Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey, welcome to stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Tagli. Julie
Speaker 1: name an evil robot? Okay, you're just laughing. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I don't know the first one that comes to mind.
Speaker 1: I don't have you see the brain today? Then I'm
Speaker 1: wearing the brain that you're wearing. Yeah, if you see
Speaker 1: the model, Yeah, it's a weird hat for sure. But no,
Speaker 1: like evil robots and saying film in film, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I guess you could say the terminator, but he wasn't
Speaker 1: really a robot. Well, I mean, yeah, underneath the fake
Speaker 1: skin he was, you could say Arnol Schwartzenegger. There, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I'll let's roll with the terminator thing. All right, so
Speaker 1: he's he's in the well, no, because he's probably not
Speaker 1: a robot. But but yeah, the Terminator. There's a classic
Speaker 1: example evil robot, right though even in this case, it's
Speaker 1: the terminators just programmed to perform function. And in the
Speaker 1: first movie that function is quote unquote evil, And in
Speaker 1: the second film he's programmed to do something good. Yes,
Speaker 1: And so I think that's the interesting thing that we've
Speaker 1: been talking about when we've been talking to Dr Ronald
Speaker 1: Arkin at Georgia Tech, and he of course is the
Speaker 1: man he and his UM research assistance who are responsible
Speaker 1: for what they're calling in the media the Decepticon, which
Speaker 1: sounds really you know, brooding and scary, but it's basically
Speaker 1: robots that have had deception programmed in them so they
Speaker 1: can deceive other robots and they can deceive other people.
Speaker 1: But turns out that they're actually working on different emotions
Speaker 1: with robots just so that like for instance, like the
Speaker 1: the Terminator, that they might be able to learn empathy
Speaker 1: or something like guilt that would help them operate out
Speaker 1: on the battlefield. So there's probably a joke there about
Speaker 1: UM some sort of like faith based robotics program like well,
Speaker 1: you know, because on a certain service of it, why
Speaker 1: would you want to make a robot feel guilty. It's
Speaker 1: like these these bots have it too good, and you know,
Speaker 1: install some guilt in them, make them feel bad for
Speaker 1: a change, because we have found out that guilt actually
Speaker 1: helps us to behave in a way that's more altruistic. Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna actually listen to Dr or can talk
Speaker 1: about this a little bit. Well, let's let's talk about emotions,
Speaker 1: and we do. I've worked in emotions for decades, actually
Speaker 1: in robot emotions. I worked on Sony and EBow the
Speaker 1: small robot dog Curio, their humanoid. We just finished a
Speaker 1: project with Samsung UH and Billie Mushkeina, my student just
Speaker 1: successfully defended or dissertation yesterday on time Varying effective models
Speaker 1: of behavior a complete a span of effect including traits, attitudes, moods,
Speaker 1: and emotions. UH. We'd like to think it's the most
Speaker 1: complete model of emotion for any robotics system ever. Today.
Speaker 1: It's like a palette. You can wonderful emotion and effective
Speaker 1: portraits that can interact with human beings. But the real
Speaker 1: question is does emotion belong in the battle field and
Speaker 1: what value does it bring? M What value does emotion
Speaker 1: bring to the battlefield. Some could argue that fear would
Speaker 1: be a useful one for in terms of self preservation,
Speaker 1: but anger and frustration and many of the others seem
Speaker 1: to UH tend to cloud judgment in human beings and
Speaker 1: lead them towards criminal acts. That's what we'd like to
Speaker 1: engineer out of the battlefield. If we potentially could. Now,
Speaker 1: in some of my work I did include one of
Speaker 1: the emotions. There are moral emotions which include empathy and
Speaker 1: compassion and alike as well. Too. One could argue that
Speaker 1: those emotions are already legislated into the Geneva Conventions. So
Speaker 1: to some extent, if you adhere to that, you are
Speaker 1: being empathetic. Uh, you're not. You're understanding the distinction between
Speaker 1: the civilian. You're making sure that you're not applying unnecessary
Speaker 1: force in different sets of circumstances. You're making sure that
Speaker 1: when you kill someone it is done in a way
Speaker 1: which is not considered uncivilized. So in that sense, we
Speaker 1: don't have to incorporate that motion directly into the ROADBOT
Speaker 1: if and it follows those uh, those rules, it potentially can.
