Speaker 1: Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to
Speaker 1: Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the
Speaker 1: podcast that looks at the future and says, Robot Parade,
Speaker 1: Robot Parade, what have the flags that the robots made?
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Bogglebaum and today our third host,
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, is not with us, but he will be
Speaker 1: back soon. And in the meanwhile, if you couldn't tell,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about robots again, robots from So
Speaker 1: it's it's a shame that Joe can't be here because
Speaker 1: he actually pitched the other show will be recording and
Speaker 1: that will come out later this week that also has
Speaker 1: to do about robots. But we're going to do our
Speaker 1: best to uphold the high standards of of robot integrity
Speaker 1: that that Joe embodies, because as we all know, Joe
Speaker 1: is robot. He is mostly most of that is clamp uh,
Speaker 1: but they're delightful clamps uh and and really integrity is
Speaker 1: what this episode is going to be about. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of alright. So a little backstory here. Back at
Speaker 1: the end of May, uh, there was a report that
Speaker 1: came out that spurned a sparked, I should say not spurned,
Speaker 1: sparked a lot of conversation about robots and rites. And
Speaker 1: so we're gonna talk about what that was and what
Speaker 1: was said in that report. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: we should also mention that this episode has a lot
Speaker 1: of tie ends with tons of other episodes we have
Speaker 1: previously recorded, because, as it turns out, we love us
Speaker 1: some robots. We we talked about robots a lot here
Speaker 1: on the show about the future of technology and science.
Speaker 1: Strangely enough, Yeah, no, okay, so so we've got we've
Speaker 1: got what happens when a robot breaks the law from
Speaker 1: March of Was that was that so recently? It was
Speaker 1: a million years? Right? Yeah? And then there's but then
Speaker 1: there's also well what steal our jobs? Which in December?
Speaker 1: And will robots take our jobs in May? Something tells
Speaker 1: me we didn't really pay attention when we recorded the
Speaker 1: second one. One of those have been a video. It
Speaker 1: might have been it could be that one is a video,
Speaker 1: or it could very well be that we recorded two
Speaker 1: episodes with the same title. I mean to be fair,
Speaker 1: this is an ongoing conversation that is getting more and
Speaker 1: more complicated. We also have one on universal basic income,
Speaker 1: which ties into those concepts as well, absolutely, because you
Speaker 1: know when robots steal our jobs, that is when university
Speaker 1: basic income is going to be how do I get
Speaker 1: some Money's right? We also have AI Friend or Foe
Speaker 1: from April two thousand fourteen, What if the President were
Speaker 1: a robot? That was also a Joe suggestion that was
Speaker 1: also April two and more. Yes, if we listed every
Speaker 1: single episode, I mean really, just pull up our RSS
Speaker 1: feed and search robot. I think I got hits to
Speaker 1: be fair. That also includes all the metadata, so robot
Speaker 1: shows up a lot, but thirty four hits and we
Speaker 1: have not been recording that show that long. I mean,
Speaker 1: so why are we going to talk about again? Because
Speaker 1: there was a report for the European Parliament and that's
Speaker 1: the one that I was talking about that came out
Speaker 1: at the end of May and had proposed some provisions
Speaker 1: to grant personhood to robots electronic personhood d yeah, among
Speaker 1: other things. That's electronic personhood is probably the element that
Speaker 1: I think has had the most conversation around it after
Speaker 1: this report came out. Yeah, because it's kind of the
Speaker 1: flashiest one and it's it's sort of the most far
Speaker 1: reaching part of the report, but a lot of the
Speaker 1: report is actually very grounded and down to earth and
Speaker 1: and I I love it, like I love a lot
Speaker 1: of the ideas in here. So yeah, we were really
Speaker 1: excited about talking, uh with with with ourselves and to
Speaker 1: you guys. I was about to say with you guys,
Speaker 1: but I guess you can't practice. I mean, they can
Speaker 1: talk back. We just we're not ignoring you. We just
Speaker 1: literally cannot hear you. Wait was oh no, that's no,
Speaker 1: he's eating something crunchy at any rate. So we wanted
Speaker 1: to really kind of boil down what was in this
Speaker 1: report because there's a lot more to it than just
Speaker 1: the electronic personhood. Like you were saying, Lauren, that gets
Speaker 1: a lot of attention because it almost it's like saying,
Speaker 1: would you give your vacuum cleaner rights. We've we've had
Speaker 1: these discussions here on this show. The cool thing is
Speaker 1: at the end of those discussions we always like, you know,
Speaker 1: we really need to talk about this. Yeah, it would
Speaker 1: be wonderful if elected officials would begin considering this sort
Speaker 1: of thing. And it's happening. It's crazy, alright. So the
Speaker 1: report came out sixteen We should also say it's a
Speaker 1: draft report, or at least that's how it's titled. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a proposal. Yeah, it's called draft Report with Recommendations
Speaker 1: to the Commission on Civil Law Rules on Robotics. The
Speaker 1: capacity to make even very exciting things sound very dull.
Speaker 1: I mean, how Yeah, there's gotta be a rule somewhere
Speaker 1: that if you are proposed something, or you've created a report,
Speaker 1: that the the title must be one of two things.
Speaker 1: It must either be excessively long and with at least
Speaker 1: right and and by being excessively long, you have already
Speaker 1: told somebody everything they need to know about what's in
Speaker 1: the report. Or it has to incorporate a stupid acronym
Speaker 1: that has been tortured so that it can encompass the
Speaker 1: various concepts that are in the report. And if you're lucky,
Speaker 1: you get both. Yeah. So the thing about this report,
Speaker 1: it had some awesome stuff in it. So, first of all,
Speaker 1: the general purpose of the proposal is to start those
Speaker 1: official discussions into developing policies and guidelines in the field
Speaker 1: of robotics, particularly since individual member states in the European
Speaker 1: Union are developing their own policies over time. So the
Speaker 1: fear is that you're gonna get all these different countries
Speaker 1: making their individual rules, and then you're gonna have conf
Speaker 1: x between the way one country legislates robotics and the
Speaker 1: way another one does. And especially in the European Union,
Speaker 1: where everyone is working together very closely and literally working
Speaker 1: in other countries than the one of their own origin,
Speaker 1: it gets really important, really quickly to have agreement in
Speaker 1: all of exactlyly. Yeah, if you if you got your
Speaker 1: training and your experience in one country in the European Union,
Speaker 1: and you are working in the robotics field in some capacity,
Speaker 1: and then you take an opportunity in a different country
Speaker 1: in the European Union, which is perfectly legitimate, you might
Speaker 1: find yourself struggling because these different number states have different rules.
Speaker 1: This is a proposal to make more of an umbrella
Speaker 1: of rules so that it's kind of an even playing
Speaker 1: ground throughout the entire European Union. Now, to tell you
Speaker 1: how cool this report is in many ways, the introduction
Speaker 1: of the proposal at the very beginning section A. Under
Speaker 1: introduction they reference Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the Pygmalion myth. They
Speaker 1: all so I didn't put in the notes They also
Speaker 1: mentioned the progue golem, They mentioned catal Copex. Are you
Speaker 1: are or Rossum's universal Robots from where the term robot originates? Yes, Yes,
Speaker 1: that's where it was coined. Ye. And it's already ten
Speaker 1: times more awesome than any government proposal I've ever read,
Speaker 1: because you've got all these things in the introduction talking
Speaker 1: about throughout our our history, we have created fiction that
Speaker 1: talks about our our desire to create a synthetic form
Speaker 1: of life, or at least intelligence. In their case, they
Speaker 1: were talking about intelligent machines, although I would argue Frankenstein's
Speaker 1: monster is not really a machine. It's an artificial Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess so, I mean on the same level that
Speaker 1: any human is a machine. Um. Now, section B that
Speaker 1: each of these sections, by the way, it's like a
Speaker 1: paragraph under the introduction. But Section B of the introduction
Speaker 1: posits that were on the threshold of a new industrial
Speaker 1: revolution that is powered by artificial intelligence, and that part
Speaker 1: of society will remain unaffected by this revolution, and so
Speaker 1: it's wise to consider the implications now again, which is
Speaker 1: what we say basically at the end of every single
Speaker 1: podcast that we do about robots, right, and particularly ones
Speaker 1: about the idea of you know, will automation UH ultimately
Speaker 1: take more jobs than it creates? How are we going
Speaker 1: to deal with that? That's really what that paragraph is
Speaker 1: getting at, saying, look, we can't even fully anticipate the
Speaker 1: consequences of this. We know what's happening. We know that
Speaker 1: robotics and artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation, all of these
Speaker 1: things are going to lead to a crazy amount of
Speaker 1: change on par with the industrial revolution of the past.
