I think I am in love with a robot. His name is Mojo. He lives in San Pedro. Me, a 5-foot-10, Italian-born human in love with a pile of metal? After all, that is how we humans still think of them. But they are so much more.
I went on a field trip, intrigued by a flier I saw out of the corner of my eye. It depicted a robotic eye on display on a street corner in San Pedro. I raced to the sunny community on the bay to observe a sidewalk robot. And there it was, the sun’s rays reflecting light on its metal body. It had a stiff physique and an astute look. And that eye—big, orange plastic—that followed me at every move. And then it happened. It shined its bright light on me. And there I stood, showered with a beam of fluorescent light on my head.
People turned and looked perplexed. “How could she smile with that thing shining over her head?” said one woman to her flabbergasted companion. Yes, I was happy to experience an attraction to a metal body, a technologically derived being that was there to please me. Mojo is nothing more than a pole with effervescent style to unimaginative people. It is a robot. It was engineered, created to independently react to human movements around it. I immediately imagined myself as Queen Amidala, complete with those horn-like buns on the side of her head, living in outer space with androids speeding millimeters from me. The feeling of being the only human in a galaxy of human-created machines was eerie. For people like me, this uncomfortable sensation could be the future.
Mojo’s creator, UCLA design professor Christian Moeller, is known for his interactive pieces in Tokyo, London, New York and Frankfurt. Moeller believes artists should never restrict their artistic conscience to please humans.
“I take for granted that some people may not like my art,” he said. “But the city of San Pedro chose me and Mojo,” and not the other way around.
Moeller’s creation stands tall and handsome in the middle of a crowded pedestrian intersection. So, for those San Pedro residents who are not seeing eye to eye with my beloved Mojo, tough luck. It is there to stay.
My fascination with robots goes back to the days when my dad would read me Isaac Asimov in a deep, raspy voice before I fell asleep. I never understood the practical benefits of having a pre-teenage love of robots, space and aliens. In third grade, while other girls recounted their dreams of palaces and rescued princesses, I secretly developed an affection for science fiction—UFOs and androids collecting human bodies and transporting them into the unknown. Even today, though, humans are still anxious about letting robot dreams overpower their need to be dominant. Humans need to be stronger than other beings even after humans are dead. It’s the human curse.
Although I have found robots fascinating since childhood, my brother Gabriel is the perfect example of an I-am-scared-of-everything-that-I-don’t-recognize being. A chemical engineering junior at Los Angeles’ Loyola Marymount University, he would be terrified of Mojo.
“I would never have a robot in my house,” he said. “Are you crazy? It’s not a human thing to do.”
So, what is a human thing do to?
“Avoid them completely,” he said.
The idea that humans are not ready to accept a different life form is a problem. More than 1000 species of robots exist in the world. Think, for example, of Star Wars’ R2-D2 and C-3PO—walking-metal-cuteness—and smart, too. If these are the robots we are so afraid of, we are a bunch of wusses, I am sorry to say. What is it about these creatures that terrorizes us? Is it their shapes? Is it their speech? Or, more likely, their intelligence? Some of the brainiest people in the world create Robots. So, have faith you fearful beings. For some people, though, living in a world with mechanical beings is a reality with a potentially deadly result.
Isaac Asimov, the late sci-fi novelist, believed human-robot coexistence would present problems. To prevent bellicose relations between the psychologically weak humans and the robots, he created three laws of robotics, in which robots were the clear nemesis:
1. “A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.”
2. “A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.”
3. “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
In his novels, Asimov’s robots’ brains were designed and engineered according to these three laws, so that humans would not be left with a fantastic image of their own superiority and omnipotence.
But what is a robot anyway? According to the Japan Industrial Robot Association (JIRA) there are six different categories ranging from manual manipulator robots operated by a person to intelligent robots that can modify their actions and start to feel.
