Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff from the Science Lab from how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Hey guys, this is Alice not Am
Speaker 1: with the science editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: This is Robert Lamb's science writer at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. And uh, this podcast, we're talking about robots
Speaker 1: and then they're not there alive? Yeah, big question? Are
Speaker 1: robots alive? So you just got into this question when
Speaker 1: you wrote the similarly named article for Discovery News, right, Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: we've been doing a bunch of these big questions for
Speaker 1: Discovery News. Um, and we've been doing some big questions
Speaker 1: for How stuff Works as well. Just you know, our
Speaker 1: robots alive? Um. You know what are some other ones
Speaker 1: Strickland wrote about it too. Yeah, Strickland wrote one about
Speaker 1: robot consciousness and all, and it's a very related issue.
Speaker 1: We're not going to get in as much into consciousness,
Speaker 1: but deal more of with definitions of life and how
Speaker 1: robots may or may not meet that criteria. Yes, I
Speaker 1: believe it or not, there are quite a few definitions
Speaker 1: of life out there, So let's get onto one of
Speaker 1: the more scientific definitions of life, and that is one
Speaker 1: in which proteins and nucleic acids interacting ways that allow
Speaker 1: a structure to grow and reproduce. Yeah, I think pretty
Speaker 1: obvious robots is not going to meet that particular criteria, right, So, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that this is definitely um describing life,
Speaker 1: defining life as organic um in a very particular manner
Speaker 1: that applies to us, definitely, So so no go on
Speaker 1: robots for that one. However, there's another definition that life
Speaker 1: is a system that's capable of Darwinian evolution, all right.
Speaker 1: To meet this criteria, robot would have to be able
Speaker 1: to reproduce and make more of itself, and it would
Speaker 1: also need a source of variation, so right, so that
Speaker 1: all of the new generation wouldn't be identical to the
Speaker 1: previous and that all the sub links would be varied
Speaker 1: as well. So then natural selection could take place because
Speaker 1: when obviously when humans reproduce or or or any animal, uh,
Speaker 1: they're not creating exact um you know, replicants of themselves
Speaker 1: and that creating clones. They're creating variations. And the whole ideas,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole idea is that that we're going
Speaker 1: to create a lot of different variations on this successful model,
Speaker 1: and we'll see if an even more successful model will
Speaker 1: come out of it, or if there's a variation that
Speaker 1: will be more adapt for the you know, for the
Speaker 1: current situation, right mutation as the spice of life exactly. So, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can robots do that. A couple of people have
Speaker 1: taken a shot at this, right Yeah. Yeah, the more
Speaker 1: more than a couple. But there are a couple of
Speaker 1: that are that are rather interesting to look at. There's
Speaker 1: a Cornell team that built they built this robot, and
Speaker 1: these are robots. This particular robot especially is one that
Speaker 1: was designed only to replicate itself in a very simple manner,
Speaker 1: so it's not it's not like it's doing other things
Speaker 1: and then on the side it's making more of itself. Um. Basically,
Speaker 1: this one is made up of a series of modular cubes,
Speaker 1: and each cube has all the like you know. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a block robot. Imagine little little
Speaker 1: cubes and all in the cubes contain the robotics, if
Speaker 1: you will. This is no crepf right, and it sort
Speaker 1: of builds itself out of these blocks, and then it
Speaker 1: can build another of itself out of other blocks. But
Speaker 1: the blocks are already built. But it's it's so it's
Speaker 1: very rudimentory. Right, So there's that one and there's the
Speaker 1: English guys right out of the University of Bath. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's it called rep wrap, which I like a lot,
Speaker 1: and that's short for replicating rapid prototyper. So with this
Speaker 1: particular bot is concerned with, is it prints out these
Speaker 1: thin layers of molten biodegradable plastic and those layers can
Speaker 1: then be used to create its own three D parts.
Speaker 1: It can also make sandals, no way. Yeah, yeah, they
Speaker 1: had like it's it's basically yeah, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like almost like a router, you know, it's just
Speaker 1: making little shape fils for for humans. Yeah, are you serious? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like basically it's like I said, these are very
Speaker 1: simple robots. It's kind of you know, it's just making
Speaker 1: remarkable thing that it can make it well anyway, like
Speaker 1: these are just the baby steps towards you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of the very sci fi ideas that you might
Speaker 1: see and say Stanislaw Limbs The Invisible or Philip K.