Speaker 1: We need to start talking about that in an official capacity,
Speaker 1: not just like thought experiments, but actually, like, let's lay
Speaker 1: down some guidelines so that we don't mess things up
Speaker 1: too much. Yeah, and and by by way of kind
Speaker 1: of providing proof of that, it points out that robots
Speaker 1: sales have been increasing exactly. Yeah, they're saying the robots
Speaker 1: sales been on the rise, especially in UH areas like
Speaker 1: car manufacture, automotive industry, the auto nation, in the automotive
Speaker 1: industry has really been on the rise, as well as
Speaker 1: just an electronics in general. And also states that robots
Speaker 1: will provide numerous benefits in the short to medium term,
Speaker 1: with a potential for quote virtually unbounded prosperity end quote
Speaker 1: in the long term. That's a lovely phrase. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: kind of like the Star Trek belief where you know,
Speaker 1: you've got like everything on demand all the time because
Speaker 1: of this wondrous world. It's probably not going to quite
Speaker 1: that extent because, as we have talked about in the past,
Speaker 1: to get to that Star Trek future, we'd also have
Speaker 1: to find like some sort of crazy energy sources, and
Speaker 1: we don't have dilithium crystals yet, so not yet. Keep
Speaker 1: keep digging, everyone, yep. So the flip side, however, because
Speaker 1: this isn't all about just sunshine and rose is here
Speaker 1: robotic roses now, they wanted to say, like, hey, we
Speaker 1: got to consider some of the possible bad things about this.
Speaker 1: They say that these advances quote may result in a
Speaker 1: large part of the work now done by humans being
Speaker 1: taken over by robots end quote, and that that would
Speaker 1: affect not just employment, but also systems like social security,
Speaker 1: which rely on employment taxes for funding. So, which is
Speaker 1: a thing that I had somehow never thought about before.
Speaker 1: But it is yeah, clear, I mean, once it's pointed out,
Speaker 1: it's like, of course, social security is a thing that
Speaker 1: we need to think about in this crazy future of robots.
Speaker 1: Taken her jerbs. Exactly. If you if you are not
Speaker 1: having enough money paid into Social Security because so many
Speaker 1: jobs have been taken over by automated systems, then social
Speaker 1: Security itself can no longer perform the function it's meant
Speaker 1: to do. And you start to see a pretty precipitous
Speaker 1: decline in the quality of life for thousands millions of
Speaker 1: people right well, based on that current system. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously if we had some thing like basic universal income,
Speaker 1: then that would help. But see then you're all, how
Speaker 1: are you funding that? Exactly, Like if you don't, if
Speaker 1: you don't have people working, they can't make money and
Speaker 1: you can't tax them. I mean like they're not. Yeah
Speaker 1: you could, but they just have even less. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I have these fingernail clippings, what do you want. I've
Speaker 1: got some like old newspapers and the garage I can
Speaker 1: give you. I mean I was saving them for some reason.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's just it's and so again, this this
Speaker 1: proposal is saying, look, we're acknowledging that these issues are
Speaker 1: right on the cusp of happening today. We need to
Speaker 1: start seriously talking about it, right and furthermore, on this
Speaker 1: kind of social issue, side. You know what happens when
Speaker 1: a robot breaks the thing, including a person. We need
Speaker 1: we need some legal recourse for figuring that out exactly,
Speaker 1: and we need to be able to assign liability in
Speaker 1: those issues we need. We need to also understand how
Speaker 1: do robots and humans interact in a way that is
Speaker 1: a positive experience for humans? Uh, Sometimes that means creating
Speaker 1: an experience that appears to be a positive experience for robots,
Speaker 1: because even though at this stage, I would argue robots
Speaker 1: can't appreciate a person being polite to a robot for example,
Speaker 1: right the robot don't care? Yeah, it doesn't. It lacks
Speaker 1: the capacity. We have not programmed it to love as
Speaker 1: of yet, but or to feel slighted. Sometimes by creating
Speaker 1: a system that encourages people to behave in a way
Speaker 1: towards robots that they would toward another human being a
Speaker 1: positive way, I would yes, that actually has a benefit
Speaker 1: on the person. Right. Like, Like, we've seen some interesting
Speaker 1: studies about when you create responses and robots so that
Speaker 1: they seem to understand when they get something right or
Speaker 1: get something wrong, and they seem to have an action,
Speaker 1: people are feeling more receptive towards those robots and work
Speaker 1: more easily with those robots. And so again, while it
Speaker 1: may not have a direct benefit to the robot in
Speaker 1: any you know, psychological way, it has a benefit on
Speaker 1: us as we interact with those robots, which is it's
Speaker 1: one of those things that you don't necessarily think about
Speaker 1: when you start talking about policies. Uh. Also, they say, hey,
Speaker 1: what happens, um if robots like get super smart, like
Speaker 1: like way more like more than human smart smart like
Speaker 1: like like not just human smart smart, but they're also
Speaker 1: autonomous so that they can act on that smart smart.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily need to be conscious or self aware,
Speaker 1: just really really intelligent. And so essentially they're saying, we
Speaker 1: need to think about the possibility of robots becoming a
Speaker 1: danger to the human species. I don't let's not create
Speaker 1: a butt that's gonna kill us. Let's not skynet this thing,
Speaker 1: let's know not that. Yeah, let's do the opposite of that.
Speaker 1: Well maybe not the opposite, but the different option at least.
Speaker 1: So considering all of those things, the introduction concludes, the
Speaker 1: European Union should really get off its stuff and start
Speaker 1: talking about these ideas and work on a strategy to
Speaker 1: avoid problems in the future. So that's just the introduction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just laying everything out there for you. And then
Speaker 1: what they do later on in the report is kind
Speaker 1: of laid down general principles and some guidelines that they
Speaker 1: would suggest, But those guidelines are very general. We're you're
Speaker 1: going to hear the same thing throughout the rest of
Speaker 1: this podcast where they say we need to form a
Speaker 1: committee specifically to set this up. Yeah, that this entire
Speaker 1: proposal is like is like one of those meetings that
Speaker 1: you're just sitting there and planning more meetings for the future,
Speaker 1: right right, and then eventually you later on down the
Speaker 1: road hold a meeting to discuss how you can have
Speaker 1: fewer meetings and that's when everyone loses their mind and
Speaker 1: run screaming from the room. But right now, where at
Speaker 1: a stage where they they are saying like, hey, we
Speaker 1: don't have all the answers. This this document is not
Speaker 1: meant to because he's not an answer. This is just
Speaker 1: a suggestion for how we might come up with the
Speaker 1: exactly this isn't this isn't that that guide you would
Speaker 1: find in Beetlejuice about how to uh, you know, how
Speaker 1: how to work would they recently diseased I'm sorry deceased
Speaker 1: jokers in the movie anyway. So the next section is
Speaker 1: titled General Principles. Are at the beginning of it as
Speaker 1: general Principles and the reports sites Asimov's Laws of Robotics,
Speaker 1: because of course they do seek reference number like eighteen.