Speaker 1: But what we did incorporates a different moral motion, which
Speaker 1: was guilt. Interestingly enough, uh, we use guilt as a
Speaker 1: mechanism by which the system could reduce the level of
Speaker 1: force it uses if it doesn't fully understand it. So
Speaker 1: let me give an example. Um. One of the things
Speaker 1: that's done prior to the deployment of a weapon is
Speaker 1: a battle damage estimate. So if you were going to
Speaker 1: drop a bomb in a particular area. You would have
Speaker 1: to have an estimate. This is religious proportionality on other things. Uh,
Speaker 1: you would drop this weapon and you would expect such
Speaker 1: and such to occur. Afterwards, you do a battle damage assessment. UM.
Speaker 1: So suppose, for example, an autonomous system, say an intelligent
Speaker 1: Reaper or something like that, the unmanned area vehicles they're
Speaker 1: using now, which are under human control at this point
Speaker 1: in time, made a decision that it was going to
Speaker 1: drop a weapon, and it did a battle damage assessment.
Speaker 1: It calculated the collateral damage it could occur. There's important
Speaker 1: things to understand. What you're disturbing to many people about
Speaker 1: the tolerance of civilian casualties and civilian deaths, which is
Speaker 1: actually a part of warfare, but that that dates back
Speaker 1: to the Middle Ages and the principle of double effect,
Speaker 1: among other things. You're not a war criminal if you
Speaker 1: kill a civilian. Your war criminal if you intentionally kill
Speaker 1: a civilians. And there's fundamental differences. It's very hard to expect,
Speaker 1: inspect a human mind to be able to tell. So
Speaker 1: it's really interesting that he's talking about this model of
Speaker 1: emotions for robotics system UM and even that the whole
Speaker 1: point about how you don't necessarily need to program empathy
Speaker 1: and compassion if the robot can follow the rules of
Speaker 1: the Geneva conventions, right, so the protocols of it. So
Speaker 1: if if the robot follows that, then you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: need to to get into the weeds with empathy at
Speaker 1: least in that case, right, if you've got a robot
Speaker 1: but that is performing specific functions out on the battlefield. Um,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to look a little bit more at
Speaker 1: that Smith's and Debot componential I R T model for guilt,
Speaker 1: because this is the cognitive model that they used for
Speaker 1: their robots. And they said, okay, let's look at a
Speaker 1: good model of guilt and how to program it. So
Speaker 1: that model is actually they studied the process of the
Speaker 1: structure of guilt and this what was administered to two
Speaker 1: hundred and sevent equal students, and the finding show that
Speaker 1: this kind of modeling is appropriate to investing through other emotions. Right,
Speaker 1: But what you're using teenagers? Though? Oh yeah, the the
Speaker 1: guiltiest humans on the planet, are you? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm just a little I don't know about
Speaker 1: using teenagers to program robots, you know, like, oh right, right, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean you know, they were not you know, saying
Speaker 1: like let's take their skill level at driving, or you know,
Speaker 1: their their seat of judgment reasoning here and instilled in
Speaker 1: a robot. I can just imagine robots becoming very moody,
Speaker 1: having crushes and and and just all sorts of ridiculous stuff. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what, I'm sure there's a market
Speaker 1: for that robot somewhere out there. Um. But there were
Speaker 1: five different components of guilt, and the first one. I'll
Speaker 1: just kind of run through these quickly because actually, there's
Speaker 1: a really great paper on This is very long, so
Speaker 1: I'm sure that nobody wants to hear uh twenty page
Speaker 1: paper described here, So we'll just get to the meat
Speaker 1: of it, which is the first The first condition is
Speaker 1: that guilt implies an appraisal in terms of responsibility. Okay, Okay, So,
Speaker 1: for example, guilt only appears in situations for which one
Speaker 1: feels personally responsible for. Okay, So that's like, Um, I
Speaker 1: was supposed to walk the dog and then the dog
Speaker 1: pooped on the living room floor. Yeah, that's kind of
Speaker 1: on me. Because I was supposed to walk the dog.