The word robot comes, in part, from the Latin orbus: orphaned. It makes a lot of sense. Latin-speaking people, myself included, considered robots orphans. From the day of their creation, robots are left to themselves to cope with reality. They don’t need constant attention; they only need occasional guidance. Robots are engineered creatures, and, as such, casual supervision will suffice. Humans create robots. We are not their mommies and daddies. That we later denounced them is an unfortunate fact. Love them or hate them, we have a fascination with them.
“The fascination robots exert on the population at large has unexplored social, political and emotional implications,” Eduardo Kac, assistant professor of Art and Technology at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, says in an article.
These implications are manifested in the way scientists and experts design robots. New aesthetic designs and new behavioral sensitivity implicitly acknowledge humans’ fear of what is different. Paro, for example, is a therapeutic robot seal complete with faux fur and an adorable muzzle. Paro was developed by Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and is the world’s first therapeutic motion-activated robot seal. Paro’s surface-sensitive sensors and tactile whiskers trigger it to move and respond to petting, making it a crowd favorite in children’s hospitals and nursing homes. Paro resembles an animal the common man knows and adores. Paro is also a robot, not camouflaged, not hidden. Paro is a real working robot. And people love it.
As Kac says, in the political and social realms, humans are unable to adapt to a reality with different life forms. In Asimov’s I, Robot, a collection of short stories first published in 1940, Robbie, a robot-nanny-friend of little Gloria, a middle-class, suburban child. Robbie becomes the personification of the fears humans show and feel towards other life forms, says robotics professor and author Sidney Perkowitz. He argues that Gloria’s mother mirrors the future of robot-human relations.
“I won’t have my daughter entrusted to a machine,” the mother says. “It has no soul, and no one knows what it may be thinking.”
Indeed, Gloria’s mother thinks what we don’t know is inherently terrible. And, more importantly, humans have to be the superior beings. According to Asimov, the three laws were only created to satisfy the human need to control their own and others’ destiny. Thus, robots were the sole receivers of set rules of behavior.
Are we the only beings who can be called intelligent?
“I absolutely don’t think so,” my dad says, sitting on the couch and reading. “We are so miserably small-brained compared to machines. Robots are a reality, Chiara.”
Ok, I get it. Many recent authors and scholars have challenged the idea that human intelligence is a unique characteristic. Ruth Aylett is one of them. Author of “Robots, Bringing Intelligent Machines to Life?” she argues that human intelligence, recognizing personal and logical patterns in our daily life, is far too limiting as compared to artificial intelligence.
“Moving freely in the world, perceiving what is important, and interacting with others—all these are abilities we share with many other animals,” she writes. “Maybe an intelligent machine need not look or behave just like a human at all?”
Then, why are people so fearful of a future with machines mingling with us? I am suddenly reminded of my Latin American History professor at the University of Washington telling us that there is no other way to look at reality. We are divided. Unrelated. Unsatisfied. Unhappy. In the history of mankind, the only repeating pattern is the need to categorize differences. It was first race, the socio-economic status. In this case, robots are paying the price for our insecurity. We do it with colors, when we are learning how to logically divide things, and we do it with beings, creatures.
University of Wisconsin anthropology professor Robert Miller explains why humans limit their experience to their comfort zone. This tendency is always dictated by a specific environment.
“Paradoxically, as we design machines that can stimulate, emulate, and go beyond human capabilities in particular environments, we begin to confront intellectually uncomfortable questions about the adaptability of humans,” he wrote in a 1983 article.
Perhaps it is the anxiety of a weaker human-ness that triggers hate and disdain toward a skinny pole with a bright orange eye. Or, is it because of its figure? Are we jealous because it is skinny? Is this our notion of human-ness? According to Miller, robots force us to look back at human history. Throughout the past, humans’ acceptance of the unknown was conditioned by specific events and places that contoured everyday life.
Are humans scared of the future?
“Hell yes!” yells my brother from across the room.
I have to take him to San Pedro and observe his reaction. Our fear of the unknown is rooted in the analysis of a changing environment. My brother has had the same configuration of books and pens on his desk since the day we moved to the United States seven years ago.
