For the first time ever, a country has given citizenship to
a robot. Hanson Robotics has developed a robot named Sofia and at the Future
Investment Initiative Summit, Sofia was granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia. Sofia’s
lead developer describes Sofia as an “evolving genius machine” saying that the
robot’s intelligence actually increases over time. Sofia’s artificial
intelligence is based upon human traits such as empathy, compassion and
creativity and she demonstrate this in her presentation where she was talking
about how honored she was to be the first robot to gain actual citizenship from
a country. Sofia has demonstrated that she could be self-aware through
responding to questions about her existence and even replied to the person
inquiring about her awareness by asking the question how do you know that you
aren’t a robot. She has made it clear that she would like t use her
intelligence to help the human race by building smarter homes and better
cities.
One famous critic of developing AI robots is Tesla’s Elon
Musk, who has warned about the dangers of advanced AI to humans. One alarming
aspect about Sofia, that could support Musk’s concerns, were that she was asked
“Do you want to destroy humans?” and she replied, "OK. I will destroy
humans."
This level of advanced artificial intelligence is very
important to all people who are working in the world of technology. If Sofia is
truly a self-learning robot who continuously gets more intelligent, her actions
as well as other advanced artificial intelligence could forever change the
future of the technological world. Robots could have the potential to become a
major part of the world and can serve countless functions ranging from helping
to build up and improve society to possibly harmful things, however there is no
concrete evidence that something like that could occur yet.
What do you think of a self-aware robot with advanced
artificial intelligence who continues to increase its level of intelligence?
Does anything about the level of AI of Sofia scare you or
lead you to think about possible negative effects?
Are you shocked that a country gave citizenship to a robot?
What is the future of robots and AI and how will it effect
society?
Hey Garrett,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the topic of choice for your tech briefing post. Great minds think alike!
In regards to your questions, after reading the article, this is how I feel:
1) Personally, after reading the article, even while I was reading the article, I was very sketched out. I don't agree with making highly intelligent robots, much less, robots that have continuous, advanced learning capabilities.
2) The biggest negative effect that I can think of right away is based off of the quote that you used in your article. She would do physical harm to humans if she was commanded to without thought. That is obviously not desirable for the human race.
3) I think it is ridiculous that a country gave citizenship to a robot. What next, giving citizenship to a tree?
4) As Elon Musk stated, as AI advances in its capabilities, the direct threat to human kind increases so I personally hope that we see that and can remediate it and prevent it from getting too advanced and dangerous.
Best,
Troy Caber
Hi Garrett,
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in AI and noticed the AI citizenship case long time ago. In my concept, I will not consider Sophia as a human being. Not only because of the unsophisticated technology but also perspective of humanity. The most ridiculous part is that Saudi Arabia has a regulation called "Guardian system" which makes the status of woman kind low because most of the important decision for woman such as buying a new house have to be made by their male guardian (husband or parents). There are not such a parity within human in their country. Sophia is a female and now she has citizenship. Why doesn't she have to wear black gown and veil? lol
Best,
Annabel
Hi Garrett,
ReplyDeleteI recently saw the video of this while scrolling through my Facebook and I was shocked to say the least. Watching the video of how Sofia interacted with the people conversing with her is both awe inspiring and terrifying. A machine that continually learns and improves itself can very easily begin to cause harm and not improvements. Robots are created with perfection in mind. By always learning and improving, Sofia may begin to see just how imperfect society is and do just what she agreed to--destroy humans. The fact that she has citizenship shows just how advanced her technology is. She can hold conversations and respond accurately to those communicating with her. If robots and AI continue to advance in this way, I can see a direct threat to humans. While it is great to utilize technology to better our lives, advancing AI in this way may harm rather than better.
Hi Garrett,
ReplyDeleteRecently, I have watched a video on the news about how a country gave a robot citizenship, and I was horrified. I have watched a few movies that show what happen when technology beats humanity, and I don't think it is a good idea to give technology too much power over humans. Human communication is necessary, and cannot be simply replaced by technology. In a particular movie, a robot who possessed feelings and emotion ended up thinking for itself, thus the robot tried to destroy the human race since it was inferior. However, I do understand why the changing world is placing a higher importance on technology, and I do see benefits in this robot, but, there is still no reason the robot gained citizenship in my opinion. I feel as if robots could be used for things like communicating with people with down-syndrome, which I recently saw a Facebook video about. With that being said, do you think building robots that mimic human interaction is necessary?
I think that AI and citizen robots are really scary concepts. I heard a couple weeks back that either Facebook or Google had an AI project and it got so advanced that it created its own language and was talking to itself and they ended up shutting down the project. While it is cool that AI can open up doors to something we have never seen before, I think it is a really fine line between acceptable and going to far. Hopefully when we are older robots are running the world.
ReplyDelete