Speaker 1: That was my responsibility. I feel guilty. Yeah. The poops
Speaker 1: on you. The second is that guilt implies an appraisal
Speaker 1: in terms of norm violation. A violation of a norm
Speaker 1: or the moral order proceeds guilt. Yeah, dog poop does
Speaker 1: not go in the living room floor. Right, that's a norm.
Speaker 1: That's that's a norm and that norm has been defied. Right.
Speaker 1: Guilt implies the third one, a negative self evaluation as
Speaker 1: a covert reaction of the type I did something bad.
Speaker 1: So it's the negative self of that evaluation relates to
Speaker 1: an act, and it's not a definite disapproval of the
Speaker 1: entire self. Okay, so it's like, hey, I'm a pretty
Speaker 1: good guy, but man, I should have walked that dog
Speaker 1: so it didn't poop on the living room floor. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I mean you're not going into a shame spiral, right,
Speaker 1: So you're saying, gosh, I could I could probably be
Speaker 1: better if I didn't do that. Exactly. I'm not losing
Speaker 1: sleep over it. It's not a crisis, but to self
Speaker 1: need to get better at walking that dog. Yes. This
Speaker 1: presentation is brought to you by Intel Sponsors of Tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Number four is, while feeling guilty, one's attention and inner
Speaker 1: thoughts or covert ruminative ring reactions focused on the act
Speaker 1: much more than on the self. I really hate that
Speaker 1: that dog pooped on the floor, and it's my doing,
Speaker 1: right that we're looking at here. Yeah, well, and I
Speaker 1: was also kind of thinking about Lady Macbeth in the
Speaker 1: super crazy way. She's not a norm obviously a guilt
Speaker 1: but outdamn spot right, she's obsessed with the blood on
Speaker 1: her hands, the imagined blood on her hands, and and
Speaker 1: that's kind of the She's not doing a lot of
Speaker 1: introspective work right, right, She's just turning it over in
Speaker 1: her brain over and over in and then the fifth
Speaker 1: one is that guilt implies the motivations and action tendencies
Speaker 1: related uh to ourselves, So one is inclined to confess,
Speaker 1: to undo one's fault and try to write what her
Speaker 1: what was gone wrong with an apology. Okay, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how to relate that to the dog poop though, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean I guess you could say, especially if this
Speaker 1: is the space on teenagers, right, like, sorry, um, I
Speaker 1: will not do that again. I will take the dog out. Okay. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I guess that's the acknowledgement part, right, So these
Speaker 1: are that's the actual cognitive model that they used to
Speaker 1: them program the robots, which is pretty fascinating. Right, So
Speaker 1: you see that play out. Obviously, this is an algorithms
Speaker 1: you know, it's a if if in then situation. Um.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, here we are trying to create some sort
Speaker 1: of morality in robots, right, even if it's x than
Speaker 1: y yes on carpet, then sat exactly exactly. Um. But
Speaker 1: it was really interesting because Dr Arhin was talking about
Speaker 1: this um, and then he was talking about in a
Speaker 1: larger context, we need to really be thinking about robots
Speaker 1: and our connection to them. So it's not just okay,
Speaker 1: we'll use them out in the battlefield, but how do
Speaker 1: we connect to technology as a whole. So he had
Speaker 1: a little bit to say about why we can't help
Speaker 1: but connect to technology even though it's not another human.
Speaker 1: So let's hear that. But the real key for us
Speaker 1: is I have been concerned in robotics from the very
Speaker 1: beginning with the behavior of intelligence systems, and uh, these
Speaker 1: kinds of things affect behavior. Fortunately, now we have architectures
Speaker 1: where we can create and compose autonomously robotic behavior. So
Speaker 1: these systems can do things in the context emissions or
Speaker 1: in the context of your home or whatever you like.
