/ News
What Happens When Robots Become Role Models
When you spend a lot of time with someone, their characteristics can rub off on you. But what happens when that someone is a robot?
As artificial intelligence systems become increasingly human, their abilities to influence people also improve. New Scientist reports that children who spend time with a robotic companion appear to pick up elements of its behavior. New experiments suggest that when kids play with a robot that’s a real go-getter, for instance, the child acquires some of its unremitting can-do attitude.
Other researchers are seeking to take advantage of similar effects in adults. A group at the Queensland University of Technology is enrolling a small team of pint-sized humanoid Nao robots to coach people to eat healthy. It hopes that chatting through diet choices with a robot, rather than logging calorie consumption on a smartphone, will be more effective in changing habits. It could work: as our own Will Knight has found out in the past, some conversational AI interfaces can be particularly compelling.
So as personal robots increasingly enter the home, robots may not just do our bidding—they might also become role models, too. And that means we must tread carefully, because while the stories above hint at the possibilities of positive reinforcement from automatons, others hint at potential negative effects.
Some parents, for instance, have complained that Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant is training their children to be rude. Alexa doesn’t need people to say please and thank you, will tolerate answering the same question over and over, and remains calm in the face of tantrums. In short: it doesn’t prime kids for how to interact with real people.
The process can flow both ways, of course. Researchers at Stanford University recently developed a robot that was designed to roam sidewalks, monitor humans, and learn how to behave with them naturally and appropriately. But as we’ve seen in the case of Microsoft’s AI chatbot, Tay—which swiftly became rude and anti-Semitic when it learned from Twitter users—taking cues from the crowd doesn’t always play out well.
In reality, there isn’t yet a fast track to creating robots that are socially intelligent—it remains one of the large unsolved problems of AI. That means that roboticists must instead carefully choose the traits they wish to be present in their machines, or else risk delivering armies of bad influence into our homes.
Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/603708/what-happens-when-robots-become-role-models/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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