Ready for robots?
A Japanese billionaire unveiled
a robot called Pepper who supposedly reacts to human emotions. The
robot not only perceives that someone is sad or happy or troubled but
also responds appropriately. The robot has been developed in
cooperation with a French firm, Aldebaran. Similar efforts are
underway in the United States. They will sell you a robot to babysit
your children for $300.
A 2012 movie “Robot and
Frank” anticipates these technological innovations but with a
humorous twist. A one time burglar, now old and at times forgetful,
is given a robot to attend to him. The old man trains the robot to be
a splendidly competent cat burglar. Could Pepper do that?
Not surprisingly reactions to
these developments vary a good deal. Some people are appalled. Others
see a large number of opportunities where emotional robots –
mechanical creatures that perceive human emotions and react
appropriately – could do a great deal of good. They could be
babysitters, they might mind children in study hall. If your child is
sick, you don't need to stay home from work. Get the robot to sit
with your feverish child. After you retire and, like
Frank you are becoming forgetful,
and you are lonely and depressed, no problem. Bring in the
empathetic robot to make appropriate clucking noises when you sit in
your chair with tears rolling down your
cheeks as you think of good times long ago.
Personally, the project gives
me the creeps. It reminds me of a movie George Lucas made when he was
still a student, called THX
1138. It
is a science fiction
film depicting a future dictatorship where human beings, heavily
drugged, do work and not much else. Their sexual impulses are
suppressed by drugs. Love between human beings does not exist. At
the end of the day, the
workers may stop off at a therapy booth, which looks suspiciously
like an old phone booth. One can go in and talk about what troubles
one and a sympathetic voice will respond with "tell me more"
or "that must feel really bad." The camera moves back so
that you do not merely see the worker but also the back of the booth.
A tape player is attached. The sympathetic murmurings are random
messages from a tape machine.
The therapy booth is a machine.
It produces sounds that seem appropriate but it does not in any sense
respond
to emotions. Today's robot is a great deal more sophisticated. The
technology is in many ways very impressive. But the robot is not
human.
The robot lacks an inner life
of its own. There is a great deal of difference between responding
appropriately to someone else's emotions and having emotions of one's
own. Human beings, unlike these robots, do not always respond
appropriately. We get tired of whiny children. We feel that all the
children want from us is more affection but they are not giving very
much back and we ourselves also feel isolated and underappreciated.
It is not always
possible to respond
sympathetically to your demented parents about whom you have harbored
ambivalent feelings for much of your life. Some days they just make
you very angry and you yell at them.
The sympathetic robot does not
do that. It is quite saintly. As programmed it will be sympathetic
when you are sad.
It is however not human
sympathy.
That is what makes all this so
creepy. Caretaking and caretakers are in short supply in our society
because it is very difficult to make money off taking care of
children and the elderly. What does not make money tends to be
neglected in our society because making money is our main occupation.
A mechanical babysitter that
costs $300 soon pays for itself. The economic outlook for robots,
currently priced at less than $2000, is quite brilliant for taking
care of mom or dad when they get really old.
It promises to be one more area
of life where we sacrifice our humanity for the sake of making money.
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