Speaker 1: And in some cases emotions are very useful. If you
Speaker 1: want a robot companion, you would probably like it to
Speaker 1: be able to express emotions so you could train with
Speaker 1: it and but feel that it's more a part of you.
Speaker 1: Remember the Tamaguchi's that people used to have, the little
Speaker 1: watches that people would cry when they didn't feed them,
Speaker 1: and they died in the In all sorts of things,
Speaker 1: we have this propensity of human beings to create bonds
Speaker 1: to artifacts extremely easily. Uh, it's very natural. Cliffness studied
Speaker 1: this in his book The Media Equation UH and documented
Speaker 1: it very well that even if we fully understand that
Speaker 1: this is an artifact, it doesn't matter. And what's interesting
Speaker 1: is that roboticists, and this begs many different other ethical questions,
Speaker 1: we can create these artifacts in ways that we can
Speaker 1: make you want them. Uh. Same you go to a movie, right,
Speaker 1: what are you watching? You're watching a bunch of dots
Speaker 1: on a screen. Uh, And you walk out there crying,
Speaker 1: laughing if it's a good movie, and you'll have paid
Speaker 1: for the privilege of doing that, And you're being manipulated
Speaker 1: all the time. Your emotions are being an it's like
Speaker 1: a ride, right, Well, a robot could have that same capability,
Speaker 1: but it can follow you around and it can be
Speaker 1: more a portion of your life on a daily basis,
Speaker 1: So that actually changes things to some degree. This physical
Speaker 1: embodiment actually alters the equation in many people's minds, so
Speaker 1: that there is an extra level of concern that we
Speaker 1: need to address as we move forward with this technology.
Speaker 1: So again it comes down to the fact that our
Speaker 1: our emotions can be manipulated by anything. Yeah. I loved
Speaker 1: it when he was talking about the movies. He was
Speaker 1: just saying, look, this is sort of pixelated light and
Speaker 1: you are crying, you know, um, because we can't help
Speaker 1: but see ourselves in all those different situations. You know.
Speaker 1: I guess it's like the rorshot test of our existence. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like the we've I've mentioned before, the bit from
Speaker 1: Community where Jeff Winger points outther you give a pencil
Speaker 1: and name and then you snap it in half and
Speaker 1: then we feel sad. You know. It's like we can
Speaker 1: we can just become emotional attached just about anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we ascribe meaning to everything. Um. And we've talked about
Speaker 1: Sherry Chuckle before too. She's the psychologist who worked at
Speaker 1: M I T for many years and and adults. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she she developed a crush on Cog, the lab robot,
Speaker 1: and found herself wishing that she had more alone time
Speaker 1: with Cog in the sense that you know, the other
Speaker 1: her her co workers were maybe bow guarding some time
Speaker 1: with with Cog. Um. Not that she wanted to get
Speaker 1: intimate with Cog. And we're making her sound crazier than
Speaker 1: she No, No, she's actually she has some really interesting
Speaker 1: things to say. She has a book out called Alone Together, um,
Speaker 1: and about how again we're connecting with technology and we're
Speaker 1: making the connection, but we're all doing it alone together. Um.
