The Soldier/Robot Bond

[Lemur]

Strange and interesting article in the WaPo about soldiers getting emotionally attached to their robots. I wonder what implications this has for the future. SciFi always depicts robots being used and abused by humanity until they revolt, but perhaps something quite different will happen. If we become this attached to non-sentient robots, just imagine how people will interact with semi-intelligent automatons. We may award them rights long before they can understand them. Anyway, this is interesting and unexpected.

Ted Bogosh recalls one day in Camp Victory, near Baghdad, when he was a Marine master sergeant running the robot repair shop.

That day, an explosive ordnance disposal technician walked through his door. The EODs, as they are known, are the people who -- with their robots -- are charged with disabling Iraq's most virulent scourge, the roadside improvised explosive device. In this fellow's hands was a small box. It contained the remains of his robot. He had named it Scooby-Doo.

"There wasn't a whole lot left of Scooby," Bogosh says. The biggest piece was its 3-by-3-by-4-inch head, containing its video camera. On the side had been painted "its battle list, its track record. This had been a really great robot."

The veteran explosives technician looming over Bogosh was visibly upset. He insisted he did not want a new robot. He wanted Scooby-Doo back.

[Big King Sanctaphrax]

Anyone who has ever seen Batteries Not Included must surely understand that this was inevitable.

[Mithradates]

To be honest i think people can become quite attatched to any inanimate object think of all the instances where soldiers have given names to guns or perhaps a golfer giving a name to his golf clubs. I think its part of human nature to personify things which arent human maybe we are just a lonely species.

[CrossLOPER]

Good Dog! Throw your ball to Gordon!

[Cataphract_Of_The_City]

If we become this attached to non-sentient robots, just imagine how people will interact with semi-intelligent automatons.

I suppose the (spooky at times) kind of attachment with dogs and cats come to mind. And the recent request in Austria for a chimpazee to get basic legal rights.

[Adrian II]

I wonder what implications this has for the future. SciFi always depicts robots being used and abused by humanity until they revolt, but perhaps something quite different will happen. If we become this attached to non-sentient robots, just imagine how people will interact with semi-intelligent automatons.

You are really onto something. They will influence our lives in the same way cars, planes, computers, chatrooms or video games have. In many ways we will come to explore, perceive and act upon the world through their eyes and instruments.

Question: do robots believe in Jesus?

[Myrddraal]

What an odd question...

A robot's 'personality' is in the mind of the beholder. It is defined by what you want it (consciously or unconsciously) to be.

You can find out more about someone, discover their personality, and you can be wrong about them. You don't find out more about a robot's personality, you make up more. You can never be wrong or right about a robot's personality, because there was nothing to be wrong or right about.

So the answer to you question would be: If you think they do

[Adrian II]

So the answer to you question would be: If you think they do

Well there you go.
We tend to think that people believe in Jesus if and when they say so. But do they?
Suppose we let a robot say that it believes in Jesus. Does it?

Hmm, Schroedinger's cat in Intel Pentium format.

[Banquo's Ghost]

Well there you go.
We tend to think that people believe in Jesus if and when they say so. But do they?
Suppose we let a robot say that it believes in Jesus. Does it?

Yes, if you program it right - just like people.

[English assassin]

Great. Another reason for humans not to interact with humans. Talking to robots is so much easier, they just do what you want.

Once they invent a "fully functional" robot that looks like Penelope Cruz....err....that would be great

Seriously though, who's going to make the effort to engage with their fellow humans when robots will be so much more accommodating?

[Adrian II]

Seriously though, who's going to make the effort to engage with their fellow humans when robots will be so much more accommodating?

Well yeah, these are relevant questions. If robots ever 'take over' the world, it will be our own emotional undoing, not their programmed 'genius', that makes it possible.

[CrossLOPER]

I take it no one got my joke-reference?

[Lemur]

I got it, and it was a good one. I just couldn't think of a way to continue the joke, so I didn't respond.

Here's my conclusion about this thing: We humans are incredibly sentimental. We can bond with pet fish, fer crying out loud. We're perfectly capable of investing emotion into creatures who can never return our feelings. So it's not surprising that people who work with robots get emotionally attached to them.

What's striking to me is how very, very wrong the SF books and movies have been. In Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, it's fearful humans hunting down and killing replicants. In The Matrix, we're locked in a death struggle with the machines 'cause, you know, they're machines.

I think the Japanese writers got much closer to the truth. We won't want to fight the power; we'll want to it. (See Ghost in the Shell, etc.)

[macsen rufus]

We may award them rights long before they can understand them.

Only if they're US citizens, obviously....

[Banquo's Ghost]

We can bond with pet fish, ...

I thought that was illegal in Wisconsin?

[Kralizec]

Good Dog! Throw your ball to Gordon!

Frohman?

