Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: from How Stuff Works dot Com? Stuff you should know
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Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, staff writer here at
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot Com. With me is always is
Speaker 1: Charles Chuck Bryant, also staff writer here at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. What up? Staff writer Chuck? Well, Josh,
Speaker 1: I think, as you can see, I'm just snuggled up
Speaker 1: with my real doll here. I did notice, Chuck if
Speaker 1: wasn't going to bring it up. She is a looker.
Speaker 1: She will give you that. Um, but she is what
Speaker 1: poly ethylene? Maybe I don't ask you and she doesn't answer,
Speaker 1: so I'm sure she doesn't. That reminds me of a movie. Um,
Speaker 1: I haven't seen you. I've been told by several will
Speaker 1: definitely see it. Lars and the Real Girl. Yep, I've
Speaker 1: seen it. It's really good And how is this good
Speaker 1: little indie. It's got Ryan Gosling. He's really great actor.
Speaker 1: No spoilers, Chuck, I haven't seen it yet, Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: go ahead. But the basic plot outline is that he
Speaker 1: plays this lonely guy who gets a real doll. And
Speaker 1: it's a real girl doll, right, Yes, is that what
Speaker 1: they're called? And uh? And I had asked Samantha, but
Speaker 1: she wouldn't answer. Um. And so he has this doll
Speaker 1: in the in the town kind of just accepts it
Speaker 1: as being his girlfriend. And it's worth Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: it sounds really creepy, but it's actually kind of a
Speaker 1: sweet movie. Well you know that's uh, that's actually not
Speaker 1: too far off, um from what some people are predicting,
Speaker 1: is going to be uh part of the future of humanity.
Speaker 1: Too far off at all at robot human weddings. Um.
Speaker 1: And we're not even talking real girls here. We're talking
Speaker 1: about real girls that like super and real girls, yes, exactly. Um.
Speaker 1: And apparently there's this guy named David Levy who is uh,
Speaker 1: I think some sort of future US maybe a roboticist.
Speaker 1: But he he wrote a paper um based on research
Speaker 1: he did in philosophy, UM, sexology, which to tell you
Speaker 1: the truth. Until I read his article, UM, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize it was an actual discipline. Um, robotics, of course,
Speaker 1: all sorts of other stuff. Uh, sexology. It's like the
Speaker 1: greatest word ever. It sounds like an MTV show, it
Speaker 1: really does, or like a drink you get in cancoon right. Um.
Speaker 1: So Levy combines all these disciplines together and comes up
Speaker 1: with the notion that by um, some states, starting with Massachusetts,
Speaker 1: deposits will allow human robot weddings marriages legally recognized. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, I believe he said quote it is inevitable. Yes,
Speaker 1: he didn't even before that, though, another roboticists predicted that
Speaker 1: by should not too far off from uh, people will
Speaker 1: be having sex with robots, which I mean once you
Speaker 1: start having sex with something, if you if, if somebody
Speaker 1: eventually wants to marry it. We are a moral species. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could argue that we're not, but yeah, generally you're right.
Speaker 1: Just like in Larger than Real Girl, he had a
Speaker 1: lot of respect for his real doll and I don't
Speaker 1: want to ruin it, Please don't chuck, But it was
Speaker 1: it was a relationship based on, if not mutual, at
Speaker 1: least one way respect right right. But um, with with this,
Speaker 1: it's uh, it's with a robot, it's going to be
Speaker 1: much more um mutual. I don't know about necessarily feelings
Speaker 1: for for robots. I don't think we were going to
Speaker 1: reach that point, but it will appear a lot more
Speaker 1: mutual because they can program respect or at least things
Speaker 1: that you can say that would indicate right right now. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the things that's that's leading the way that's
Speaker 1: going to be allowing things like robots that people would
Speaker 1: want to have sex with or marry, um is like
Speaker 1: this the skin that's being developed. There's a guy who
Speaker 1: used to work for Disney. He's a roboticist who uh
Speaker 1: created the skin that bunches and wrinkles. And when you
Speaker 1: have lifelike skin, you can can a emotions through lifelike
Speaker 1: facial expressions. Right once you start having that, you you've
Speaker 1: got a really realistic looking robot. Yeah. I don't think
Speaker 1: I'll ever go to the Hall of Presidents again with
Speaker 1: the same eyes. No, exactly, Abraham Lincoln for the head
Speaker 1: of Abraham Lincoln. Right. Um. This whole this whole issue
Speaker 1: of possibly marrying robots and definitely having sex with robots
Speaker 1: has has brought to the attention of some people. Uh,
Speaker 1: the concept of robot rights. You have you heard of
Speaker 1: robot rights? I mean the movement behind it. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: Japan was is kind of at the forefront of this
Speaker 1: whole thing. They are now, but they were lagging for
Speaker 1: a little while. Um. At first it was just South Korea,
Speaker 1: UM and Europe. Basically Japan was conspicuously absent from the table.