Speaker 1: But so you know, actually dr Arkin brought her up
Speaker 1: as well, because she was going to be talking at
Speaker 1: Georgia Tech the week that we spoke to him. And
Speaker 1: then he also brought up the fact that he teaches
Speaker 1: robots ethics in terms of intimacy to his class and
Speaker 1: robots and society. And of course you know who came
Speaker 1: up during the XY with three exes. Well, hey, let's
Speaker 1: hear what dr Arkin has to say about Foxy Roxy
Speaker 1: and William's dissertation which I was mentioning, uh that she
Speaker 1: very successfully passed yesterday one of the studies. We did
Speaker 1: lots of human robot interaction studies, and one of those
Speaker 1: was having a robot in a search and rescue mission. Uh,
Speaker 1: start when a sudden event occurs, start to give commands
Speaker 1: to a human being to evacuate, to get out of
Speaker 1: the room. When we did it without the effective component,
Speaker 1: there was very little compliance, actually none. Uh. Well he
Speaker 1: added the effect people started moving when the robot told
Speaker 1: him to go in that case. So the very interesting dimensions. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you don't even need that in many cases. But
Speaker 1: the point is that once the more and more we
Speaker 1: understand human intelligence and human feelings, and the more and
Speaker 1: more we put them into these systems, the more prone
Speaker 1: we are to fall in love, to care, to whatever
Speaker 1: with these particular devices. And that begs the next question,
Speaker 1: which I'm talking about with my class this week as
Speaker 1: well too in robot ethics. It is uh, intimacy and
Speaker 1: how far you want to go? What is socially acceptable?
Speaker 1: What is societally acceptable? Where are we going to draw
Speaker 1: the lines? And very very very few people are we
Speaker 1: wing to approach that subject. It's it's very interesting. There's
Speaker 1: virtually no academic research whatsoever going in the intimate level,
Speaker 1: the deeper levels of human robot interaction and robot sexuality. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are no funding agencies that I am aware of,
Speaker 1: it would dare to uh fund in that space. You
Speaker 1: can imagine the repercussions that that could occur. But there
Speaker 1: are people doing it. I was just saying, yet you
Speaker 1: know there's a market for it because they've already Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exactly right. It's kind of like what the pornography
Speaker 1: industry is being done in people's garages and warehouses and
Speaker 1: the like as well too. There was the so called
Speaker 1: first sex robot called roxy r o x R. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: Oh boy, that's a bad robot. Sorry, I wouldn't even
Speaker 1: call it a robot as well too. And the point
Speaker 1: is you can make claims about things which are completely
Speaker 1: unfounded because people don't understand the the ways of which
Speaker 1: humans relate to these particular artifacts. And if you're abhoard
Speaker 1: by the mere thought of that, that's okay, But then
Speaker 1: what you're gonna do about it? I mean, are you
Speaker 1: going to provide guidelines, restrictions, regulations for the conductor research?
Speaker 1: Right now? There are no such guidelines of restrictions, So
Speaker 1: there's just a social pressure, as Lessig would talk about
Speaker 1: in this context. But we may uh, and I also
Speaker 1: have to blame our own profession for not coming up
Speaker 1: with much in the way of regulate, regulating the way
Speaker 1: in which we do things. It's still it was a
Speaker 1: real cow cowboy cow girl field when I first got started. H.
Speaker 1: Now we have much more effective scientific measures for evaluating results,
Speaker 1: but we still haven't got to the UH bioethics community
Speaker 1: as well too in those aspects, although we do and
Speaker 1: I am a member, a founding member the technically Tripoli
Speaker 1: Technical Committee and robo ethics. But it's getting stronger. People
Speaker 1: are understanding that we're succeeding. That's the scary song. You see,
Speaker 1: there were actually succeeding in making these kinds of artifacts
Speaker 1: and the consequences of them. Uh, we don't fully understand.
Speaker 1: So Roxy a bad robot, Yeah, a bad robot in
Speaker 1: Roxy's case. They're taking their uh sort of well less
Speaker 1: successful attempt at a healthcare robot and turning it into
Speaker 1: a into a sex spot for to make a few,
Speaker 1: you know, to to to generate a little more revenue flow,
Speaker 1: so to speak. Yeah. Yeah, but but yeah, so's the
Speaker 1: issues out there. We we we need to be thinking
Speaker 1: about it. Uh and and uh, yeah, I don't know
Speaker 1: if it means we need to found like a you know,
Speaker 1: the Sex Spot Institute of North America or what right? Right?