Speaker 1: Dick's Second Variety, you know, or um, I guess Terminators
Speaker 1: were Terminator um movie nine, you know who? You have
Speaker 1: robots that are making more of themselves. You know, this
Speaker 1: is this is how it begins, except hopefully it doesn't
Speaker 1: end quite as dismally. Yeah. So, one interesting question that
Speaker 1: came up when you're researching this was the question of
Speaker 1: whether computer viruses are alive. Yeah. A lot of people
Speaker 1: make the argument that they are UM, including Stephen Hawking.
Speaker 1: But remember, yeah, and I'm one of those documentaries that
Speaker 1: are getting so much media coverage right now on Discovery
Speaker 1: Channel Into the Universe. Yeah, for the web presence for it. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, our computer viruses alive. Well. One thing to
Speaker 1: keep in mind is that y ular viruses are tricky
Speaker 1: enough to define um depending on who you ask. That
Speaker 1: kind of occupy a gray area the viruses and again
Speaker 1: with these organic viruses, like most of the internal structure
Speaker 1: and machinery that characterize many definitions of life, including the
Speaker 1: biosynthetic machinery that is necessary for reproduction. In order for
Speaker 1: a virus to replicate, it has to infect a host cell.
Speaker 1: But computer viruses, on the other end, have this sort
Speaker 1: of partially automated ability to reproduce. But the virus itself,
Speaker 1: this is an important distinction, is not the agent of reproduction.
Speaker 1: The computer is. Yeah, I ran across a great analogy
Speaker 1: for this, uh in Eugene HS. Stafford's Computer Viruses as
Speaker 1: Artificial Life, which is a great read. You can find
Speaker 1: it online and pdf form. Yeah, he points out that
Speaker 1: the virus is not the agent of reproduction, the computer is.
Speaker 1: He said, so if he argues in this that or
Speaker 1: he makes the analogy. So so yeah, he uh, he
Speaker 1: makes the analogy that if if that is life, then
Speaker 1: printed out prints of a for a Xerox machine or life, right,
Speaker 1: like a big stack of papers that have all the
Speaker 1: plans for the zero Well, okay, so I I give
Speaker 1: that these plans to you, right, and then you could
Speaker 1: technically use those plans to make a Xerox machine correct,
Speaker 1: And then you could take those plans put them through
Speaker 1: the Xerox machine, and then you have a new copy
Speaker 1: and a replica of the Then you have two stacks
Speaker 1: of Xerox plans, Stack A and Stack B, and then
Speaker 1: you could take Stack B and I could read them,
Speaker 1: build a Xerox machine and then run Stack B through
Speaker 1: the zero new Xerox machine and create Stack C. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting. Yeah, but you know so, But obviously the
Speaker 1: stack of papers just to stack of paper with information
Speaker 1: on them, so, so I found that particularly interesting. Of course,
Speaker 1: the other question would be can a computer virus evolve? Um?
Speaker 1: That's another problem. According to Stafford, While a complex computer
Speaker 1: virus might be able to adapt and evolve, um, you know,
Speaker 1: he argues that this kind of virus would be larger
Speaker 1: than most host programs and possibly larger than the host
Speaker 1: system as well. Um, virus is out there and on
Speaker 1: the Internet. They do evolve, but generally, but in the
Speaker 1: sense that there's an author out there who is who
Speaker 1: tweaks them and uh, and it makes them adapt m
Speaker 1: so that they can, you know, better, screw with your browser. Right.
Speaker 1: So then if you if you look at it that way,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't necessarily call it computer virus alive, right, because
Speaker 1: the agent of change here is, you know, some guy
Speaker 1: in Korea on a PC putting Korean there. Well, I
Speaker 1: thought there seems like there was a big story where
Speaker 1: they were certain they were like, I mean, they're everywhere
Speaker 1: saying that all computer virus authors are in Korea by
Speaker 1: any means. So let's let's talk about the difference between
Speaker 1: automatons and actual robots. Um. Yeah, this is something important
Speaker 1: to keep in mind and something that came out of
Speaker 1: a conversation I had with Idaho National Laboratory roboticist Derek Wadsworth. Um.
Speaker 1: He said that you, on one hand, you have an
Speaker 1: automaton and this is like a mechanical manipulator on the
Speaker 1: vehicle assembly line. Right. Have you seen some of the
Speaker 1: pictures of the robots on vehicle assembly lines are pretty amazing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've not only seen pictures, I've seen moving pictures of them. Excellent. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I seetimes. They used to show them on Sesame Street,
Speaker 1: didn't they. I've never seen that. You've never seen Sesame Street. No,
Speaker 1: I've never seen a particular part of the robot version
Speaker 1: of Sesame Street. It's just auto assembly line machines. Um.