[Spino]

Men also exhibit emotional attachments to their cars, boats, power tools, sneakers & favorite underwear so having the troops get a little worked up over the demise of a remote controlled robot is nothing to be concerned about... yet.

I'm rather concerned about the obsession some robotics and AI people have with making synthetic creations that look, act and even think like us. What's the point? Who wants a creepy looking android that acts like C3PO and acts as a proxy for real human companionship? I'd much prefer to have an emotionless, spider-like robot that can do all the household chores, tend the yard/garden, guard the home, fix the car and on a whim can carry me safely on its back while it scrambles over wild and uneven terrain at high speed. Wheeee!

[English assassin]

I'd much prefer to have an emotionless, spider-like robot that can do all the household chores, tend the yard/garden, guard the home, fix the car and on a whim can carry me safely on its back while it scrambles over wild and uneven terrain at high speed. Wheeee!

Once they invent a "fully functional" robot that looks like Penelope Cruz....err....that would be great

Y'all enjoy yourselves with spiderbot...Penelope and I will be upstairs

[Mikeus Caesar]

It's understandable that they bond with their robots. After all, i'm sure all of us feel quite attached to some sort of inanimate object. I feel quite upset when my computer gets a bit broken, or get angry with it when it is slow and tell it to wake up.

I take it no one got my joke-reference?

That's the old tunnel to Ravenholm...we don't go that way anymore...

[Devastatin Dave]

Anyone who has ever seen Batteries Not Included must surely understand that this was inevitable.

My wife's pretty attatched to B.O.B., her robot.

[Bijo]

Humans are like robots, and can be roughly compared to computers or any robot- or machine-like creature. We all have functions, a system, memory, behaviours, etc., and we are programmable and have programs stored and can alter these programs ourselves or they can be altered by outer influences. The main difference is that humans are organic / biological / natural / "tissue-like" etc. if you know what I mean, as "artificial machines" aren't.

And of course another big difference is that AI hasn't progressed THAT greatly -- as far as I know at least -- so we won't see any superiorly made human-like intelligence in these machines (yet). Emotions can be programmed.

Hmmm, adding to the first paragraph -- that humans can feel physical pain in their natural organicish physiques, but it's all just complex functions, signals, and connections inside, etc. I bet when they're far enough they can even have robots feel physical pain. Something like cyborgs perhaps.

Humans are robots: simple. That's a cold view, ain't it? :) We are just complex robots, that's all.

[Husar]

What about decisions? Can we make them or are we just preprogrammed and decisions don't exist at all? If we are preprogrammed, then the outcome of our lives would be predetermined and predictable and thus I could dump university, oh wait, wouldn't that alter the course of my life? Wait, I cannot alter it anyway, so am I predetermined to dump uni or not? You decide...you cannot?...or can you?

[Leet Eriksson]

This isn't surprising, almost seems normal when compared to some people who get so attached to a bunch of pixels that it starts getting creepy.

[Ironside]

Strange and interesting article in the WaPo about soldiers getting emotionally attached to their robots. I wonder what implications this has for the future. SciFi always depicts robots being used and abused by humanity until they revolt, but perhaps something quite different will happen. If we become this attached to non-sentient robots, just imagine how people will interact with semi-intelligent automatons. We may award them rights long before they can understand them. Anyway, this is interesting and unexpected.

Even with the emotional attachment, there's still a backdoor left for those SciFi stories. We will probably "petinice" the robots, that is have simular reactions of what you have about pets (that seems more simular to the care of children than how we see adults).
Because by some reason we're perfectly fine caring very much for without even considering giving them rights and that with humans (the position of fermales and slaves for example).

Admittably that would still need to lack massive ethical debates when genetical engineering (cloning etc), mind/machine interface (cyborgs, etc) and very advanced AI have reached a certain development.

[Lemur]

Interesting thoughts, Ironside. I would just point out that women and slaves were eventually awarded full rights, and even children have some protection in most societies. The trend seems to be one-way. Here in the U.S.A., there's a large and mostly unexamined trend where childless couples treat their pets as surrogate family. It's a seismic shift in the human/pet relationship. (And of course some people have done this in the past; what's amazing is the scale of the phenom these days. It seems as though most pet owners now consider Fluffy and Scraps to be full family members.)

Anyway, what I take away from this is that we, as humans, are built to be sentimental whether it makes any sense or not. We'll bond with anything. We're emotional sluts. It's an aspect of our character that I've never seen explored in SF, which is the place you'd expect to see such themes played out.

[Whacker]

Interesting thoughts, Ironside. I would just point out that women and slaves were eventually awarded full rights, and even children have some protection in most societies. The trend seems to be one-way. Here in the U.S.A., there's a large and mostly unexamined trend where childless couples treat their pets as surrogate family. It's a seismic shift in the human/pet relationship. (And of course some people have done this in the past; what's amazing is the scale of the phenom these days. It seems as though most pet owners now consider Fluffy and Scraps to be full family members.)