Speaker 1: And they're they're at the forefront of robotics. They needed
Speaker 1: to be there, so they finally caught up and now
Speaker 1: they're they're all about robot rights. UM. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people are kind of like, what is this, Why
Speaker 1: would we even have robot rights? This is ridiculous as silly. Uh.
Speaker 1: And to those people proponents of robot rights, say, you
Speaker 1: ever heard of animal rights? Uh? Yeah, isn't that technically,
Speaker 1: you know, a silly idea in the same vein, But
Speaker 1: if you if you really think about it, these are animals.
Speaker 1: But we've we humans have established rights for how we
Speaker 1: interact with them, how we allow them to interact with
Speaker 1: and it's accepted now. And I think a lot of
Speaker 1: people years ago might have thought the same thing about
Speaker 1: animal rights. Right as they do about robot rights, right,
Speaker 1: and I think UM with robots, especially with robots that
Speaker 1: can give like a lifelike appearance where we're really awful
Speaker 1: things are going to come out of humans. You know,
Speaker 1: Like if if you have a robot that can recoil
Speaker 1: and horror or wins in pain, there's going to be
Speaker 1: people out there who are going to want to like
Speaker 1: kill them, like a drift or something like that. Right.
Speaker 1: The potential for abuse is big, and it's yeah, real
Speaker 1: abuse on a robot, but there's still something sociopathic about it, definitely.
Speaker 1: But I I predict that once um lifelike robots are
Speaker 1: available UM and produced on mass, I think there's going
Speaker 1: to be a lot of awful stuff. And I think
Speaker 1: that it's good that we're preparing for this now because
Speaker 1: I think the first half of the century is going
Speaker 1: to see an explosion in advancements and robotics. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: think South Korea said a robot in every house by
Speaker 1: the year Yeah, in that same year. Actually, the US
Speaker 1: has said that it plans to UH supplement one fifth
Speaker 1: of its battalions with robots, which raises a whole other question.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, do robots that UM kill people are
Speaker 1: designed to kill people. Are they afforded any kind of rights?
Speaker 1: Should they exactly? Should they be free from harm? That
Speaker 1: kind of thing? Right, It's really it's it's too much
Speaker 1: for my brain to be honest. Let me get in
Speaker 1: the driver's seat here, chuck the problem. So basically the
Speaker 1: main argument is that no, uh, a robot that's programmed
Speaker 1: to kill should be able to have harm done to it. Right,
Speaker 1: Most robots that we're going to interact with aren't going
Speaker 1: to be designed to kill. If you see a robot
Speaker 1: that you know is designed to kill, you should turn
Speaker 1: and run really fast. Um, because it only needs programmed
Speaker 1: to do one thing, right, yeah, kill, kill kill Um.
Speaker 1: So most of the robots we're going to interact with
Speaker 1: will be helping around the house, serving in the sex trade. Um,
Speaker 1: they already have those. Not the sex trade, although they may.
Speaker 1: But you know the little the robots that clean the
Speaker 1: floor and they do things like that, well, yeah, the
Speaker 1: roomba and the scuba and all that kind of concept. Right,
Speaker 1: these things are going to look a lot more lifelike. Like,
Speaker 1: if you want one doubt Fire, you can have Mrs
Speaker 1: doubt Fire working for you if you shell out enough cash.
