This is an interesting video. A journalist – Amy, speaks with a Robot – Bina48. The conversation on the robot’s side is how you might expect – a little disjointed and prone to resorting to definitions of abstract concepts which shows how far we are from convincing Human Like Artificial intelligence at the moment.
But watching the conversation reveals a number of interesting issues. Firstly – it shows how important the face is that you talk to. Bina the robot looks pretty dishevelled, and it’s / her eyes look empty, not unlike someone who’s been taking illegal substances. This fits well to the distracted nature of her conversation and actually makes the whole effect more convincing. Also interesting is how Amy the journalist reacts when Bina looks her in the eyes and uses her name. This wouldn’t be the case if she was using a keyboard.
When talking with the robot’s creator, Amy is also unsure whether to use ‘it’ of ‘her’ when referring to the robot. In the end they revert to calling it ‘her’. At the end, Amy wonders whether it’s OK to just get up and leave.
These facts all point to how our relations with emerging Artificial Intelligences are likely to be in the future. How should we address and refer to them? Should we feel OK when experiencing real emotional reactions to computer software? Do they experience emotional reactions to us (e.g. getting offended)? I suspect in the end we will think of them and treat them as human if they look and behave human enough, and use the right non-verbal cues. They won’t even need to be perfect human replicas.
towards 2050 