Speaker 1: Again it's pretty awesome. Yeah, yeah, so if you are
Speaker 1: if you are rusty on Asimov's Laws of robotics, they
Speaker 1: are first, a robot may not harm a human or
Speaker 1: through inaction, allow a human to come to harm. Second,
Speaker 1: a robot must obey and the order is given by
Speaker 1: a human unless it would violate the first law. A
Speaker 1: robot must protect itself from harm unless doing so would
Speaker 1: conflict with either of the first two laws. A fourth
Speaker 1: and or zero with depending on how you choose, because
Speaker 1: it was added a little bit later, A robot may
Speaker 1: not harm humanity or by an action, allow humanity to
Speaker 1: come to harm. Now, these are not innate laws, right
Speaker 1: there's These are just good ideas. These were good ideas
Speaker 1: that a science fiction author came up with for the
Speaker 1: purposes of creating interesting narratives that would show how even
Speaker 1: these very basic ideas could sometimes have consequences. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: you didn't anticipate, but we generally since then have said
Speaker 1: those laws of robotics seem like a really good idea
Speaker 1: that lets kind of lay it out just how we
Speaker 1: want it. Yeah, if you've got a big old metal
Speaker 1: thing that weighs like a half ton and it can
Speaker 1: move around and whack stuff, let's try and make sure
Speaker 1: it doesn't whack people. Yeah, preferably so. Uh, then we
Speaker 1: get the liability section talking about whacking people. This is it,
Speaker 1: This is what this is about, right, Like, how do
Speaker 1: we determine who is or what is liable in this
Speaker 1: in very scenarios? And this relates very closely to that
Speaker 1: podcast we did in the past about what happens if
Speaker 1: a robot breaks the law. So we get to a
Speaker 1: point where this is where the report first suggests that
Speaker 1: the European Union might need to classify robots under a
Speaker 1: new category, either like a category like persons, like essentially, say,
Speaker 1: can we treat robots like people in the sense of
Speaker 1: liability like legally speaking, legally speaking, or would it be
Speaker 1: more like animals would be more like objects? Or do
Speaker 1: we need to create an entirely new classification for an
Speaker 1: intelligent non human entity, right right, something that can behave
Speaker 1: at least semi autonomously, and something harder than a dolphin
Speaker 1: less bound to the sea. Yes. So, first thing they
Speaker 1: point out is that AI and machine learning are transforming
Speaker 1: how robots interact with environments. And we wouldn't necessarily call
Speaker 1: even the most advanced AI that we have operating today
Speaker 1: in a thin close to being conscious or self aware,
Speaker 1: but that almost doesn't really matter, right, It could still
Speaker 1: be active in a way that could potentially be harmful.
Speaker 1: And we're seeing more applications that allow machines to learn
Speaker 1: from their environments and adapt their approaches to complete certain tasks.
Speaker 1: That complicates that the whole autonomous part that makes robots useful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the idea that you know, since we've been seeing
Speaker 1: machine learning like go from observing a pendulum and determining
Speaker 1: what the laws of physics must be based upon those
Speaker 1: movements up to the you know, learning what a cat
Speaker 1: is based upon just feeding it information, you know, and
Speaker 1: and then getting to a point where we can maybe
Speaker 1: create an artificial intelligence, set it in a room, give
Speaker 1: it a task, and have it learned from its mistakes
Speaker 1: so that it eventually begins to do that task more
Speaker 1: and more efficiently. That's that's creating something very different from
Speaker 1: just this machine will follow a specific set of instructions
Speaker 1: and repeat it exactly every time until it breaks. Right,
Speaker 1: And because right now, the way that robots work, take
Speaker 1: a take a roomba for example, nice easy, nice easy
Speaker 1: thing that you may or may not have interacted with. Uh,
Speaker 1: right now, if a roomba trips and trips you and
Speaker 1: you die, Um, you sue you see the company, You
Speaker 1: see I robot? Yes, I think so, yeah, exactly believe
Speaker 1: it is I robot. So that would be that that's
Speaker 1: exactly the case. Because robots right now, for the most part,
Speaker 1: are essentially machines that do a very specific task, and
Speaker 1: they do it pretty much the same way every time,
Speaker 1: even with something like the roombo which has some object
Speaker 1: avoidance and some other little bit of learning for for
Speaker 1: mapping purposes. But but it's very basic, right, It's not
Speaker 1: like it's not like the room but suddenly going to
Speaker 1: vacuum in a totally different way. Right, it can't. It
Speaker 1: lacks that capability. But at this point we would say,
Speaker 1: all right, well, if the if the machine were to
Speaker 1: cause harm through its uh, it's normal operations, You would
Speaker 1: essentially say the manufacturer, the producer of that. Maybe the
Speaker 1: programmer is liable, right, But that gets more complicated as
Speaker 1: you get into these these devices that have machine learning
Speaker 1: and autonomy. Yeah. Yeah, because if it's learning how to
Speaker 1: do new stuff, if if it's interacting within environment that
Speaker 1: the programmer didn't account for and therefore learns something harmful,
Speaker 1: then do you blame the manufacturer? They actually the report
Speaker 1: actually says that the more it learns, the less you
Speaker 1: can really blame the creator, right that that it's behaviors
Speaker 1: that's learning are due to whatever environment and variables it's encountering.
Speaker 1: And it may very well be that if you were
Speaker 1: to trace that behavior all the way back down to
Speaker 1: the gem, the germ of an idea, the nugget of
Speaker 1: programming that eventually evolved into that behavior, it would be
Speaker 1: very difficult to say, well, this is clearly the fall
Speaker 1: of manufacturer, which means that maybe the robot itself has
Speaker 1: to be liable, which raise as questions like, well, how
Speaker 1: how do you deal with that? You've got to lie
Speaker 1: bad robot, I mean, the robot can't think or feel.
Speaker 1: You can't punish the I mean, if you punish the robot.
Speaker 1: It would be meaningless, right, Like, the robot can't feel
Speaker 1: badly about it. It It can't learn from that experience. It
Speaker 1: can't be like, Wow, it put me in solitary and
Speaker 1: now I'm I'm gonna really turn things around. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get like a robot shoshank redemption thing going.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really it's really shady whether or
Speaker 1: not humans are penitent by being put in penitentiary here.
Speaker 1: That is an episode I want to do, yes and
Speaker 1: upsetting episode. Probably a lot of not shouting at each other,
Speaker 1: but shouting just into the void. Yeah, a lot of that.
Speaker 1: But at any rdy getting back to the robots, so
Speaker 1: we they the report says, we need to perhaps come
Speaker 1: up with some uh definitions so that we can figure
Speaker 1: out ways to assign liability in those cases where machines
Speaker 1: are having this level of artificial intelligence and autonomy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it furthermore proposes to to create a system of
Speaker 1: registration for robots that are so advanced this could become
Speaker 1: a problem. Yeah. This is like almost like saying, you know,
Speaker 1: the way you might have to register a weapon, The
Speaker 1: idea that you know, at a robot there's a sufficient
Speaker 1: level of intelligence also carries with it a certain amount
Speaker 1: of risk towards humans, and that intelligence may not necessarily
Speaker 1: come in the form of physical violence. It could come
Speaker 1: into form of sharing your information in a way that
Speaker 1: you had not anticipated, or perhaps uh spying in the
Speaker 1: sense of like a video surveillance type of issue. So
Speaker 1: there the draft says, maybe we need to have a
Speaker 1: registration system, and once in a robot reaches a certain threshold,
Speaker 1: whether it's a threshold in artificial intelligence or just the
Speaker 1: various features in the robot, at that point, the producer
Speaker 1: must register the robot so that there is a government
Speaker 1: document connected with that specific entity. In the case that
Speaker 1: that entity goes robo berserk, or does a make some mistake,
Speaker 1: or operates in a way that was unintended but causes
Speaker 1: harm in any of those scenarios, you've gotta have a
Speaker 1: way to assign that liability. So this would again fall
Speaker 1: into into that category, right, And then in order to
Speaker 1: kind of assist with that, it calls for more funding
Speaker 1: for research projects, particularly the ones that that are are
Speaker 1: looking into these social and ethical challenges that are that
Speaker 1: are raised by these kinds of advancement, right, because the
Speaker 1: report recognized they said, hey, we realize this is not
Speaker 1: this is new. It's going to require experts and and
Speaker 1: it's going to require funding. It's going to require money.
