostheses. The Tin Woodman became an Emporer, and the Tin Soldier became an important military officer, but our maimed and disabled men and women remain, for the most part, as anonymous as Oz's munchkin masses.

Robots Elsewhere

I saw "I, Robot" over the weekend and will undoubtedly make some comments about it later. One of the reviewers, I think, pointed out that Asimov's robot stories center on autonomous, mobile thinking machines, but do not include sentient or even especially smart non-mobile computers. I'm sure (well, kind of sure) that Asimov did include smart machines in his later robot novels, but non-robotic machine sentience doesn't exist in his work at all. Yet, a central character in "I, Robot," which was, after all, only "suggested" by Asimov's work, is a very large, sentient, positronic mind called VIKI (oddly, also the name of a humanoid robot being developed in Denmark and there was an apparently-annoying TV show called "Small Wonder" about a robot "girl" named Vicki), which is or runs the central computer for US Robotics. From the present-day perspective, where supercomputers still fill rooms and the most powerful processors are nowhere near mobile, it seems strange that Asimov would reserve sentience to humaniform, mobile machines. On the other hand, for those who believe that intelligence is inherently embodied, that it cannot evolve without involvement in the sensory world, this seems more natural. Stories about the evolution of sentient AIs always (I think) involve at least metaphorical senses and manipulative abilities; e.g., SkyNet in "Termniator" has radar and other input senses, while it can manipulate the world quickly through the deployment of military hardware or more slowly by issuing orders to humans. An interesting (perhaps) point about Viki is that its voice and projected image are feminine, while the voices and features of the independent robots are neuter-to-masculine. Viki is, in a way, the "mother" of the robots, having "given birth" to them out of a partnership with their "father" Dr. Lanning, the roboticist whose suicide is at the center of the film's plot. We also learn, as the film progresses, that Viki is maternal. In fact, she subscribes to an interpretation of the first law of robotics ("A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm") that Asimov eventually called the "zeroth law": "A robot may not injure humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm." I won't talk about how this plays out in the film, but in Asimov's novels there was a continuing debate over what constituted "harm" to humanity, whether any robot or set of robots could reasonably identify harm to humanity, and how much they were willing, able, or entitled to break the other three laws in doing so. (See Rodger Clarke's discussion, which is good. Also, the Isaac Asimov Page of Android World includes discussions disputing the value of the three laws.)

That's all for now ...

P. S. Someone named Kevin contacted me about his robot-related site, "Redcone Robot News: Links, articles, updates, opinions, trends and predictions". The emphasis appears to be on current applications of and developments in robotic technology. These include but are not limited to humaniform robotics.
P.P.S. Here's another review of "I, Robot." This one compares VIKI to HAL.

Ro-bots on film, Ro-bots on film ...

The New York Times has posted another review of I, Robot. This one, by A. O. Scott, is called "The Doodads Are Restless in Chicago." (Yesterday's "Critic's Notebook" story by Edward Rothstein was "For Asimov, Robots Were Friends. Not So for Will Smith.") Scott's line is that we've been warned over and over again that robots are taking over the world, but nobody seems to be taking the threat very seriously. His (?) mistake is that people who take the threat seriously just don't take the movies about the threat seriously. I think.

They Might Be Vacuum Cleaners

Today’s New York Times features a robotic clash – a review of the Will Smith film I, Robot, which opens on Friday, and a review of the iRobot Roomba Discovery, a new $250 robotic vacuum cleaner.

To take the two stories in reverse order, the Discovery isn’t iRobot’s first product. It has already sold something like 500,000 of the original Roomba model vacuum cleaners, according to Times writer William Grimes. But, according to Grimes, the Roomba’s software is based on the software for robotic minesweepers that iRobot (slogan: "Robots for the real world") manufactures for the military. So, the Roomba is one of those marvelous civilian applications of military technology. You know, like the Internet. (Disclaimer: I used to be employed on a salary line half-funded by the Defense Advanced Research Products Agency [DARPA], which also funded most of the hardware and software that went into making what became the original Internet backbone.) Grimes concludes of the Roomba,

In its robotic dreams, it's a cleaning superhero, sent to Earth to seek out dirt and, in military language, terminate it with extreme prejudice. In real life, it's a little more like the superhero's sidekick: eager, ready for action, but prone to get into trouble. You can't help but like it. It tries so hard. But time and again it makes you realize that the real time-saving device, when it comes to cleaning, is a broom and dustpan.

The Roomba may not be anyone's savior, but it's apparently entertaining enough to attract people with time & money to burn. It's not much of a threat to anyone, not to the union janitor earning $15 an hour, not even to the undocumented cleaning woman earning $4 an hour, and certainly not to a hero with the muscles and good looks of Will Smith. However, according to New York Times film critic Edward Rothstein, "For Asimov, Robots Were Friends. Not So for Will Smith." The robots in I, Robot, which is not primarily based on Asimov's robot stories, are apparently not as benign as Roomba. The clip I saw on Letterman last night showed a truckload of robots attacking Smith's car. (The visuals were surprisingly Tron-esque -- I wonder what's up with that.) Asimov did worry that robots were a danger to humanity, but not in the Frankenstein monster run amok mode. Asimov's biggest worry was that humans would become dependent on robots. With smart, flexible, hard-working robots to do all the work, people would become decadent, thoughtless, lifeless, useless fops like old European royalty. (Of course, Asimov doesn't mention the fact that the rich folks who own the robots let the rest of us, who no longer have jobs or land or rights to any of the fruits of the natural world, starve to death. We would rise up, but the rich have robot armies, like in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. I've got to quit now, but remind me to say something later about Vonnegut's optimistic/pessimistic Player Piano.)

By the way, the Wikipedia entry on the band They Might Be Giants reports that

The band takes its name from a 1971 movie starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward (based on the play of the same name written by James Goldman.) In the film, George C. Scott plays Justin Playfair, a man who believes he is Sherlock Holmes; his psychiatrist (last name "Watson") goes along with him in search of Moriarty. Playfair defends Don Quixote's tilting at windmills, saying that the windmills of course were not giants, but thinking they might be shows imagination:

All the best minds used to think the world was flat. But what if it isn't? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what might be, why we'd all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

They might be giants, but then again they might be robotic vacuum cleaners that don't work right unless you pre-clean the room. I guess I'd better find my glasses.