Speaker 1: So okay. So they have the ability, these robot arms
Speaker 1: that are putting together cars, they have the ability to
Speaker 1: sense and act um like a vehicle frame advances on
Speaker 1: a conveyor belt, the manipulator since is its presence and
Speaker 1: then installs a windshield. A true robot applies an extra
Speaker 1: step in this process, and that's reason. It analyzes the
Speaker 1: sense data and then acts based on its computations. And
Speaker 1: the cool thing is that is humans we have those capabilities,
Speaker 1: so and everything we do. We're constantly processing our environment
Speaker 1: where you know, smelling what's cooking, analyzing um, what that
Speaker 1: smell means to us, and then we're producing an action.
Speaker 1: You know, we're going to the kitchen to you know,
Speaker 1: sniff out an extra donut that somebody left in the
Speaker 1: break room. Yeah, but that's one of the things that
Speaker 1: there's so many little bits of since data that we
Speaker 1: absorbed and we don't even realize we're absorbing them and
Speaker 1: just you know, it's it's happening subconsciously. And then where
Speaker 1: we're computing that with like past life experiences, you know,
Speaker 1: some of which may you know a lot of data
Speaker 1: from the past, et cetera. Gets it gets so complicated
Speaker 1: that we're not even aware of most of what's going on.
Speaker 1: So to apply this to robots according to Watts, where
Speaker 1: if they're alive in the sense that, yes, some robots
Speaker 1: do in fact have the abilities to sense, reason and act.
Speaker 1: So I'd say I'd score one point for robots being alive. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty good. In fact, one of the robots
Speaker 1: that you can make a case for being alive actually
Speaker 1: lives in my house and probably a lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of listeners have I'm so jealous of this. I
Speaker 1: totally want to remove although I just got a really, really,
Speaker 1: really great vacuum, which I'm very excited about. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: who's the who's the agent of vacuuming in in that scenario,
Speaker 1: that's true, I am the Asian vacuuming those kids. Give
Speaker 1: those those kids to work vacuuming, and we are not
Speaker 1: let them touch money vacuum. We'll see that. That's the
Speaker 1: great thing about the room. But it's the room. But
Speaker 1: is vacuuming obviously, And it's not just it's easy. If
Speaker 1: you if you've never played with one of these before, UM,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's it's great because it's not just
Speaker 1: bouncing off the walls and just randomly vacuating the whole house.
Speaker 1: You know, it's um you know, it's actually measuring, you
Speaker 1: know where it is. It's it's reacting to the environment
Speaker 1: and and like creating this map of where things are,
Speaker 1: UM so that the next time it comes into your
Speaker 1: kitchen and remembers that, oh gosh, the trash can is
Speaker 1: situated in the corner. And I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: in this direction. Well, I'm not sure about the more
Speaker 1: advanced models. Another one we have it. It's like it
Speaker 1: seems like each time you turn it on, it's like
Speaker 1: it's it's a new learning experience. But during that run,
Speaker 1: it'll you know, it'll get smarter as it goes. Um,
Speaker 1: how does your cat feel about They don't get along
Speaker 1: all that? Well, they don't hate each other, but they
Speaker 1: don't like to hang out. Um, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and then the room, bob, you know, it's you still
Speaker 1: have to actually clean it and things like that. It's
Speaker 1: not that's the thing the problem. Some people get the
Speaker 1: room and they're light. You're like, hooray, I never have
Speaker 1: to mess with a vacuum cleaner again. And that's wrong
Speaker 1: and actually need to clean it out. Um. Can I
Speaker 1: ask you a personal question? Go for it? How often
Speaker 1: do you vacuum? Um? Or you or your partner? Um,
Speaker 1: we turn on the room, but I don't know, maybe once.
Speaker 1: So it depends on the room. And the cat actually
Speaker 1: plays a big role in this because there's like one
Speaker 1: carpet that the cat likes to to roll around on
Speaker 1: and so she sheds a lot on that carpet. So
Speaker 1: then the room but has to go in and suck
Speaker 1: up all the hair. So actually the cat in the room.
