ROBOTS for EVERYONE
Robots that KNOW where they're going!
Since 1995
WILL
ROBOTS
THE WORLD?
If you envision
THE FUTURE
as a
power struggle
between MAN
and
MACHINE,
try to forget all those SCI-FI
MOVIES
you watched as a kid
and think
again:
Where
is the largest collection of machine intelligence
in
the
world
As a matter of fact, it is under your fingertips at this very moment, unless you're reading this page offline. The Internet is by far the largest collection of intelligence ever assembled in the history of humankind. Yet what are the odds that this vast network of computers will rise up against humanity and decide to control it, sending it distorted images and emails manipulated to its own ends? The fact is that the Internet is a distributed, not central, intelligence. Each of its servers is programmed to meet the needs of the particular organization that maintains it. While servers have communications protocol and some software in common, most are more intertwined with their community of PC's and humans than with each other.
Likewise robots do and will continue to reflect the human and machine groups they belong to as distributed intelligences. While some of the intelligence of robots is associated with the machine, other aspects of robot and computer, unlike humans', can move quickly and easily from place to place. Some aspects can even combine with data or behaviors from other "agents." Thus, highly intelligent robots probably will have less ego identity associated with a particular body or "set membership" than do human beings. Eventually, human intelligence may also escape its ensnarement in biological tissue and be able to move freely across boundaries. To move most aspects of human intelligence would require virtual simulations of various body parts, but we may find that some aspects of human intelligence are also corpus independent. In some yet far distant future combining human and machine intellect, we may find the concept of discrete beings difficult to understand - or it may only apply at a meta-level - but back to today and the reality of our lifetimes.
in Control:
Human
or
Machine?
Suppose a 200-kg robot is heading toward you at top speed. You have no idea why it is doing so, whether it is being driven or operating on its own. In front of you, you have a switch that lets you make one of two choices: to give control of the robot to a stranger sitting 50m away from you or to give the robot total control of its own behaviors. Which do you choose?
If you answered "the human" unequivocably, think again. Suppose the stranger happens to resent all people who look like you. Perhaps this person has no scruples and intends to crush you because you're in the way. Or suppose this person bears no ill intent toward you at all but is totally incompetent at steering robots! Wouldn't you be better off handing control to the robot if you knew that it had been programmed with the well-being of humans in mind?
Deciding where to place control requires knowledge of many properties and states: the intention of both the human and the machine's programming and the ability of both the human and the machine to accomplish the task at hand, just for starters. In many real life interactions between human and machine, these properties and states are unknown
Decides
How to Control
the Controller?
Thus, there remains a practical and pressing question that we must answer: "How do we determine ethical standards and safeguards to regulate behaviors and interactions among the many distributed intelligences in the world – human and machine?" This is not just a hypothetical question. Humanity is and will continue to answer this question through the robots and other intelligent systems we design. It is not only the how of technology that we must master, but the why and the what.
Ultimately, people will decide who is in
control. But which people? And who will control them? To better your
odds, emphasize ethical behavior. The more people behave ethically, the
more likely our robots
will.
Jeanne Dietsch, CEO, MobileRobots Inc
MobileRobots Inc, LLC
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