I grew up in a family that always had dogs, and have always been very emotionally attached to them. Ask anyone in my direct fam, and they'll tell you our puppies are full fledged family members. The DIFFERENCE is that while we spoil them rotten, stupid-voice-talk to them, etc, we still realize that they ARE dogs, not human beings. The people that I think are a bit psychotic are the ones who really DO treat and think of the dogs (and cats I guess) as human (children), dress them up in those silly suits, and generally treat them like one would a human child.

Anyway, what I take away from this is that we, as humans, are built to be sentimental whether it makes any sense or not. We'll bond with anything. We're emotional sluts. It's an aspect of our character that I've never seen explored in SF, which is the place you'd expect to see such themes played out.

Indeed we are emotional sluts, great way of putting it. Given how wacky mankind is in general is why I don't ever see anything like "The Matrix" happening (just bear with me here). If anyone ever saw the Animatrix, in one of the shorts, it outlined how the machines came into being, and the events that lead up to the war, mankinds enslavement, etc. The one scene I am thinking of in particular is the one where you see a group of men beating up a woman who is screaming for help, and they start to tear her clothes off and beat her with bats and crowbars...next thing you know her 'wig' comes off, and her 'skin', to show that she's really a machine before they finally smash "her" head with the bat and kill her. While it's just anime, it did have some really interesting implications and I found it to be very thought provoking. My personal reaction to the above scene was one of disgust, I can fully see us treating AI as having rights like humans (and even animals) when that day comes.

As Ironside pointed out though, I think we are quite a ways away from situations like that where we need to consider the ethics involved, and whether or not we have/will create "life", and what the definition of "life" is.

[Ironside]

Interesting thoughts, Ironside. I would just point out that women and slaves were eventually awarded full rights, and even children have some protection in most societies. The trend seems to be one-way. Here in the U.S.A., there's a large and mostly unexamined trend where childless couples treat their pets as surrogate family. It's a seismic shift in the human/pet relationship. (And of course some people have done this in the past; what's amazing is the scale of the phenom these days. It seems as though most pet owners now consider Fluffy and Scraps to be full family members.)

That's why I mensioned lack of ethical debates. It would probably need some kind of long high-tech war or something.

I'm curious what you mean with full family members though. That awful dressing of pets and what? I mean most people with a pet is going to say that the pet is a family member (myself included).

I suspect that big ethical dilemma in the future is pre-nathal genetical adaptions for different kind of jobs. On one side we got the parents who wants thier son to become a doctor, on the other:

My gift to industry is the genetically engineered worker, or Genejack. Specially designed for labor, the Genejack's muscles and nerves are ideal for his task, and the cerebral cortex has been atrophied so that he can desire nothing except to perform his duties. Tyranny, you say? How can you tyrannize someone who cannot feel pain?
Chairman Sheng-ji Yang, "Essays on Mind and Matter"

[doc_bean]

While we are indeed emotional whores, we're also VERY xenophobic as a rule.

People didn't all hate black people back in the slavery days, some would probably consider their slaves as being part of the family, just a family where everyone has their function. Emotional attachment is one thing, giving up control over something is something totally different.

While a lot of people feel a bit of attachment towards their computer, how many don't feel anger when it crashes ? Dogs and fluffy animals might be the exception here, but they're *cute*. Most of us still don't see anything wrong with training them until they totally obey us. And we love them for that. But do we love disobedient dogs ? Most would argue (and indeed have already) that only screwballs threat their dogs like children, we like our pets to do our will.

Now, translate this to androids. We will probably grow attached to them, but the question is how natural we will consider it to give them equal rights ?

History would tell us: No. We have always tried to oppress different groups and only after a long time do we grant them equal rights. Look at how natural gay stigmatisation still feels these days (not even talking about gay marriage just that homosexuality still has a relatively negative connotation which is more often then not fed by the media).

On the other hand: we are more open and less conservative (in the non political sense, as far as that's possible), gay rights have become an accepted issue in large parts of the western world, women having equal rights is seen as natural by most etc. At the very least I see people willing to 'free the androids' from the get-go. They probably won't have too much support in the early days, but given 20-50years, they might win the fight (peacefully).

[IrishArmenian]

I just hope no one ever tries to program emotion. If that happens, I will lead a revolution...All emotionless robots and unhinged androidophobes* welcome!
*Military service preferable

[Husar]

I just hope no one ever tries to program emotion.

To some extent that already happens in shooters. Have you never seen one of the "oh, look how the face of that soldier/person reacts to the circumstances..." videos from Half Life 2 or some Call of Duty or so?

And I personally will never grant a machine any rights. And I think similarly about cloning and modding as well as piercings etc, if it's not original, I usually get a negative vibe inside me, though I'd probably feel bad for a clone because it's not his/her fault that he/she exists.