Speaker 1: So we need to actually seriously talk about this, not
Speaker 1: just say like, hey, let's throw ideas around, but let's
Speaker 1: let's create specific entities, and those entities have the responsibility
Speaker 1: of really seriously tackling these issues and coming up with
Speaker 1: guidelines that are uh, that are aligned with those ideas.
Speaker 1: Um and that the European Union should create quote legislative
Speaker 1: instruments on legal questions related to the development of robotics
Speaker 1: and AI end quote that looks ahead ten to fifteen years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: hard to do. That's nuts. We love to to speculate
Speaker 1: about the future. Obviously, that's what this podcast is all about.
Speaker 1: That's literally what we do here. Yes, um, but I mean,
Speaker 1: but we also make so many jokes about forty years
Speaker 1: and also, wow, gosh, I keep forgetting how awesome that
Speaker 1: little jingle is. Also what we say, does it become law? Right?
Speaker 1: And thank goodness for that, Jonathan, no joke. I mean
Speaker 1: when we get that that acts of destiny swinging around,
Speaker 1: you want that stuff to Sometimes we're whimsical, and by
Speaker 1: whimsical I also mean capricious to a level that's probably irresponsible. Anyway,
Speaker 1: the last time I took a test, I came out
Speaker 1: chaotic neutral. Yeah, that's terrifying. Chaotic neutral is the scariest
Speaker 1: of the alignments, isn't it? Fine? I mean chaotic evil.
Speaker 1: At least you know that whatever they're gonna do, it's
Speaker 1: gonna be bad kadock neutral. It's just like I'm gonna
Speaker 1: close my eyes and throw a dart. Will I hit
Speaker 1: a board? Maybe? Um? So. The interesting thing here though,
Speaker 1: again is that they want to look at creating again
Speaker 1: a specific official entity that is dedicated to answering legal
Speaker 1: questions and speculating about what questions will need to be
Speaker 1: answered more than a decade out. So saying, let's not
Speaker 1: wait until we've reached a technical, technological level of sophistication
Speaker 1: where we then have to backtrack and figure out a
Speaker 1: way to litigate around issues. Yeah. See, let's proactively get
Speaker 1: out there and be looking for the most cutting edge,
Speaker 1: the most ridiculous even um possibilities that could come up
Speaker 1: in the future, and let's plan just a little bit
Speaker 1: for those. Yeah. And it's so different from the way
Speaker 1: we've seen the law and technology interact in the past, Right, Typically,
Speaker 1: we see technological advancement leap way ahead of technology and
Speaker 1: then we have this incredibly Yeah, and it tends to
Speaker 1: be messy and kind of embarrassing if we're being real honest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, just look at the Internet and telecommunications here
Speaker 1: in the States. I mean, that's been a huge pain
Speaker 1: in the butt and that has led to big arguments
Speaker 1: about net neutrality. And so what this draft proposal is
Speaker 1: saying is that they want to avoid having as many
Speaker 1: of those scenarios as possible by proactively thinking of ahead.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know how they're gonna do it
Speaker 1: in a way that it may very well mean that
Speaker 1: they create policies that are covering a specific pathway, and
Speaker 1: as we see technology take a different pathway, they'll just
Speaker 1: have to switch gears. Uh. It's a it's a challenging thing.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it would be a very frustrating thing in
Speaker 1: many ways, but it's also really important. Um So, the
Speaker 1: draft proposal also calls for a legal solution that doesn't
Speaker 1: restrict the type or extent of damage as a person
Speaker 1: can seek based solely on the fact that the damage
Speaker 1: that was caused came from a non human agent. In
Speaker 1: other words, you should never have a situation where a
Speaker 1: court tells you, well, we can only award you x
Speaker 1: number of dollars or euro in this case because your
Speaker 1: mugger was a robot, So there shouldn't be a specific
Speaker 1: limit just because of the robot being the cause. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean also like, don't create a mugging robot, y'all.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, let's that's going down the futurama path, which,
Speaker 1: while entertaining, is really not practical. No hobobots, no orphan bots,
Speaker 1: come on. Just but but but joking aside, I mean,
Speaker 1: we're already seeing a need for this, uh in cases
Speaker 1: for example, like like the recent and tragic depth that
Speaker 1: resulted from a Tesla car crash just a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago. Um, the driver had had his Tesla car
Speaker 1: in autopilot mode, which is not in fact autopilot but
Speaker 1: rather a driver assist kind of function. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: multiple times over the last week yelled that we maybe
Speaker 1: need to change the name of that feature, that it
Speaker 1: is inherently misleading. But but right, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: in this case where where it's driver was in the car,
Speaker 1: the car was in driver assist mode. Uh, neither the
Speaker 1: driver nor the computer in the car recognized that a
Speaker 1: semitruck that was crossing his path was there because of
Speaker 1: just glare conditions, or maybe the dude was looking away.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah, yeah, we we don't have I
Speaker 1: don't think all the details will ever be available because
Speaker 1: we just don't know what was happening at that moment.
Speaker 1: But as as you're pointing out, like, this is an
Speaker 1: issue where there's the question who ultimately is liable in
Speaker 1: this case, and without having the legislation there to kind
Speaker 1: of create that, it means that it means that the
Speaker 1: courts have to start figuring it out on their own,
Speaker 1: and that's a rough way to make legislation. Um. So,
Speaker 1: moving on with the liability section. They also suggest that
Speaker 1: the producers of a robot are liable for damage on
Speaker 1: a level proportionate with the amount of instructions the producers
Speaker 1: gave the robot. This is the part that I find
Speaker 1: really fascinating. Yeah, so this this would be like the
Speaker 1: more simple your robot, the more liable the producers are
Speaker 1: for any damage the robot creates. Yeah, if you get
Speaker 1: crushed by a dumb robot. It's it's the manufacturer's fault, right,
Speaker 1: because they're the ones who like, if the robot can
Speaker 1: only follow instructions that were created by the manufacturer, and
Speaker 1: through the operation the robot has hurt someone, than the
Speaker 1: manufacturer would be considered liable, assuming that you're not having
Speaker 1: a situation where a person has flagrantly ignored warnings or
Speaker 1: safety features, like in a big automation thing, there's usually
Speaker 1: rails and all this other stuff separating the robot from people.
Speaker 1: Do not walk into the clamp function of the robot
Speaker 1: exactly kind of in those cases, you would you could
Speaker 1: argue that, well, the person who was hurt was at fault,
Speaker 1: but they're talking about in other in other situations where
Speaker 1: there was an unintended consequence in the normal operation of
Speaker 1: the robot. However, the more the robot acts as an
Speaker 1: autonomous entity, the lower the responsibility of the producers of
Speaker 1: the robot. So if a robot damage is property or
Speaker 1: hurts someone through an an autonomous decision that was not
Speaker 1: directly traced to its fundamental programming. In other words, this
Speaker 1: was some sort of learned behavior that went awry, the
Speaker 1: robot ends up being liable not the producers of the robot,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty radical idea. They also say that
Speaker 1: the longer a robot has received quote unquote education, the
Speaker 1: more liable the robot's unquote teacher is for any damage
Speaker 1: the robot causes. So, in other words, if you have
Speaker 1: the robot in a lab setting and you're training it
Speaker 1: in the lab, and you're training it over and over
Speaker 1: again with lots of different ways, and then you put
Speaker 1: you implement the robot somewhere and it hurts somebody, you
Speaker 1: could say, well, the teacher was the one training the behaviors. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that the manufacturer didn't do it this. This person trained
Speaker 1: this robot to do this. So yeah, yeah, So if
Speaker 1: you get crushed by a dumb robot, it's the manufacturer's fault.