Speaker 1: But I really have a very close relationship in that sense. Um,
Speaker 1: the big thing to keep in mind with with any
Speaker 1: room but though is don't let it taste human blood,
Speaker 1: because then it's then it's all over. They become man
Speaker 1: killers and they have to be put down. But then, anyway,
Speaker 1: to the point is that you can make a very
Speaker 1: good argument that the room but is alive. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's it gets to what it's expecting a wall, it's
Speaker 1: expecting some some sort of obstacle in the way, and
Speaker 1: it forms the map of the room so it doesn't
Speaker 1: need to run into those objects anymore. So again, in
Speaker 1: the automanton robot division, it's it's all about defining what
Speaker 1: is a robot. And you know earlier we're talking about
Speaker 1: what is life. There are other there are other robotists
Speaker 1: who go as far as to say, hey, um, you know,
Speaker 1: technically are cars or robots? You know, they have all
Speaker 1: these different integrated computer systems I think upwards like a
Speaker 1: dozen in some of the price here automobiles. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what you're driving, but my car does not
Speaker 1: qualify for that category. Really, Yeah, my CD player doesn't
Speaker 1: even work. It's busted. But but here's the thing. Do
Speaker 1: you think your car is alive? I don't really think
Speaker 1: of it as such, although I did give it a name. Yeah,
Speaker 1: would you name your car M Francis for see you
Speaker 1: see your car? Then in a since your car is
Speaker 1: more alive in my car, which has no name, mine's
Speaker 1: just the car. I can't I generally can't even remember
Speaker 1: what make a model it is much. I know what
Speaker 1: makes a model it is? Yeah, yeah, mine cool? Because
Speaker 1: we used to park at that same mortestation. Oh did we?
Speaker 1: And you were coming in like messing with my car? No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I would never do that. Well not, and that's your
Speaker 1: car at least. But but but I actually underlined something
Speaker 1: important about the whole issue of like robots and whether
Speaker 1: they're alive or not. I mean, a lot of it
Speaker 1: comes down to our It comes on to our perception
Speaker 1: a lot of the times. You know, it's like the
Speaker 1: more robots seems to be alive, the more you know
Speaker 1: it is alive, at least to us. But then that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of our failings as human. Like you draw
Speaker 1: anything that kind of looks like a smiley face, and
Speaker 1: we instantly begin to yeah, we anthro morpie. Everything that's true,
Speaker 1: we do. So what what what mean for for robots
Speaker 1: if they reach the point where they are definitely alive? Sure?
Speaker 1: Do they have rights? Yeah? Do they have rights? Can
Speaker 1: they marry? Um? I read an interesting argument about whether
Speaker 1: or not it's a good idea to send them off
Speaker 1: into space, because self replicating intelligent robots would be great
Speaker 1: for exploring the universe. You know, just send them out,
Speaker 1: let them harvest new resources as they go. But is
Speaker 1: that ethical to send an army of robots to another
Speaker 1: you know, to just an exoplanet to eat it and
Speaker 1: make more of themselves. Right, we know already that robots
Speaker 1: gets some of the less attractive jobs. Let's say, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like at my house, like I get to do the
Speaker 1: you know, the cool things like move things into the attic. Right,
Speaker 1: I assume you're not down on the floor. Second up
Speaker 1: cat hair. Yeah, I mean that's the whole thing. It's like,
Speaker 1: we have a robot, we don't have to vacuum anymore.
Speaker 1: And you know, or even in the case of the
Speaker 1: recent oil spill that's messing with the Gulf coast right now.
Speaker 1: I mean, what's the first thing people say, Well, sending
Speaker 1: the robots to see if they can set off or
Speaker 1: turn off that massive week. I'm kidding. I think robots
Speaker 1: should obviously do a lot of these crazy job ups
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't put humans at risk, but they do
Speaker 1: get a lot of really bad jobs. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a great moment on a Futurama where Bender the
Speaker 1: right here for watch Futurama. Yeah, Bender the robot. You know,
Speaker 1: he gets all up in arms when somebody at a
Speaker 1: ballgame like breaks a beer bottle and like a little
Speaker 1: robot comes up and cleans it out, cleans it up,
Speaker 1: and he's and he makes a big outcry about all
Speaker 1: I look at and they're not not the human child
Speaker 1: who has to clean up the mess. It's true. We
Speaker 1: put the robots to work, and if they end up
Speaker 1: with rights someday, then you know, maybe they'll have to
Speaker 1: uh have to have some robotic from an in action.
Speaker 1: I don't know. So let us know what you think.
Speaker 1: Do you think robots are alive? Do you think they
Speaker 1: will become alive? Do you think Robert is a robot? Cars?
Speaker 1: Did Alison key my car? Yeah? If you have an
Speaker 1: opinion on any of these things, send us an email
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