Friday, August 26, 2005
Androids: Sooner Than We Think
This is something that I'd originally expected to talk about during a "filler" week, when all of my long-standing issues had cleared out and nothing exciting was happening during that particular week.
Then, thanks to another blogger, I came across this article.
The caption on one of the photos (you'll have to scroll down a bit to see it) reads, "Scientists think that, one day, robots could fool us into believing they were human." This, really, is the main thing I'm seeing in the future of robots: I predict that, by the middle of the century, robots will be realistic enough that they can truly be called androids.
It's not just the development of realistic appearances. Other robots are able to walk, and a human-like walk is just past the current horizon. Speech recognition and speech generation are growing ever closer to reality. Visual recognition is advancing slowly but surely. Electronic artificial intelligence is already demonstrated in Repliee Q1Expo (the robot under discussion in the above-linked article), and its ability to interact with others based on touch (or to follow a person's movements, if the person is wearing a motion-capture device), as well as in a related article from the same website.
According to the article, Repliee's creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for human for five to ten seconds. That's a decent near-future estimate, but looking to the year 2050 I think we may be looking at longer-term interactions than that.
Mind you, I don't think "full-range" androids (as I like to call them) will be as affordable to the common citizen as, say, automobiles or computers are today; for that, I think we'll have to wait until the last part of the century. But I do believe that the day is coming.
So one could wonder what the point is of building an android. What could an android do that neither is human nor a conventional robot do?
So here's where I step into the role of speculator. The first thing that comes to mind is routine health care -- the tasks that were once the primary field of nurses, before nursing became a much more advanced profession than we see in the older generation of television programs. This is the area where I'd be likely to use one in my own life; an android is better than a robot in this sense because it gives at least some semblance of putting a human face on the matter.
Around the end of the century, androids will probably be most prevalent as office receptionists, store clerks, ticket agents, flight and rail attendants, and other similar jobs. These are jobs where some judgement and interpersonal skill is needed, and a human form is definitely beneficial, but there may not be a human available to do it or it's just more practical for some other reason to buy a robot than hire a human.
Then there's the old sci-fi chestnut of a cop with an android partner. Two TV series from the past century featured this idea, with one playing it for laughs (Holmes and Yoyo, 1976) and the other straight though with a quirky sense of humor (Mann and Machine, 1992). How practical this would be, I really can't say for sure, but with the human partner providing a basic sense of judgement and the android partner providing electronic and mechanical support (such as instant crime photos, mobile Intranet access, and so forth) it could help our police tremendously.
And speaking of television, androids may have a future in that industry as well as its sister, motion pictures. I've stated in the past (long ago, actually) that computers will never entirely replace human creativity, and I stand by that. But computers, and androids along with them, can be a very valuable tool. There are simply some parts, especially in science-fiction settings, that a human simply cannot play. During most the twentieth century we used prosthetic makeup; in more recent years computer graphics have expanded the possibilities. Both have had their weaknesses. Androids will have them too... but imagine what might have been different with a robotic Gollum, or Jar-Jar Binks. Even more or less conventional animals, like Toto, could be roboticized, not only on film and video but also on the live stage.
And how about bodyguards? I'm sure they could handle the job Arnold did in Terminator 2, but I'm talking about android duplicates. If all of the President's Secret Service men look exactly like the President, them whom does the assassin shoot?
Finally, with realistic-looking androids one can always see the possibilities for the "world's oldest profession." I've seen what can be done with latex skin, and how it's become more and more realistic looking and feeling over just the past fifteen years. Without getting any more indelicate than necessary, if these advances continue and certain other areas are researched adequately we may have an entirely new breed of brothel on our landscape -- and certain wealthy individuals may have their own robotic harems.
Obviously all of this is going to require some examination as to how much of it is actually good, and what we're going to do about the parts that aren't. For example, populating brothels with androids could make transmission of sexually transmitted diseases via the sex trade a thing of the past, or nearly so -- but what sort of psychological and economic effects could it have on our society? If an android duplicate can protect the president, what about an android duplicate replacing him to carry out policies the real one would never consider? (Yes, that old sci-fi chestnut could indeed become a reality by century's end!) What sort of economic and sociological effect would we see from most receptionists and store clerks being androids -- and what happens if we start treating the human ones as though they were mechanical?
(Okay, that last one is rather less fair than it appears at first. There are a distressingly large number of people who are doing that already! I can personally think of at leat one local would-be theatrical director who should be very glad to not have to deal with actual human beings, and their pesky tendency to be creative, have experience, and think for themselves.)
