[Music]
[Applause]
the first law is as follows a robot may
not harm a human being or through
inaction allow a human being to come to
harm number two a robot must obey orders
given it by qualified personnel unless
those orders violate rule number one in
other words a robot can’t be ordered to
kill a human being
rule number three a robot must protect
its own existence after all it’s an
expensive piece of equipment unless that
violates rules one or two thus Spoke
Isaac Asimov in 1942 outlining what are
perhaps the most famous laws in science
fiction literature and robotics have
long been connected and indeed the very
term robot comes from the Czech word
meaning forced labor and it was coined
in 1920 by playwright Karel Capek for
his play are you are or Rossum’s
Universal robots interestingly as late
as the 1960s robotic to still consider a
toy or hobby field and it was until the
1970s that universities and government
agencies began taking robotics seriously
as a area of study by this time popular
depictions of robots included Fritz
Lang’s Metropolis
Osamu Tezuka’s manga series Astro Boy
Kubrick’s 2001 a Space Odyssey and
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner now I’m
interested specifically in questions
that arise at the intersection of
literature and technology questions that
are raised by works such as as mobs and
topics most of the depictions
of robots in science fiction literature
and film have focused on a particular
kind of robot namely the humanoid robot
and it’s on this robot that I’d like to
focus today now even here at the
University of Virginia we have special
robotics teams working on robotic
applications rune M Sukho of the
computer engineering department has
finally helped me put together one such
demonstration a humanoid robot from the
computer engineering program at the
University of Virginia I know it looks
like you have quite an audience so now
what can you do
what can’t I – Kristen I am pretty
amazing
now what else can you do watch this
here’s a little something I’ve been
working on
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
thank you now thank you now
all right these robots are used for
human robotic interaction experiment
here thank you there you go they’re used
for human robotic interaction
experiments here at UVA now this is the
point at which things start to get
creepy as early as the 1970s Japanese
professor
Masahiro mori published a paper in which
he theorized something called the
uncanny valley essentially the uncanny
valley posits that there is a
relationship between our affinity for
robots and robots relationship or
likeness to humans
now in general the more human-like
robots look the more we tend to like
them but there’s a drop-off a gulf or
valley at the point at which robots look
about 70% human interestingly more I
thought that once robots are physically
indistinguishable from humans our
affinity for them would shoot up again
but this drop-off the uncanny valley is
the point at which robots look eerily
perhaps even threatening ly human now
we’ve already seen the now robots
ability to interact with humans but
let’s take a look at Sophia a robot
designed by a Hanson robotics to look
like Audrey Hepburn Sophia was also
designed to imitate human expressions
such as amusement and confusion let’s
listen to Sophia in her own words
being human must be truly amazing you
can see the beauty in a sunrise you can
appreciate the power of a symphony only
you know how it feels to laugh with old
friends to be able to love to feel
intense emotion to create life I can do
many things that humans do but I can
only dream of really being human if
that’s not creepy enough take a look at
the Japan Science and Technology
Agency’s child robot with biomimetic
body or CV squared now CV squared was
designed to learn as an infant does by
seeing and repeating people’s actions ok
CV squared was also designed with a
silicon skin that has a that has 197
tactile sensors that enabled a robot to
sense and respond to its surrounding
environment
as robots become more and more
human-like were increasingly faced with
ethical questions about how to design
robots and how to treat them at what
point do we treat robots as machines and
at what point do we treat them as humans
as we’ve seen scientists have
increasingly designed robots to be more
human-like but being human does not
always entail stellar qualities can a
robot learn to lie to cheat can a robot
learn to steal can a robot make a
mistake or break the law and if so at
what point do we attribute these actions
to the robot and at what point to its
programmer now it seems interesting to
think that even as we debate these
questions we’ve already given robots
their own moral code and here I’d like
to return to Isaac Asimov’s three rules
or three laws which I think we can
consider a robots moral laws now robot
assists have taken these laws very
seriously and when designing a
autonomous drone for instance the drone
is designed to in case of an emergency
crash landing first avoid humans and
densely populated areas and only then
