The Advancement of Robot Technology

Phillup My-anus
Comp & Rhetoric
Mrs. A Jones
10/22/2013
The Advancement of Robot Technology Imagine our world today, full of advanced interactive robots (AIR) and geminoids. Robot pets running around the house, playing with you children or your siblings. Robot humans taking over our jobs, becoming our country's next sports stars, and possibly even becoming our nation's President. How would these robots fit into our society? What if the their systems were to malfunction and the robot[s] were to commit a crime? Is there really a need for pet and human robots? The advancement of robot technology is pointless in our world, other than to please the curiosity of the curios; Those who wish for a world full of robots intertwining with humans have not pondered the difficulty and the consequences that may come about with these advancements. An AIR is an advanced interactive robot that, in some cases, is a pet robot that can interact with humans and the environment around them. The Japanese have developed an AIR that is a pet seal named Paro. Paro is a white seal that can interact with humans and the environment by making baby seal noises as its response. Paro can be turned on and off at any time throughout the day, offering control over when it does and does not wish to be used by its users. In experiments, Paro has been found to reduce patient stress, stimulate socialization between patients and their caregivers, and even have the psychological effects of improving relaxation and motivation of its users. Some patients have experienced both positive and negative effects of using Paro. In the documentary, “Mechanical Love”, an elder woman used Paro while in a senior home and she loved it! The other elder women when living in that same home, however, did not. They became annoyed with Paro as it continued to make noises during the evening game night. The next day, the patient using Paro was sitting alone with another elder woman while eating dinner, the patient said to the woman, “I really love my pet seal.” The other elder woman responded with a simple, “Hmpf”, displaying that she wasn't quite fond of Paro. Although some may not enjoy the company of Paro, I encourage the use of the pet seal for those who see a benefit in themselves with the use of it. Humans are born to interact with other humans. When a robot of any kind is introduced, there is always a level of caution and many questions arise during interaction with such robots. Along with the advancement of Paro, the Japanese have also developed a robot called a geminoid. A geminoid is a robot “twin” or clone of a human. One Japanese engineering scientist has developed a geminoid clone that looks almost identical to himself. As also displayed in “Mechanical love”, the scientists working with this geminoid put him to the test to see how his wife and his daughter would respond to interaction with the robot. The man that they cloned had sensors attached to his body to portray the movements of his mouth and arms through the robot as he talked into a microphone that projected his voice out of the geminoid to mimic himself. The wife was first and she responded quite well to the geminoid. She stated that it was weird, she could deal with the robot but she would much rather prefer her real husband rather than the twin robot. On the other hand, however, the young daughter did not respond well to the robot twin. She found it to be scary and creepy while interacting with him. The father asked the daughter to touch the robot and she refused because she was too scared. She explained that she wouldn't want the robot in her home in place of her real father in any case. As you can see, there is a high level of caution and awkwardness that is displayed by humans as they interact with the robots. Humans are not born to interact with mechanical beings. Humans are made to form relationships with those who are like them, not with specifically programmed beings. If there is such a day where robots are introduced into our everyday society, a numerous amount of difficulties and communication and relation problems would arise. With the development of the AIR's and geminoids arises many difficulties of production and advancement of them. The elder women not using Paro thought that it was annoying. Engineering scientists are now attempting to make Paro more responsive to humans and its environment by programming it to know when to make its noises, when not to, and the loudness of its noise responses to eliminate turning it on and off multiple times throughout the day. The wife and daughter that were used in tests with the geminoid responded also saying that the its face and body movements were awkward compared to a real human. The scientists are now working on making the geminoid's body and facial movements seem more natural, as well as programming the robot able to move and talk by itself, with out the sensors and microphone being used by the human twin. In the future they hope to engineer the robot function in everyday life along with humans. They plan for the robot to express emotion through its voice and body movements and even to perform specific jobs or become a universal robot that can respond to interaction with all humans, environments, and situations. As the scientists advance with such technologies, the robots become more prone to error and wrongdoing. There is always the possibility of a malfunction with the system of the robots, increasing the odds of the geminoid doing something that it normally wouldn't do. With the programming of emotion into the geminoid, they may express anger or frustration and become capable of crime or express violence towards its users in certain situations. As so many questions and complications emerge with the development of robot technology, is there really a point to their advancement? Because a large part of the development of robots is to allow them to take over some job positions to make the production more efficient and more safe, there would be a lack of jobs for humans. If geminoid technology advances to the point where they cant think, act, and work like humans(like in the documentary Mechanical Love), should our government pay them like we pay humans? There would be no point in paying robots because they cannot eat, they cannot drink, and they have no use in owning a house or any land, and they would have no family to care for. They merely would need a place to stay when they are not being used. Since the goal is to create a geminiod that can think and act like a human, we would have to treat them like a normal human being. Humans would have to allow them to compete in sports and possibly even run for president. Allowing them to compete in sports would create an unfair disadvantage to humans. They would be much more durable and be capable of much more athleticism and strength. If we were to allow them to run for president and other governmental positions, geminiods would have some rule over humans and for the majority of humans, that is a very hard subject to imagine. The development of robot technology would have little use a may negatively affect our society as a whole. The goal of the advancement of Paro is to aid certain people with their reduce patient stress, stimulate socialization between patients and their caregivers, and even have the psychological effects of improving relaxation and motivation of its users. The goal of the advancement of geminiod technology is allow them to think, act, and respond to their environment, like their human counter parts do. To replicate the body movements, the responses, the emotions, the learning and memory functions, and job specifications that humans have would be largely impossible. If this technology were to ever reach that point, there would be more room for error and malfunctions that may lead to crime or violence between humans and robots. Since the robots are clones of humans, we would be required to treat them like humans. This would allow for the next robot superstar sports competitor and possibly the next robot president. If future technology allows this to happen, how would you feel knowing that robots could potentially have rule over humans?