Speaker 1: So Let's say you you have Mrs doubt Fire is
Speaker 1: a household robot, and Mrs doubt Fire is bringing you
Speaker 1: a hot cup of coffee. Unfortunately, Mrs Doubtfire trips and
Speaker 1: uh spills the hot coffee on you, and you get
Speaker 1: up and react by smacking Mrs doubt Fire across the face.
Speaker 1: Should you be penalized for that? Should you be punished? Right?
Speaker 1: And I think that's what Japan and some other South
Speaker 1: Korea are trying to work out, are the parameters of
Speaker 1: what's allowed and what's not allowed, and whether or not
Speaker 1: robots should have rights just like you and I. Right now,
Speaker 1: let's say Mrs doubt Fire um doesn't trip, but she
Speaker 1: walks up to you and pours the hot coffee on you.
Speaker 1: Who's responsible for that? The magality, the manufacturer of the robot?
Speaker 1: In my mind, I'm no lawyer, right well that they
Speaker 1: no one has any idea. All these questions are totally
Speaker 1: up in the air right now, and they're trying to
Speaker 1: hammer them out. Um and and the whole thing kind
Speaker 1: of goes both ways. Actually, humans are going to also
Speaker 1: need protection from robots, which is where Mr Isaac Asimov
Speaker 1: comes in, right Yeah, science fiction writer Isaac Asimoff. I
Speaker 1: think first, uh, he was really one of the first
Speaker 1: people to talk about robots and humans living together and
Speaker 1: getting along or not getting along. And uh. He established
Speaker 1: the three laws of robotics. I think in one of
Speaker 1: his short stories, running Around. I think, yeah, Runaround, which
Speaker 1: was actually in a collection of short stories called I Robot,
Speaker 1: which Will Smith, as you know, made into a pretty
Speaker 1: substandard film, which he borrowed from a couple of these,
Speaker 1: and he actually used the three laws of robotics. They
Speaker 1: refer to those in the film as well. You want
Speaker 1: to give him the three laws, I will, A robot
Speaker 1: may not injure a human being uh, or through an action,
Speaker 1: allow human to come to harm. Great first law, Yeah,
Speaker 1: A robot must obey orders given given it by humans,
Speaker 1: except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
Speaker 1: And uh, a robot must protect its own existence as
Speaker 1: long as such protection does not conflict with the first
Speaker 1: or second law. Right. And these laws just sound like
Speaker 1: there's no way around him. Yeah. I was reading a
Speaker 1: critical analysis of asimov um and basically the author pointed
Speaker 1: out that I don't think he didn't think Asthmov thought
Speaker 1: these things were water tight. He basically used to like
Speaker 1: to use them as a theme to show how even
Speaker 1: these really great cohesive uh closed system laws could threw up. Um.
Speaker 1: Which is why nobody's going to go to Asimov to
Speaker 1: figure out how to program robots in the future. But
Speaker 1: we do need some some level of protection, like um
Speaker 1: our robots just kept from interacting with humans altogether, Like
Speaker 1: a robot cannot touch a human. Is that something that
Speaker 1: that we would do? Um, there's and there's already you know,
Speaker 1: there's been casualties. Um, there's been death by robots happened already. Uh.
Speaker 1: The first one happened in two when a guy was
Speaker 1: crushed on a factory line by you know, a big
Speaker 1: robotic arm pretty not really but yeah, kind of um.
Speaker 1: And then since then a lot of people have died.
Speaker 1: Actually one one guy. The worst death by robot that
Speaker 1: I've heard so far was um. Uh, a guy had
Speaker 1: a enough of an amount of molten aluminum poured on
Speaker 1: him by a robot that it killed him. I wonder
Speaker 1: if he was trying to make a little robot buddy.
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know. Maybe, so we're hoping not.