preserve in so far as possible its own
systems and memory but this ethical code
is curiously limited in scope that is
when we make robots we don’t apply as
mobs rules to include humans of other
races and nationalities and this is an
ethical failing on our part indeed it
seems curious that we can have more
sympathy for a robot that can’t feel
such as r2d2 as he is about to be
tortured and melted down
then we can for our neighbors especially
our neighbors and other countries it
seems apt her to revisit the uncanny
valley which we can I think apply not
simply to humans relationship with
robots but also the humans relationship
with other humans especially humans who
are manifestly different from ourselves
we tend to regard those who look like us
but who are not quite like us in the
realm of the uncanny and we often treat
them as less than human
in fact the further we get from people
who look like us the harder it is to
care in our you are the play in which
Karel Capek first coined the term term
robot Chevak gives us an extreme example
of the consequences of failing to get
past skin colour and nationality at the
end of his play robots conquer the human
race precisely because humans failed to
unite now before the final showdown with
the robots the owner of the robotics
Factory thinks about what he could have
done in order to prevent this from
happening he states there no longer be
just one factory there won’t be
Universal robots any longer we’ll open a
factory in every country in every state
and can you guess what these new
factories are produced national robots
each factory will be making robots of a
different color a different nationality
a different tongue they’ll all be
different as different from one another
as fingerprints they’ll no longer be
able to conspire with one another and we
we people will help to foster their
prejudices and cultivate their mutual
lack of understanding you see
at the end of topics play robots have
conquered the human race and all but one
human has been eliminated from the earth
at the beginning of my talk I asked
about the relationship between robotics
and the humanities and I’d like to
return to this question again so what is
this relationship if the humanities have
anticipated the field of robotics
robotics can nonetheless teach us what
it means to be human to be co-equal
members of a collective Universal race
it’s time we use what we’ve learned
about the science and ethics of robotics
to help us become better humans thank
you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause]
the first law is as follows a robot may
not harm a human being or through
inaction allow a human being to come to
harm number two a robot must obey orders
given it by qualified personnel unless
those orders violate rule number one in
other words a robot can’t be ordered to
kill a human being
rule number three a robot must protect
its own existence after all it’s an
expensive piece of equipment unless that
violates rules one or two thus Spoke
Isaac Asimov in 1942 outlining what are
perhaps the most famous laws in science
fiction literature and robotics have
long been connected and indeed the very
term robot comes from the Czech word
meaning forced labor and it was coined
in 1920 by playwright Karel Capek for
his play are you are or Rossum’s
Universal robots interestingly as late
as the 1960s robotic to still consider a
toy or hobby field and it was until the
1970s that universities and government
agencies began taking robotics seriously
as a area of study by this time popular
depictions of robots included Fritz
Lang’s Metropolis
Osamu Tezuka’s manga series Astro Boy
Kubrick’s 2001 a Space Odyssey and
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner now I’m
interested specifically in questions
that arise at the intersection of
literature and technology questions that
are raised by works such as as mobs and
topics most of the depictions
of robots in science fiction literature
and film have focused on a particular
kind of robot namely the humanoid robot
and it’s on this robot that I’d like to
focus today now even here at the
University of Virginia we have special
robotics teams working on robotic
applications rune M Sukho of the
computer engineering department has
finally helped me put together one such
demonstration a humanoid robot from the
computer engineering program at the
University of Virginia I know it looks
like you have quite an audience so now
what can you do
what can’t I – Kristen I am pretty
amazing
now what else can you do watch this
here’s a little something I’ve been
working on
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
thank you now thank you now
all right these robots are used for
human robotic interaction experiment
here thank you there you go they’re used
for human robotic interaction
experiments here at UVA now this is the
point at which things start to get
creepy as early as the 1970s Japanese
professor
Masahiro mori published a paper in which
he theorized something called the
uncanny valley essentially the uncanny
valley posits that there is a