“I like things not to change,” he says.
My mother looks at him impatiently. I know for a fact, he would be on the first shuttle to Mars if robots eventually ruled the earth. No, wait. He is scared of flying.
So back to the loving. There are scientists who think humans will fall in love with robots. One such scientist is Daniel Wilson, who earned his PhD from the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University and is now a featured contributor to Popular Science Magazine.
“People fall in love with their cars, their cats, and their online chat buddies,” he says. “They will absolutely fall in love with robots.”
Wilson is young and lean. His black-framed glasses give him a sophisticated look. He wears a tie and the black glasses to intimidate people, but “no one is fooled!” he says.
“I don't think robots are smart enough to serve as healthy partners for human beings, although physically they can already serve as . . . well you get what I'm talking about,” he says. Wilson spent five years developing a philosophical way to unite humans and robots technologically, and why not, romantically.
“I'm sure there are people who could fall in love with just about anything, and it's real love too, but I doubt society will react with much enthusiasm to those people,” he says.
As robots get smarter and more physically capable, he says, “I think they will eventually be challenging common-law wife statutes around the world!”
“That’s craziness!” screams my mother when I tell her to watch out for robot-superwives.
Wilson and I are not the only ones thinking about mechanical love. Bloggers all over
the world unite to celebrate the beauty of mechanical love. SciForums is a science blog. One blogger, Creamsoda, asked the million-dollar question:
“Let’s go 1,000 or 2,000 years from now and Susie Q wants to spend the rest of her life with B.E.N. Do you think we humans would allow it? Would it be against the law?”
ElectricFetus responds: “As always, loving a robot or anything else would probably be considered morally wrong and won’t be condoned by the church. I’ll bet!” Cris comments: “If computer technology continues to grow at its current rate, then in 50 years time a robot would have an IQ level that would far exceed any human. A robot choosing to lower itself to love a human would be the current equivalent of a human loving an ape.”
Kaduseus writes, “It would be easy to make a robot love you. A truly intelligent machine would not understand what love is.”
For Sangentlard, another blogger, a monogamous, human-to-human is the only logical and moral relationship to seek.
“Last and first and foremost: How sad would your life have to be in order to love a robot,” he said. “Do you really not like humans that much? If you are looking for a love slave then go ahead, but you just can’t beat the spontaneity of a human.”
In 2005, Kim Jong-Hwan, the director of the Intelligent Robot Research Lab in South Korea, developed artificial chromosomes determining a robot’s personality. Kim is reportedly working on a set of X and Y chromosomes that would give robots sexual characteristics. I wonder what Sargentlard would think of that.
“Blah, that is disgusting!” my brother says, his face cringing in horror. “It’s creepy.”
“Christians may not like it, but we must consider this the origin of an artificial species,” Kim says in an article. “Until now, most researchers in this field have focused only on the functionality of the machines, but we think in terms of the essence of the creatures."
He is convinced that if “soft” chromosomes are developed, humans should not fear the inevitable robot invasion. My brother looks at me incredulous, speechless. Kim is one of the most avant-garde robotics scientists in the world. In 1995 he created the robot soccer world cup – the RoboCup. My brother, an avid soccer player and fan, could potentially find an affinity with this obscure world of mechanical beings. The RoboCup motto is simple and direct: “By the year 2050, develop a team of fully autonomous humanoid robots that can win against the human world soccer champion team.”
Italy won the most recent human World Cup. I think my brother is up for the challenge.
“It’s ridiculous,” he says. “They will never win. Soccer is calculated tactics, and being able to change those tactics as the game goes on. Robots can’t do that!”
The next tournament is in July, 2008 in Atlanta.
I found pictures of Mojo online.
“You call that cute?” my brother asked. “It’s a pole with a lamp on top of it.”
He does not understand. Mojo is the first robot made as a work of art available for the public to see. And yes, it is cute. Perhaps a constant reminder that robots are friendly creatures will cure my brother’s terror. A good challenge may just be the perfect cure. See you in Atlanta.