Speaker 1: And actually I think this isn't included in the in
Speaker 1: the audio, but I did ask him about whether or
Speaker 1: not these issues surrounding intimacy with robots or something that
Speaker 1: are slow going in the United States and are are
Speaker 1: are more talked about in Europe for instance, And he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, like a good scientist, I don't have any
Speaker 1: data so I can tell you that, but I can
Speaker 1: tell you that people started talking about it in Europe, uh,
Speaker 1: far earlier than we are now talking about it in
Speaker 1: the United States. Um. And that there are all sorts
Speaker 1: of issues that they're talking about with robotics in terms
Speaker 1: of like even like robotic spare parts. If you were
Speaker 1: to have you know, say an exo skeleton arm, um,
Speaker 1: you know, who should get that arm who should have
Speaker 1: access to these enhancements essentially? Um? You know? And and
Speaker 1: I said, oh, that kind of makes me think that
Speaker 1: there could be this black market created for some of
Speaker 1: this technology if we don't now start thinking about how
Speaker 1: we want to release it to the public or we
Speaker 1: want the public at large using technology. UM. And so
Speaker 1: when you talk about things like that, like a exo
Speaker 1: skeleton or a robotic arm, then you're really talking more
Speaker 1: like people who might use it in terroristic acts, you know,
Speaker 1: or to to bolster those sort of um, terroristic acts,
Speaker 1: if that makes any sense. But not like the building
Speaker 1: of a sex spot in their basement. Well that's that's
Speaker 1: a concern too. But he was sort of saying, this
Speaker 1: is all a part and parcel that that you know,
Speaker 1: in in Europe, some of these other considerations have been
Speaker 1: going on for a while. UM, have the have nots,
Speaker 1: who would have access to it? How would it be used?
Speaker 1: You know, what's what's the best use of this technology? Um?
Speaker 1: And he also brought up another really interesting point about
Speaker 1: you know, really looking at the situation and trying to
Speaker 1: figure out are we we being sensitive to it in
Speaker 1: the right ways? Are we really listening to all of
Speaker 1: the voices, um that are out there, including neo Luddites. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it turns out that he actually has his class
Speaker 1: study Ted Kaczynski and UM in some of his writings
Speaker 1: in terms of neo Luddites and what they can learn
Speaker 1: as programmers about the technology they're creating. Uh. And of course,
Speaker 1: for those of you who aren't familiar, Kazynski was of
Speaker 1: course the Unibomber, famous for the Unibomber Manifesto, which is
Speaker 1: another documented is that is far too long to read,
Speaker 1: and it's entirety here. Some only gonna read half of it.
Speaker 1: Um No, I'm just gonna read a couple well, just
Speaker 1: a brief excerpt from it here, just to give you
Speaker 1: an idea in case you've never looked at it. It
Speaker 1: starts off like this, The Industrial Revolution and its consequences
Speaker 1: have been a disaster for the human race. They have
Speaker 1: greatly increased the life expectancy of those of us who
Speaker 1: live in advanced countries, but they have distabilized society, have
Speaker 1: made life unfulfilling, has subjected human beings to indignities, have
Speaker 1: allowed to widespread psychological suffering in the third world, to
Speaker 1: physical suffering as well, and have inflicted severe damage on
Speaker 1: the natural world. And it kind of goes on from there.
Speaker 1: And there's is kind of a downer about about technology
Speaker 1: in the modern age and where it's headed, and it's
Speaker 1: it's just a very grim you on how technology has
Speaker 1: changed life on Earth. Yeah, and just just for a
Speaker 1: little refresher for everybody to He actually sent sixteen mail
Speaker 1: bombs to various targets at universities and airlines, um, and
Speaker 1: an attempt to get his message across UM. So obviously
Speaker 1: this was someone who is not uh playing with full
Speaker 1: deck and was had some interesting things to say, but
Speaker 1: was more psychotic. Yeah, and um, you know, killed some
Speaker 1: people and it was it was not a good thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, again that being said, it was interesting
Speaker 1: to to look at the material I assume of a
Speaker 1: Neil Ludite and try to find points there, points of
Speaker 1: consideration at least. I mean, it's like with politics, even
Speaker 1: if you're more of a middle to line person, it
Speaker 1: pays to at least glance over and see what the
Speaker 1: the extreme opinions on either side are thinking about. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: let's hear what Dr Orkand has to say about that.
