Here's an idea-- it's unethical to not develop
artificial intelligence.
OK.
Forgive me my double negative for one second
and just let me explain.
Artificial intelligence-- specifically
robots which can learn, problem solve, and be creative--
have been a signifier for futureness
since about the mid 20th century.
Sure, in the present we have Siri and Watson
in Deep Blue and even the Kinect, all of which
are built on artificial intelligence
but lack a central feature of that shiny metal
future from the movies-- they are not embodied.
They are stuck inside little boxes
and left to interact with the world
through their computerized voices and not-- well, bodies.
Siri, tell me a joke.
SIRI: I can't.
I always forget the punchline.
Charming as they may be, these AI
aren't much more than simple information valets,
though that might soon change.
If you've yet to have the pleasure,
allow me to introduce you to Baxter.
At $22,000 a pop, this robot-- which has hands, eyes,
is trainable, and comes preprogrammed
with a certain amount of common sense--
is cheaper than a year's worth of most repetitive
Fordist human labor and is smarter than his robo factory
ancestors.
For some people that is pretty threatening, and rightfully so.
If you could have a staff of trainable,
multitaskable Baxters why would you hire people?
People need to managing and health
care and birthday parties and casual Fridays on which
to wear their Hawaiian shirts.
And Baxter is not the only smarty pants robo
bro out there.
The Google self driving car is just a predecessor
to the [INAUDIBLE].
Pro Joe, the teaching robot, could become
CGP-crazed digital Aristotle.
Watson-- yes, Watson from "Jeopardy"--
is being rejiggered to work in diagnostic medicine.
He could be the grandfather to Dr. Perceptron.
There are even some very smart people
developing a Perry Mastron for all of your legal bot needs.
What I'm saying is that robots might someday
replace us, professionally.
There's an idea
Now, you probably think you know
what I'm going to say next.
You think I'm going to say, all of these robots doing
these jobs-- that's bad.
Putting all those people out of work, it's unethical.
Except I'm not going to say that.
I'm actually going to say that replacing human laborers
with steely automatons is arguably one of the most
ethical things you could do.
Now, there's an easy line here saying
that we would just make the robots do
the jobs that human beings shouldn't be doing anyway.
It's a well traveled path so we're not going to go down it.
Besides, we're not talking about artificial intelligence
replacing just the dangerous and menial jobs but also
the complex, fast paced, extremely precise,
and the knowledge heavy jobs.
That's a lot of jobs.
And so that might cause a lot of problems.
And the problems that come with large scale
social, economic, and corporate restructuring
are many and varied and some are real scary.
But the more complex ethical discussion
doesn't involve the relationship between humans
and each other or robots, but between humans and the future.
Is it ethical to stop improvement?
Would it be ethical for us to stop making and deploying
Baxters and Google cars and warehouse robots
and streamline, simplify, cost reduce, and increase
the reliability of any number of processes
because people are currently doing them,
because up until this point people is all we had?
Philosopher Alain Badiou describes what
he calls the ethic of truths.
The most important thing is the event
which seizes humanity and breaks it from the norm.
That event, and the way people are faithful to it,
can contribute to humanity's immortality
as a group of beings which create and continue
and-- there's a lot of hand waving
when you talk about the future.
Badiou writes that there is only one question
in the ethic of truth-- how do I, as someone, continue
to exceed my being?
How will I link the things I know
in a consistent fashion via the effects of being
seized by the unknown?
Not following through, not continuing
to make plastic pals that are fun to be with
could be seen as a betrayal of that norm breaking event.
For instance, do we deny future generations
the possibility of cheaper, better medical care
from robot doctors because we want to maintain
the no robo status quo?
I mean the printing press threatened so much
about the status quo and we're all
very glad we saw that through, aren't we?
Not to mention the computer and the automobile.
But hm.
Because human progress gave us medicine and the internet
and cup holders, but it also gave us
the atomic bomb and Furbies.
Any ethics of progress has to account
for the fact that on the horizon of that progress
lays some terrible atrocity.
It has to approach ideas of progress unobjectively.
You can't stop progress isn't exactly the most comforting
ethic, is it?
Progress, as an ethic, can't unequivocally
prioritize that progress before everything else.
Happiness and physical safety are both pretty important,
but an ethics of progress can help us organize
what comes next in line.
We have to accept the possibility of the bad stuff
that comes packaged with progress
and focus on what happens after the progress dust has settled.
We have to keep going.
And why?
Because of the greater, grander human experience
we'd only be able to achieve with the help
of our artificially intelligent robot friends.
Arigato.
What do you guys think?
Is it unethical to stop the development
of artificial intelligence?
Let's us know in the comments.
And I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Subscribe.
I think the saddest music in the world
is probably any song written by the Vengaboys.
Let's see what you guys had to say about the source of emotion
in music.
CB George says that our emotional response to music
might be a kind of chicken or the egg problem in that we are
trained, in some way, watching movies and other visual media
to associate certain kinds of sounds with certain images
and that's kind of-- he uses the word Pavlovian, which is great.
Ciscoql asks, if sad music isn't sad does that mean
that a sad picture isn't sad?
I think a lot of the same stuff applies,
but a picture can be a lot more literal.
It's not nearly as encoded as a piece of music.
But, you know, personal experience
still plays a huge role in determining
what your emotional reaction to an artwork or something
is going to be.
Congratulations to DOOSH MASTA, who
managed to summarize the entire episode rather well
in one comment.
If you can find it, this conversation between OpDday2201
and Symbiotisism.
Is really great.
I suggest you fun out and get some--
get some Control F happening, see if you can find it.
Jesse Harris makes the astute point
that the only piece of music which
contains objective emotion is "Yakety Sax"
and I think I'd totally agree.
[INAUDIBLE] has a further correction
on a previous correction, saying that MTGox actually
was Magic the Gathering and not Mining Team Gox.
I'm-- I-- I don't know what to think anymore.
[INAUDIBLE] makes a really interesting point
about the enjoyment of non mainstream music
and music that doesn't contain standardized emotional content
and wonders whether or not when people enjoy that music,
it's a kind of reaction or that they are comforting themselves
because they are responding to the mainstream, which
I think is-- is really interesting, really good.
This week's episode was brought to you
by the work of these diligent people
and the Tweet of the Week comes from O. WolfgangSmith,
who imagines the internet as one building, which it is.