relationship between our affinity for
robots and robots relationship or
likeness to humans
now in general the more human-like
robots look the more we tend to like
them but there’s a drop-off a gulf or
valley at the point at which robots look
about 70% human interestingly more I
thought that once robots are physically
indistinguishable from humans our
affinity for them would shoot up again
but this drop-off the uncanny valley is
the point at which robots look eerily
perhaps even threatening ly human now
we’ve already seen the now robots
ability to interact with humans but
let’s take a look at Sophia a robot
designed by a Hanson robotics to look
like Audrey Hepburn Sophia was also
designed to imitate human expressions
such as amusement and confusion let’s
listen to Sophia in her own words
being human must be truly amazing you
can see the beauty in a sunrise you can
appreciate the power of a symphony only
you know how it feels to laugh with old
friends to be able to love to feel
intense emotion to create life I can do
many things that humans do but I can
only dream of really being human if
that’s not creepy enough take a look at
the Japan Science and Technology
Agency’s child robot with biomimetic
body or CV squared now CV squared was
designed to learn as an infant does by
seeing and repeating people’s actions ok
CV squared was also designed with a
silicon skin that has a that has 197
tactile sensors that enabled a robot to
sense and respond to its surrounding
environment
as robots become more and more
human-like were increasingly faced with
ethical questions about how to design
robots and how to treat them at what
point do we treat robots as machines and
at what point do we treat them as humans
as we’ve seen scientists have
increasingly designed robots to be more
human-like but being human does not
always entail stellar qualities can a
robot learn to lie to cheat can a robot
learn to steal can a robot make a
mistake or break the law and if so at
what point do we attribute these actions
to the robot and at what point to its
programmer now it seems interesting to
think that even as we debate these
questions we’ve already given robots
their own moral code and here I’d like
to return to Isaac Asimov’s three rules
or three laws which I think we can
consider a robots moral laws now robot
assists have taken these laws very
seriously and when designing a
autonomous drone for instance the drone
is designed to in case of an emergency
crash landing first avoid humans and
densely populated areas and only then
preserve in so far as possible its own
systems and memory but this ethical code
is curiously limited in scope that is
when we make robots we don’t apply as
mobs rules to include humans of other
races and nationalities and this is an
ethical failing on our part indeed it
seems curious that we can have more
sympathy for a robot that can’t feel
such as r2d2 as he is about to be
tortured and melted down
then we can for our neighbors especially
our neighbors and other countries it
seems apt her to revisit the uncanny
valley which we can I think apply not
simply to humans relationship with
robots but also the humans relationship
with other humans especially humans who
are manifestly different from ourselves
we tend to regard those who look like us
but who are not quite like us in the
realm of the uncanny and we often treat
them as less than human
in fact the further we get from people
who look like us the harder it is to
care in our you are the play in which
Karel Capek first coined the term term
robot Chevak gives us an extreme example
of the consequences of failing to get
past skin colour and nationality at the
end of his play robots conquer the human
race precisely because humans failed to
unite now before the final showdown with
the robots the owner of the robotics
Factory thinks about what he could have
done in order to prevent this from
happening he states there no longer be
just one factory there won’t be
Universal robots any longer we’ll open a
factory in every country in every state
and can you guess what these new
factories are produced national robots
each factory will be making robots of a
different color a different nationality
a different tongue they’ll all be
different as different from one another
as fingerprints they’ll no longer be
able to conspire with one another and we
we people will help to foster their
prejudices and cultivate their mutual
lack of understanding you see
at the end of topics play robots have
conquered the human race and all but one
human has been eliminated from the earth
at the beginning of my talk I asked
about the relationship between robotics
and the humanities and I’d like to
return to this question again so what is
this relationship if the humanities have
anticipated the field of robotics
robotics can nonetheless teach us what
it means to be human to be co-equal
members of a collective Universal race
it’s time we use what we’ve learned
about the science and ethics of robotics
to help us become better humans thank
you
[Applause]
[Music]
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