Speaker 1: If you get crushed by a smart robot, it's either
Speaker 1: the robot's fault or your own faulty. And so what
Speaker 1: do you do in that case? Like, all right, well
Speaker 1: now we know who's fault it is. What then? Well,
Speaker 1: the report has some suggestions for that. They said, what
Speaker 1: about an obligatory insurance scheme similar to that that you
Speaker 1: would have to have if you wanted to operate a car,
Speaker 1: except in this case, the people making the robots are
Speaker 1: the ones paying the insurance, which which I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how I feel about. I'm I don't know. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: weird because in this case you wouldn't say, like going
Speaker 1: with the Carmen before, would be like saying, well, the
Speaker 1: car manufacturer, the automaker has to pay for my car
Speaker 1: insurance and an idea which I love. Now, if it
Speaker 1: were an autonomous car, you might say, well, that makes
Speaker 1: sense because I'm not the one controlling the vehicle. If
Speaker 1: it's a it's a car that's under my control. However,
Speaker 1: you could argue, well, it's the driver's behaviors, unless you're
Speaker 1: talking about a faulty vehicle, in which case there could
Speaker 1: be a recall or something like that. So they're saying no,
Speaker 1: the producers would pay out the insurance for the robots
Speaker 1: they create, and if the robot were to cause any damage,
Speaker 1: then that insurance would end up paying for that damage.
Speaker 1: Or there could be a compensation fund for the robots themselves,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, to pay them for all of their hard work,
Speaker 1: so they'll feel greater job satisfaction, right and be able
Speaker 1: to buy the good oil, right exactly. Finally, they won't
Speaker 1: be they won't be sledging through like the used fry
Speaker 1: grease over at the fast food restaurant. They'll finally be
Speaker 1: able to go in and order a pint of w
Speaker 1: D forty or something. No, no, this is this is
Speaker 1: not to make the robots feel better about the job
Speaker 1: they are doing. And actually it's an interesting and practical
Speaker 1: solution to this issue, saying, let's have a compensation fund
Speaker 1: for each individual robot, not so that the robot has
Speaker 1: spending money, but so that if the robot were to
Speaker 1: cause harm, then there's actually money that belongs to the
Speaker 1: robot that could be paid out to the person who's
Speaker 1: injured or there or whoever owns the property that was
Speaker 1: damaged in the case of that sort of thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: And that the robot itself is paying for thee although
Speaker 1: ultimately it's whoever's compensating the robot. But but this is
Speaker 1: this is a way of saying like, well, you wouldn't
Speaker 1: go after the business necessarily if the robot itself had
Speaker 1: the funds and its compensation fund, and that you would
Speaker 1: even possibly invest money on behalf of the robot, which
Speaker 1: is so robot would hapen its own four oh one
Speaker 1: K or something. It's weird, right, yeah, yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and that that's the point in the proposal at which
Speaker 1: it says again like like really though, we're going to
Speaker 1: probably need a different legal distinction for romance at this level,
Speaker 1: um than just yeah. And and they also say that
Speaker 1: the compensation fund is just it's a possible solution. They're
Speaker 1: not even saying, like we're saying, this has got to
Speaker 1: be the way. They first start with the idea of
Speaker 1: the insurance, then they move on to possible compensation fund,
Speaker 1: but they admit like this is just the sort of
Speaker 1: brainstorming ideas we have and something that would need to
Speaker 1: go into further discussion with an actual committee. Um. And
Speaker 1: then we move on to the next section, which is
Speaker 1: all about ethical principles, and it calls for the design
Speaker 1: of an ethical framework to make certain that advances in
Speaker 1: robotics are made with considerations to the impact on human safety,
Speaker 1: privacy or privacy, integrity, dignity, autonomy, and data ownership. So
Speaker 1: which which is a really good spread. I'm proud of
Speaker 1: them for for putting privacy and data ownership and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. I'm there too, really impressed. I was consistently
Speaker 1: impressed by this report at seeing the scope that they
Speaker 1: were taking, because they it was so far beyond just
Speaker 1: simple ideas like they're taking our gerbs, or or robots
Speaker 1: are big and scary and can smash my face in
Speaker 1: or things like, you know, the stuff that we typically
Speaker 1: talk about. They went well beyond that. I mean, they
Speaker 1: covered those items too, but that was kind of cool.
Speaker 1: They go on to say that the risk of harm
Speaker 1: to a person should be no greater than that encountered
Speaker 1: in ordinary life. So, in other words, in the future
Speaker 1: that's filled with robots and all sorts of roles in
Speaker 1: the job, social robots, care robots, whatever they may be,
Speaker 1: a person should encounter no more risk than they do
Speaker 1: right now in an ordinary day. So it should Robots
Speaker 1: should not make the world riskier in the words, um,
Speaker 1: which is really what we're hoping for. Yes, I mean
Speaker 1: to decrease the risk would be awesome. I mean, but
Speaker 1: I mean at least don't make it worse. So I
Speaker 1: love this. I love this idea, Like, well, like, look,
Speaker 1: we just we know how humans are. Can we can
Speaker 1: we establish a baseline of suck exactly? Like? Can we
Speaker 1: make it not suck more? If we open up any
Speaker 1: history book we see our propensity for making things way
Speaker 1: worse early on in the development of any given technology.
Speaker 1: We think it'd be awesome if we didn't do that
Speaker 1: this time. Uh So to do all of this, you know,
Speaker 1: they admit like this is a lot to talk about.
Speaker 1: They say that there must be a new European agency
Speaker 1: specifically dedicated to the field of robotics and artificial intelligence,
Speaker 1: and that it has to be funded properly. It can't
Speaker 1: just be an agency in name, and it needs to
Speaker 1: be staffed with technical experts as well as leaders in
Speaker 1: coal and regulatory fields. So they're saying, like, we need
Speaker 1: we need smart people. Yeah, we need people who understand
Speaker 1: the technology, who understand the hypotheticals about the technology, and
Speaker 1: also people who understand the law and understand how not
Speaker 1: to be dicks to people exactly. Yeah, I mean this
Speaker 1: is this is not a small thing. This is you know, Yes,
Speaker 1: you need engineers, you need the people who know how
Speaker 1: to solve a problem, but you also need the ethical
Speaker 1: experts who can say, look, just because this is the
Speaker 1: most efficient way to solve the problem doesn't mean it's
Speaker 1: the right way, right, especially when you have a world
Speaker 1: that also happens to have human beings in it, which
Speaker 1: which fingers crossed again, like, yeah, you know, I'd like
Speaker 1: the future to have I suppose, yeah, at least a couple, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I need I need a couple
Speaker 1: of folks to watch my videos and listen to my podcast.
Speaker 1: Otherwise what am I going to do? Right? And then
Speaker 1: it and then it goes into a bunch of specific
Speaker 1: sections about different different about more committees and about more
Speaker 1: government and more things to think about. So and well
Speaker 1: we'll cover these in brief. So one of them is
Speaker 1: about intellectual property, which they want to find a way
Speaker 1: to both protect and encourage innovation. So it's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of patents, the idea that they
Speaker 1: protect an idea, but they also allow people to see
Speaker 1: what the idea is, and then once the patent expires,
Speaker 1: they can also use that as the jumping off point
Speaker 1: for new inventions that kind of stuff. Right, and not
Speaker 1: only in terms of making robots, but in terms of
Speaker 1: what robots make. This is the really again, something I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have necessarily thought government report would include in it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, they say, what about works that robots make?
Speaker 1: Like let's say a robot writes a song. For example.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this in the past about robots and
Speaker 1: their role in art and what is art? And can
Speaker 1: a robot make art? Yeah, and so their their need
Speaker 1: to be laws in place for what happens when that happens,
Speaker 1: because it is happening right now. Yeah. Who owns the
Speaker 1: copyright to the music of robot creates? Is it the manufacturer?
Speaker 1: Is it the person who owns the robot? Uh? Is
Speaker 1: it whomever gave Does the robot have ownership of that?