These, I think, are issues to start working out now, before they start to become problems. The future in this area is certainly bright, but not without its challenges.
Then, thanks to another blogger, I came across this article.
The caption on one of the photos (you'll have to scroll down a bit to see it) reads, "Scientists think that, one day, robots could fool us into believing they were human." This, really, is the main thing I'm seeing in the future of robots: I predict that, by the middle of the century, robots will be realistic enough that they can truly be called androids.
It's not just the development of realistic appearances. Other robots are able to walk, and a human-like walk is just past the current horizon. Speech recognition and speech generation are growing ever closer to reality. Visual recognition is advancing slowly but surely. Electronic artificial intelligence is already demonstrated in Repliee Q1Expo (the robot under discussion in the above-linked article), and its ability to interact with others based on touch (or to follow a person's movements, if the person is wearing a motion-capture device), as well as in a related article from the same website.
According to the article, Repliee's creator, Hiroshi Ishiguro, believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for human for five to ten seconds. That's a decent near-future estimate, but looking to the year 2050 I think we may be looking at longer-term interactions than that.
Mind you, I don't think "full-range" androids (as I like to call them) will be as affordable to the common citizen as, say, automobiles or computers are today; for that, I think we'll have to wait until the last part of the century. But I do believe that the day is coming.
So one could wonder what the point is of building an android. What could an android do that neither is human nor a conventional robot do?
So here's where I step into the role of speculator. The first thing that comes to mind is routine health care -- the tasks that were once the primary field of nurses, before nursing became a much more advanced profession than we see in the older generation of television programs. This is the area where I'd be likely to use one in my own life; an android is better than a robot in this sense because it gives at least some semblance of putting a human face on the matter.
Around the end of the century, androids will probably be most prevalent as office receptionists, store clerks, ticket agents, flight and rail attendants, and other similar jobs. These are jobs where some judgement and interpersonal skill is needed, and a human form is definitely beneficial, but there may not be a human available to do it or it's just more practical for some other reason to buy a robot than hire a human.
Then there's the old sci-fi chestnut of a cop with an android partner. Two TV series from the past century featured this idea, with one playing it for laughs (Holmes and Yoyo, 1976) and the other straight though with a quirky sense of humor (Mann and Machine, 1992). How practical this would be, I really can't say for sure, but with the human partner providing a basic sense of judgement and the android partner providing electronic and mechanical support (such as instant crime photos, mobile Intranet access, and so forth) it could help our police tremendously.
And speaking of television, androids may have a future in that industry as well as its sister, motion pictures. I've stated in the past (long ago, actually) that computers will never entirely replace human creativity, and I stand by that. But computers, and androids along with them, can be a very valuable tool. There are simply some parts, especially in science-fiction settings, that a human simply cannot play. During most the twentieth century we used prosthetic makeup; in more recent years computer graphics have expanded the possibilities. Both have had their weaknesses. Androids will have them too... but imagine what might have been different with a robotic Gollum, or Jar-Jar Binks. Even more or less conventional animals, like Toto, could be roboticized, not only on film and video but also on the live stage.
And how about bodyguards? I'm sure they could handle the job Arnold did in Terminator 2, but I'm talking about android duplicates. If all of the President's Secret Service men look exactly like the President, them whom does the assassin shoot?
Finally, with realistic-looking androids one can always see the possibilities for the "world's oldest profession." I've seen what can be done with latex skin, and how it's become more and more realistic looking and feeling over just the past fifteen years. Without getting any more indelicate than necessary, if these advances continue and certain other areas are researched adequately we may have an entirely new breed of brothel on our landscape -- and certain wealthy individuals may have their own robotic harems.
Obviously all of this is going to require some examination as to how much of it is actually good, and what we're going to do about the parts that aren't. For example, populating brothels with androids could make transmission of sexually transmitted diseases via the sex trade a thing of the past, or nearly so -- but what sort of psychological and economic effects could it have on our society? If an android duplicate can protect the president, what about an android duplicate replacing him to carry out policies the real one would never consider? (Yes, that old sci-fi chestnut could indeed become a reality by century's end!) What sort of economic and sociological effect would we see from most receptionists and store clerks being androids -- and what happens if we start treating the human ones as though they were mechanical?
(Okay, that last one is rather less fair than it appears at first. There are a distressingly large number of people who are doing that already! I can personally think of at leat one local would-be theatrical director who should be very glad to not have to deal with actual human beings, and their pesky tendency to be creative, have experience, and think for themselves.)
These, I think, are issues to start working out now, before they start to become problems. The future in this area is certainly bright, but not without its challenges.
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