US gov in Bill Gates inspired robot probe
Is sex with robots legal if they aren't turned on?
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Robots, robots everywhere. That's the way of the future, according to US legislators. And American robotics-policy issues need a damn good probing.
Congressmen Mike Doyle (Democrat, Pennsylvania) and the superbly-named Congressman Zach Wamp (Republican, Tennessee) announced the formation of a cross-party Congressional Robotics Caucus on Wednesday.
"Today, [robots are] being used [for a whole lot of stuff]," said Doyle.
"It is important that...Congress familiarize itself with... this first great technology of the 21st century."
"[Blah blah blah] robotics is astounding," added Wamp.
"Bill Gates [sez] the robotics industry is [like] the computer business 30 years ago...[Having a think] now will enable Congress to get a better grasp... and help ensure that the United States can maintain global dominance leadership..."
(What the Congressmen really said can be read here, but trust us, our version is better and much shorter.)
A preliminary list of robotopics which will be furrowing the brows of Washington politicos from September is actually fist-gnawingly dull, but fortunately not yet final. It might also include, we submit, some of the burning droid-related issues of the day, such as:
1) Should military kill-bots be allowed to attack humans without permission?
2) If not, is it OK if the robot is actually controlled by a live human brain (or severed head) in a jar? Should the source of the brain tissue be of concern (eg, harvested from condemned homicidal maniac versus retrieved from slain hero cop)?
3) Noted robotics boffin Henrik Christensen, of the European Robotics Research Network (EURON) and now at Georgia Tech, said a year ago that "people are going to be having sex with robots within five years". Presumably that's within four years now. Is that OK? If it is, does the robot have to, um, automatically submit to the filthy lusts of its human overlord, or can it say no? Does it matter if the robot is turned on at the time?
4) And so on.
Robota. "A non-threatening robot."
As an aside, EURON's Robot of the Week is "Robota...a family of mini humanoid robots...which can engage in complex interaction with humans... Robota uses the imitation game to help autistic children learn to interact with a non-threatening robot." Then they have this pic:
For goodness sake, Doyle and Wamp. Get with the program, so to speak. This one could be a real biggy. In four years' time, you could be as famous as Sarbanes and Oxley. People purchasing their vibrating pleasure droids could be looking for the "fully Wamp-Doyle compliant*" sticker, if this thing gets handled properly.
Throw us a bone, here. Etc. ®
*Always a good word to read on a pleasure robot's packaging, we submit.
COMMENTS
Re: convergence
> They spend 99% of their time in the pursuit of food, sex or shelter,
> with things like money, property or power just fluid forms of the former.
> The only thing more sophisticated about modern humans are their tools.
So what *doesn't* count as a "fluid form" of these?
There are a lot of recreational activities that have nothing to do with food, sex or shelter. And those recreational activities typically use more than 1% of an average person's time. (Television. Drugs. Movies. Games and sports.)
If you argue that they count as "mind food", I'll agree, but that only leads to the argument that anything enjoyable counts as "mind food"... and if you're doing stuff you don't enjoy ("work") in pursuit of activities you don't enjoy then you really, really need to have a close look at your life.
Convergence v2
Isn't it more likely that as robots and AI become more powerful they will exhibit the same "failings" as human beings. after all it's the nature of the human mind to be flexible, re-programmable on the fly and a very good analytical engine seeing patterns in everything that if we want machines to do the same we'll end up with machines that get tired (see neural net back-wash), get things wrong, assume information from patterns that aren't real and pick up cultural mis-information.
In fact going back to Futurama: Bender: "I need a calculator.", Fry: "But you are a calculator", Bender: "I mean a Good calculator."
convergence
Doing a search on Google is not thinking. The problem with the convergence path is that humans today are no more sophisticated in their thinking that humans of 100,000 years ago. They spend 99% of their time in the pursuit of food, sex or shelter, with things like money, property or power just fluid forms of the former. The only thing more sophisticated about modern humans are their tools.
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