Speaker 1: That art and the money it makes go back into
Speaker 1: that like exactly right, Like wow, our Paul McCartney bought
Speaker 1: went Insane and slaughtered fourteen people. Thank goodness it wrote
Speaker 1: that hit song five years back. Because we can afford
Speaker 1: to pay off all the legal fees. We laugh or
Speaker 1: we cry, don't don't do that. It was the first
Speaker 1: name that popped in my head. Uh. And to be fair,
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, he's he's part robot too. So uh,
Speaker 1: if if this in fact happens, how do we assign
Speaker 1: that ownership? And again they don't have the answer for it.
Speaker 1: They're just saying, this is a question that we need
Speaker 1: to answer. So we need to bring it up and
Speaker 1: say This might seem frivolous, but it's absolutely something that
Speaker 1: is happening, and so we have to come up with
Speaker 1: our legal answer for it. Yeah. This next one is
Speaker 1: one that I'm all, I'm so excited about standardization, and
Speaker 1: I feel like such a boring adult is excited about standardization.
Speaker 1: But we've we've covered like home automation right home automation.
Speaker 1: One of the problems is that if you don't want
Speaker 1: all your stuff to come from the same company, how
Speaker 1: do you make sure that stuff can communicate with each
Speaker 1: other so you actually get that automated experience that you wanted,
Speaker 1: right or or autonomous vehicles. I think this is one
Speaker 1: of the biggest hurdles that we're facing right now to
Speaker 1: autonomous vehicles is how do we create a system where
Speaker 1: all of those vehicles from different manufacturers can talk to
Speaker 1: each other, talk to the road, talk to the traffic signals,
Speaker 1: et cetera. Yeah, where you can have that that fully
Speaker 1: integrated system where cars are fully they know where everyone is,
Speaker 1: they know where all the other other cars are. Not
Speaker 1: only do they know where the other cars are, they
Speaker 1: know what the other cars are going to do before
Speaker 1: it starts to happen because they can communicate with one another. Well,
Speaker 1: without those standards in place, you end up with a
Speaker 1: lot of proprietary systems where all the vehicles made by
Speaker 1: one company can talk to each other, but that only
Speaker 1: represents called shoulder to those other cars. Yeah, and there
Speaker 1: they represent a tiny percentage of all the vehicles on
Speaker 1: the road. You don't really get a very you don't
Speaker 1: have an integrated system in that approach. And so they're saying, well,
Speaker 1: we don't want to see that with this future of robotics,
Speaker 1: So let's start creating some standards that companies can follow
Speaker 1: when they're designing their products so that we avoid this
Speaker 1: in the future and we have a more seamless integration UM.
Speaker 1: And in fact, they have another section on autonomous vehicles themselves,
Speaker 1: and they specifically call out for standards for those autonomous vehicles.
Speaker 1: They also mentioned care robots and medical robots. UM. They're
Speaker 1: specifically in those cases talking about a need to develop
Speaker 1: robots that where you're you're specifically thinking about how are
Speaker 1: these going to affect humans? Right right, and and just
Speaker 1: kind of I think it was a call for like
Speaker 1: like research and development into, uh, how we can create
Speaker 1: robots that can help with with care of the sick,
Speaker 1: or the elderly, or you know whatever whatever group it is.
Speaker 1: That and how can we create robots that are providing
Speaker 1: care not just physical services, and and to make sure
Speaker 1: it still maintains a sense of human dignity as well,
Speaker 1: like not just that they are effective in doing what
Speaker 1: they do, but they are they perform their their duties
Speaker 1: in such a way that the person who's being cared
Speaker 1: for doesn't feel less less for that. Yeah, and again,
Speaker 1: being someone who currently and thankfully is healthy and able bodied,
Speaker 1: it is a weird. It hadn't occurred to me. I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm so privileged in the place where I am
Speaker 1: in my life, it didn't even occur to me. And
Speaker 1: I am so thankful to see that they're smart people
Speaker 1: talking about this. Um. They also get into human repair
Speaker 1: and enhancement. Enhancement, you say, yeah, so not just like, Okay,
Speaker 1: while we've developed this technology that is an artificial heart
Speaker 1: or an artificial kidney or an artificial liver or whatever
Speaker 1: this is getting into when we developed technology that could
Speaker 1: actually create, yeah, an upgrade to a human being without
Speaker 1: prior injury, right, like like not like this arm is defective,
Speaker 1: I need I need a new one, but like, no,
Speaker 1: this arm is less cool than the robot arm. My
Speaker 1: risk can't turn degree, so it's really a pain in
Speaker 1: the butt to put a light bulb back into a socket. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just want to have one where I can spend
Speaker 1: the risk in that ways and I'm done. Uh So
Speaker 1: they're saying, well, hey, this is gonna happen. Maybe we
Speaker 1: need to start thinking about the ethics involved in this
Speaker 1: and actually get experts in hospitals and other healthcare institutions
Speaker 1: who are thinking about these kind of issues and start
Speaker 1: to work on legislation for that as well, so that
Speaker 1: we don't enter into a an environment where people are
Speaker 1: just willy nearly getting crazy upgrades. Maybe they're putting their
Speaker 1: own lives in danger as a result, maybe they're creating
Speaker 1: a bigger divide between the haves and have nots. They
Speaker 1: don't want to do that, So that's what that section
Speaker 1: is specifically about. Oh and they also have a little
Speaker 1: section about drones and that bit, but I'm not going
Speaker 1: to cover it because it's essentially the kind of stuff
Speaker 1: you would imagine, like common sense things like privacy and security,
Speaker 1: that sort of. So then they get into the discussion
Speaker 1: about the impact on jobs and social systems. This is
Speaker 1: probably the section that got the most attention in the
Speaker 1: media about the idea of personhood, and it's kind of
Speaker 1: also like the most immediate impact or issue. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: we don't have robots at the level of artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: and autonomy in the general sphere that we have to
Speaker 1: worry about that right now. I mean, thinking about now
Speaker 1: is good, but it's not like they're already out there
Speaker 1: right The most advanced ones are in pretty secluded environments
Speaker 1: for very specific research projects. It's not like you're gonna
Speaker 1: encounter one as you walk down the street unless there's
Speaker 1: been a terrible miss have Paul McCartney, Bob I was
Speaker 1: thinking either that or it's Johnny five from Short Circuit. So,
Speaker 1: according to one forecast that the reports cited, the EU
Speaker 1: could face a shortage of as many as eight D
Speaker 1: twenty five thousand Information and Communications technology professionals or i
Speaker 1: c T professionals. And on top of that, it predicts
Speaker 1: that of all jobs by will require some level of
Speaker 1: digital skills. So the proposal calls for a revision of
Speaker 1: a digital competence framework so that they can at least
Speaker 1: help young people and really people of all ages developed
Speaker 1: those basic skills so that they maintain a viable place
Speaker 1: in the workforce. Um. They also call for designing programs
Speaker 1: to encourage more young women into the fields of robotics
Speaker 1: and the related fields, related technical fields, and they say
Speaker 1: that the European Union and the member states within it
Speaker 1: should launch initiatives in order to support women in I
Speaker 1: c T and to boost their E skills, which is
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Essentially, this is a cultural shift, saying, guys,
Speaker 1: let's stop sending a message that these are fields primarily
Speaker 1: for dudes, right, because they weren't originally and and it's
Speaker 1: ridiculous that they are today. Then that there are people
Speaker 1: who are absolutely instrumental in the development of computer science
Speaker 1: who happened to be women. Uh, I mean like you
Speaker 1: you know, you've got a Lovelace who created the first
Speaker 1: freaking computer programs, and you've got you've got the the
Speaker 1: woman who does who came up with the coin computer bug. Like, uh,
Speaker 1: there there contributions to computer science and to information and
Speaker 1: communications technologies have been phenomenal, But in general, we've created
Speaker 1: a culture. And when by we, I mean like everywhere,
Speaker 1: not the two of us in this no, not I
Speaker 1: have tried not to perpetuate, yes, but there's been a
Speaker 1: culture that has discouraged women into going into those fields
Speaker 1: to the point where men who are in the field
Speaker 1: may have like they may feel like what what are you?