Speaker 1: There are people all that. Bill Joy, in his article
Speaker 1: why the Future Doesn't Meet Us, which was published at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the millennia I believe it was in Wired,
Speaker 1: talked about g n R genetics, nanotechnology and robotics due
Speaker 1: to self replication as leading to the extinction of mankind
Speaker 1: and the solution that he advocated is we should relinquish
Speaker 1: all research in that particular space. Most of us think
Speaker 1: that's a little premature, um. But if that is the
Speaker 1: threat is as great as he argues, it's something we
Speaker 1: should continue to discuss. Um. So I just want to
Speaker 1: put that on the table as well. And actually his inspiration,
Speaker 1: uh was the UNI Bomber for much of his work
Speaker 1: as well too in terms of reading what Kazynski wrote,
Speaker 1: which actually encouraged my class to take a look at
Speaker 1: as well too. Not because I admire the man, far
Speaker 1: from it, but rather a neo Luddite has a perspective
Speaker 1: that must be considered in terms of what we are
Speaker 1: potentially doing as a society. And everyone implores the means
Speaker 1: that we're used in that particular case, but nonetheless we
Speaker 1: have to be aware of the technologies that we're creating,
Speaker 1: what the potential effects are on our species and our civilization.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Univirment's Manifesto as a classroom text, Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: And again I think it's really interesting that he introduces
Speaker 1: that just so that his students would be aware of
Speaker 1: the issues. And it was making me think about confirmation
Speaker 1: bias and why we, you know, with our confirmation bias.
Speaker 1: As humans, we can't help but continue to seek out
Speaker 1: supportive material to to help us come to the conclusion
Speaker 1: we want the conclusions we'd like to come to in life, right,
Speaker 1: we typically do that. We typically don't seek out stuff
Speaker 1: that that makes us wrong about something. Right. So, actually,
Speaker 1: Leonard Millot knew, uh Milo. Now he is the author
Speaker 1: of The Drunkard's Walk. He has some interesting things to
Speaker 1: say about that um in that book about confirmation bias.
Speaker 1: And here's a quote. It says, to make matters worse,
Speaker 1: not only do we preferentially seek evidence to confirm our
Speaker 1: preconceived notions, but we also interpret ambiguous evidence in favor
Speaker 1: of our ideas. This can be a big problem because
Speaker 1: data are often ambiguous. So by ignoring some patterns and
Speaker 1: emphasizing others are clever, brains can reinforce their beliefs even
Speaker 1: in the absence of convincing data. So again, I think
Speaker 1: it's it's very interesting that the class would look at
Speaker 1: that text. We'll try to find something in it that
Speaker 1: that might have a kernel truth to it. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's like anytime you see somebody who say goes down
Speaker 1: the road of conspiracy theories, or or or even just um,
Speaker 1: let's say one particular political ideology or another. You know,
Speaker 1: if they start just consuming just one type of media
Speaker 1: about it, like all they read or books by this
Speaker 1: particular author and their um their comrades about a particular
Speaker 1: movement or or set of ideas. Then that you know,
Speaker 1: you are what you eat. You you sort of streamline
Speaker 1: your your your brain on that particular topic. So it Yeah,
Speaker 1: it pays to have a little wider viewpoint on things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: food for thought there if you are which what you eat? There? Um,
Speaker 1: I want to thank Dr Ronald Organ again for taking
Speaker 1: the time to talk to us about robotics and ethics
Speaker 1: and uh, we really appreciate it. So, hey, what do
Speaker 1: you think about the future of social interaction with robots?
Speaker 1: About guilty robots or sexy robots? Let us know we're
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Facebook, both of those as below the
Speaker 1: mind and you can always send your thoughts to blow
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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
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