Speaker 1: We were talking about industrial robots. The thing is these
Speaker 1: are isolated incidents, But what happens when there is a
Speaker 1: robot in every house and not only Korea but the world,
Speaker 1: These accidents could step up quite a bit, and you know,
Speaker 1: we need to figure out how to how to address
Speaker 1: them now before it happens. UM. And also, I think
Speaker 1: a lot of roboticists are really worried about the moment
Speaker 1: when robots are equipped with systems that allow them to
Speaker 1: learn right. When that happens, they lose all predictability whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and and we won't be able to tell what they're
Speaker 1: about to do, what they won't do, that they'll be
Speaker 1: as they'll be as unpredictable as humans. And you know,
Speaker 1: when you're on the subway with somebody you don't really
Speaker 1: trust your you got your like your muscles tensed in
Speaker 1: your ribs for a knifeing. You know, the same thing
Speaker 1: would happen with the humans and robots. And I think
Speaker 1: so it's probably even a little more creepy because while
Speaker 1: humans are unpredictable, robots, you don't know what they're programmed
Speaker 1: to do if it's not your robots, right, and also
Speaker 1: there's also issues of morality that would factor into that. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, you like to think that most humans would
Speaker 1: stop themselves from stabbing you even if they wanted to,
Speaker 1: because they have some some sort of moral judgment. How
Speaker 1: do you program morals into robots? You know? Um, it's
Speaker 1: a it's a very big, sticky ball of questions. I
Speaker 1: have to say, I am pretty glad that the people
Speaker 1: who are trying to figure this out now are figuring
Speaker 1: it out now, and there are a lot smarter than
Speaker 1: I am. Exactly. It's it's kind of one of the
Speaker 1: situations I would kick back and say, go to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would have no idea. Yeah, yeah, hopefully they won't
Speaker 1: use their advantage to make us their slaves though, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree. So that's about that for robot marriages. But
Speaker 1: there's even more in the article that I wrote on
Speaker 1: the site will Robots Get Married? On how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com? And stick around to find out how to
Speaker 1: get water from a beach if you're ever strained on
Speaker 1: a deserted island. Right after this stuff, you should know
Speaker 1: is brought to you by Visa. We all have things
Speaker 1: to think about, like say, what's the best site to
Speaker 1: buy a new leather jacket, or whether to buy the
Speaker 1: three or six megapixel camera. But thankfully we don't need
Speaker 1: to think about online fraud because for every purchase you make,
Speaker 1: Visa keeps an eye out for fraud with real time
Speaker 1: fraud monitoring and by making sure you're not liable for
Speaker 1: any unauthorized purchases. How's that for peace of mind? Safe,
Speaker 1: secure Visa way to stick around. It may save your life. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell these people. Already know you know
Speaker 1: how to do this because it's based on one of
Speaker 1: your articles. But I'm gonna tell everybody how to get
Speaker 1: water out of a beach on a deserted island. Right,
Speaker 1: it's called a beach. Well, yeah, and it can come
Speaker 1: in really handy if you're you know, like a castaway castaway, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: go ahead and let him know I will. So basically,
Speaker 1: if you you find it sand dune right and uh,
Speaker 1: right behind it, you dig about a three to five
Speaker 1: ft hole that's deep, right or wide? Uh deep? Okay,
Speaker 1: three to five probably about a foot wide. Just you
Speaker 1: can reach down in there. If you can, you on
Speaker 1: a line the sides of the hole with wood to
Speaker 1: keep it from collapsing. You want to play some rocks
Speaker 1: in the in the bottom of it, right, and uh,
Speaker 1: you basically just walk away for a few hours. Right,
Speaker 1: you come back and presto, you've got about five gallons
Speaker 1: of pure water right there. Presto, Chango. It's not saltwater,
Speaker 1: you know, and you recommended in the article that it was.
Speaker 1: If it was a little salty, just move back a
Speaker 1: little further. And if you have a size twelve foot
Speaker 1: and you ever find yourself stranded on a desert island,
Speaker 1: just measure off a hundred feet and start digging there.
Speaker 1: That's what Chuck recommends. And drink out of your shoe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Also, you can find a myriad
Speaker 1: other ways to save your own life, not only in
Speaker 1: Chuck's article how to find water in the wild, but
Speaker 1: on the adventure channel on how stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Because
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com, let us know what
Speaker 1: you think. Send an email to podcast at how stuff
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