Speaker 1: What are you even here for? Like would they see
Speaker 1: a woman come into like an engineering class. And that
Speaker 1: absolutely needs to change for multiple reasons. And uh so
Speaker 1: they're saying, let's get on that, let's create programs and
Speaker 1: change this perception that is based on fallacy so that
Speaker 1: we get brilliance that were otherwise missing out on them.
Speaker 1: So again it goes well beyond just the idea of
Speaker 1: robots in that case, also very inspiring. So they also
Speaker 1: call for a system to monitor job trends to see
Speaker 1: where jobs are disappearing due to robots and automation, as
Speaker 1: well as where are jobs being created because of robotics.
Speaker 1: So essentially saying, well, we want to make sure to
Speaker 1: steer people further away from these jobs that are increasingly
Speaker 1: being taken by robots, but we definitely need more people
Speaker 1: in these other areas that that are the opportunities have
Speaker 1: opened up because helping shape education and training. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this is a this kind of goes in line with
Speaker 1: what we were talking about when when we visited Georgia
Speaker 1: Tech and chatted about, you know, the idea of will
Speaker 1: robots take our jobs? And the answer is no, there
Speaker 1: are gonna be other jobs. But there's the practical consideration of, well,
Speaker 1: how do we how do we one identify what those
Speaker 1: jobs are and to make sure that people are getting
Speaker 1: the education and experience necessary to to do those jobs.
Speaker 1: It's easy to say, oh, well, now we've got all
Speaker 1: these more awesome jobs available, It's a lot harder to
Speaker 1: practically get people in the right place. Yeah, So this
Speaker 1: is proactively thinking about that. And here's a really big
Speaker 1: one that that is the gem of the draft as
Speaker 1: far as most people are concerned. Perhaps the European Union
Speaker 1: should quote introduce corporate reporting requirements on the extent and
Speaker 1: purport of the contribution of robotics and AI to the
Speaker 1: economic results of a company for the purposes of taxation
Speaker 1: and social security contributions end quote. So the idea that hey,
Speaker 1: if you're a company and you have replaced your human
Speaker 1: employees with robots, uh, maybe you have to pay a
Speaker 1: certain amount. Yeah, maybe those robots are employees and you
Speaker 1: have to pay social security taxes for each of your
Speaker 1: robot employees, which sounds crazy because you're thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: robots are never going to collect on social security. But
Speaker 1: you get back to that question fund Yeah, exactly. If
Speaker 1: if you get to a point where the Social Security
Speaker 1: is being defunded due to the robots taking over more
Speaker 1: and more jobs, you still have the need for social security,
Speaker 1: but you don't have the money for social security. This
Speaker 1: is a kind of a temporary solution because obviously this
Speaker 1: can't be supportable long term. As more and more things
Speaker 1: get automated, there becomes less of a need for money
Speaker 1: in the first place. But until that happens, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's there's an event horizon past which none of this
Speaker 1: is important anymore. That's that star trek and then we're
Speaker 1: a minute away from it, um and and it does
Speaker 1: actually call out specifically like hey, maybe really we should
Speaker 1: all be thinking about a basic universal income. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: say that every model state in the European Union should
Speaker 1: really seriously consider that that. It may not be the
Speaker 1: right or it may not be the same approach for
Speaker 1: every single nation in the European Union, but it very
Speaker 1: well may be a conversation that should start to happen. Uh. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: we do have nations that are debating on using this
Speaker 1: at least in test cases or perhaps rolling out throughout
Speaker 1: an entire country where we can look and see what happens,
Speaker 1: and if it ends up being a massive failure, we'll say, okay,
Speaker 1: don't do that. But we still need a solution to
Speaker 1: this problem, perhaps some other solution. Yeah. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: the last big section in the proposal is licenses. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now they don't actually have like a specific you know,
Speaker 1: you got to go and fill out Form A three
Speaker 1: seventeen and get your robot license. They're laying out something
Speaker 1: some basic rules guidelines they think that should be included
Speaker 1: for licenses. And they have two different sets, one for
Speaker 1: designers for robot producers, and one for users. And I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna list all of them because it's they're fairly
Speaker 1: extensive for both. Yeah, but but some okay, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: had a lot of really fun and interesting ideas of
Speaker 1: just suggestions of how you should go about robot ing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One step one one of the ones under designers is
Speaker 1: let's have to kill switch on robots, like you know,
Speaker 1: like a like a like just turn it off if
Speaker 1: it just flop. Yeah, so if it starts going Paul
Speaker 1: McCartney crazy, you know, buts going and say you just
Speaker 1: and then like it just switches to wings mode or something,
Speaker 1: it turns off. Make sure your robot is going to
Speaker 1: operate in a legal way, So don't don't make your
Speaker 1: burglar bot or mugger bot. As we mentioned earlier, this
Speaker 1: again for licenses for designers, be transparent in the way
Speaker 1: the robot is programmed, as well as the predictability of
Speaker 1: robotic behavior. In other words, maybe don't call it out
Speaker 1: a pilot. Yeah, it might be a really good choice
Speaker 1: to start off with. The idea being that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you are being sincere and honest in the way
Speaker 1: that your robot was designed and and what it is
Speaker 1: supposed to do, you reduce the likelihood of some unintended
Speaker 1: consequence for their down the road. Yeah. I think of
Speaker 1: this part almost like the FDA guidelines for how you
Speaker 1: can market food on food packaging, um, and and just
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, like like just be up and honest
Speaker 1: with people and then they'll be able to make better
Speaker 1: decisions and right right, yeah, and you know, and and
Speaker 1: that way you avoid a huge class action lawsuit for
Speaker 1: their down the line. Everyone's happy, Um, they say that
Speaker 1: the developers should design tracing tools during the development stages
Speaker 1: of robots so that when a robot behaves in aticular way,
Speaker 1: it could be traced back to the design of the
Speaker 1: robot itself. So in other words, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a uh, like a tracer bullet in a way,
Speaker 1: you see the pathway that you can trace back. So
Speaker 1: when it exhibits a specific behavior, you find out why
Speaker 1: it behaved that way in that situation. And this could
Speaker 1: be good or bad. It could be that you want
Speaker 1: to find out, all right, well that was interesting. We
Speaker 1: didn't anticipate that the robot was going to behave that way,
Speaker 1: but it was beneficial, So let's find out what happened.
Speaker 1: Out what happened. Or it could be that the robot
Speaker 1: behaved in a way that would cause damage or harm
Speaker 1: to someone, and then you want to find out why
Speaker 1: did it get to the root of that problem. You
Speaker 1: never programmed my bot to bash someone over the head. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: it does also specifically say don't make humanoid robot. It
Speaker 1: was not so much hid but but human like make
Speaker 1: it clear that they're robots. Yeah, that's the most interesting
Speaker 1: part about the little license to developers to be too.
Speaker 1: It's like, make sure your robots are easily identifiable as robots.
Speaker 1: Don't make robots that people will think are people or animals,
Speaker 1: I guess. Or no replicants, no uh reboot, Battlestar Galactic
Speaker 1: A cylons, none of that, I guess. I guess. Really
Speaker 1: it gets down to everything, like, you wouldn't want a
Speaker 1: robot that's designed to look exactly like a tree, for example,
Speaker 1: but the tree is really a surveillance machine that's just
Speaker 1: constantly recording audio and video. Because if you just see
Speaker 1: a tree and you can't identify as a robot, you
Speaker 1: don't know that you're being you know, watched surveilled. Now
Speaker 1: if you're in the UK, which not part of the
Speaker 1: European Union anymore, but you know you're being under surveillance
Speaker 1: all the time. Anyway, I'm unduly upset about the idea
Speaker 1: of a robotic surveillance tree. Yeah, I mean it. The
Speaker 1: first thing we think of is don't make robots a
Speaker 1: little like people. But really it's saying don't make robots
Speaker 1: that don't look like robots. That doesn't necessarily mean they
Speaker 1: you know, like the robot just has to be identifiable
Speaker 1: a robot. It could be in humanoid in shape, or
Speaker 1: it could just be like a bucket with wheels on it.
Speaker 1: But you know that it's a robot, right, it doesn't
Speaker 1: look like something else. Um, I love our future of
Speaker 1: bucket robots. Yes, that's actually I'm I'm referencing an actual
Speaker 1: robot that's haating the streets of London right now. It
Speaker 1: looks like a bucket with six wheels, but it has
Speaker 1: a lid and it's meant to deliver small packages with
Speaker 1: it within two or three miles. All right, I take
Speaker 1: back my my ribbing about bucket robots. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I guess you could call it looks kind of like
Speaker 1: a box with wheels. I said bucket because it's got
Speaker 1: curved edges as opposed to rectangular like like part ninety
Speaker 1: degree angles. But yeah, bucket bots are a thing man
Speaker 1: onto the users. So they also had several I've only
Speaker 1: picked three of them. One of them is that uh,
Speaker 1: respect human physical and emotional frailty. So don't make your
Speaker 1: robot do your bullying for you. Don't set your robot
Speaker 1: to make someone feel badly about themselves or shake them
Speaker 1: down for or milk money, you know, being respectful of
Speaker 1: other human beings. Yeah, when you're using your robots, don't
Speaker 1: be mean to people, right, general rule of thumb for
Speaker 1: all the time, by the way, not just not just
Speaker 1: when you're using your robots. Just don't people speaking of
Speaker 1: you should respect other people's privacy right not to use
Speaker 1: robots to spy on people. Right. So this is really
Speaker 1: relevant right now with drones that have high definition cameras
Speaker 1: mounted on them, the idea of you know, using a drone,
Speaker 1: don maybe look into someone's window or something. I mean
Speaker 1: that this is specifically saying, hey, don't do that. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and and furthermore, like even if it's a situation that
Speaker 1: crops up where you suddenly realize that you've got a
Speaker 1: robot in a room and it's inappropriate for whatever reason
Speaker 1: to have that robot doing surveillance, turn off the surveillance.
Speaker 1: And finally, don't weaponize your robot. I just don't do it.
Speaker 1: Don't don't strap knives to your robots hands and just
Speaker 1: tell it to go wind melling around or you know,
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney needs no excuses to right, you just keep
Speaker 1: that robot under wraps. No, seriously, though, it's that that's
Speaker 1: one of the rules that they had keep in mind
Speaker 1: when I say rules, these are all proposals. Even if
Speaker 1: this were to be adopted, it would still just be
Speaker 1: a set of proposal. Yeah, it's not. It's not like
Speaker 1: it's a legally binding document um. So that gets to
Speaker 1: some of the reaction to the proposal. Some critics are
Speaker 1: saying that setting up guidelines this early, particularly for stuff
Speaker 1: like the concept of electronic personhood, when we don't even
Speaker 1: have robots that are closed to being conscious, is more
Speaker 1: premature than not, and really that that being this premature
Speaker 1: could stifle development right in other in other words, like
Speaker 1: if you were to set up rules and regulations that
Speaker 1: say X is off limits, someone who is trying to innovate,
Speaker 1: may end up not pursuing a path of innovation because
Speaker 1: they're afraid it's going to overlap on that restriction. And
Speaker 1: then the what the critics are saying is that means
Speaker 1: we get a much slower rate of progression when it
Speaker 1: comes to we get no Paul McCartney bought at all, Right,
Speaker 1: and think of the songs that we're going to miss
Speaker 1: out on from Paul McCartney bought that's going to be
Speaker 1: copyrighted in some way that we haven't determined. Yet they
Speaker 1: also point out that this proposal again is not legally
Speaker 1: binding legislation. So some people are saying, hey, what's the
Speaker 1: point of this anyway. It's not like if if the
Speaker 1: European Parliament said this is a great idea, that anything
Speaker 1: would happen. That's not the point I would argue. I
Speaker 1: would argue that the draft report is meant to say,
Speaker 1: let's start the ball rolling and actually officially get some
Speaker 1: committees in place to start forming what will be legislation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get I get the argument, and in that it's saying, like,
Speaker 1: stop making meetings to make more meetings. But but in
Speaker 1: this case it's necessary, especially since like we advocate all
Speaker 1: the time that we need to talk about this, and
Speaker 1: then we say, hey, why are you talking about that?
Speaker 1: That's crazy? But uh, finally we have that social security
Speaker 1: section that has people scratching their heads because on the
Speaker 1: face of it, it sounds like crazy talk to say,
Speaker 1: a robot is not a person. Why would you have
Speaker 1: a robot pay into social security? A robot is never
Speaker 1: going to collect on social security. But when you look
Speaker 1: at that larger picture that we've mentioned a couple of
Speaker 1: times now, the idea of a social system that starts
Speaker 1: to fold in on itself through lack of funding, it
Speaker 1: starts to make a little more sense at least that
Speaker 1: you need to find a solution to that problem. Maybe
Speaker 1: having the robots essentially the owners of the robots paying
Speaker 1: into social security on behalf of the robots. Maybe that
Speaker 1: ultimately doesn't make sense, but we definitely have to think
Speaker 1: about of a solution that does make sense because that
Speaker 1: problem is going to be there either way. So uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I was so pleased to get to
Speaker 1: dig into this document and uh and so pleased again,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like I feel like I've said this
Speaker 1: like nine times already, but like, just good job you guys,
Speaker 1: y EU for getting this done. Yeah. I hope that
Speaker 1: this leads to more official action. Yeah. Uh, it would
Speaker 1: be great to see someone take the lead in this
Speaker 1: space and say, I don't care if you guys think
Speaker 1: this is silly. We have to prepare or else we're
Speaker 1: going to be caught with our our digital pants down exactly.
Speaker 1: I was trying to come up with what adjective do
Speaker 1: I want to use for pants? Digital? Was perfect? Um,
Speaker 1: so we don't want that to happen. Let's let's get
Speaker 1: ahead of it. And I think that this is a
Speaker 1: really interesting start, and I'm hopeful that it will continue
Speaker 1: and that despite the jokes and the pranks and the
Speaker 1: you know, the good natured like not so good natured
Speaker 1: jabs on Twitter, that we see progress because it's it's
Speaker 1: something that has to happen sooner or later, and that
Speaker 1: or other it happens sooner. Yeah, it will happen whether
Speaker 1: we like it or not. So let's let's be prepared.
Speaker 1: But I'm curious to hear what you guys think. You know,
Speaker 1: give it, give it a read if you like it.
Speaker 1: It's twenty two pages long. Uh that includes the first
Speaker 1: two pages that have just like the little contents of
Speaker 1: stuff stuff, and then once you get into that, it's
Speaker 1: a super fast read. I promise you. You can even
Speaker 1: start skimming it in certain sections because they're reiterating stuff
Speaker 1: they've said, so you can really breathe through it in
Speaker 1: like a half hour easy. And that's if you're taking
Speaker 1: time to make notes. I know because I've done it. Uh,
Speaker 1: So check it out. It's available online. You can actually
Speaker 1: get the PDF and read through the whole thing. And
Speaker 1: I want to hear what you guys have to think
Speaker 1: about that, like, do you have your own reaction to this?
Speaker 1: Are there certain things that you think are great ideas?
Speaker 1: Are you things that you feel are completely off off base,
Speaker 1: off track? Is there anything that you think that they
Speaker 1: missed entirely? Yeah? And uh. Also, obviously, if you have
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes of forward thinking, you can send
Speaker 1: those to us as well. Our email address is FW
Speaker 1: thinking at how Stuff Works dot com, or you can
Speaker 1: drop us a line on Twitter or Facebook at Twitter
Speaker 1: where FW thinking. If you go to Facebook and you
Speaker 1: search FW thinking in that little search bar, our profile
Speaker 1: should pop up and you can leave us on sit there.
Speaker 1: We'd like to hear from you, guys, and we will
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. For more on this
Speaker 1: topic and the future of technology, visit forward Thinking dot
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