Let me introduce you to
something I've been working on.
It's what the Victorian illusionists
would have described as a mechanical marvel,
an automaton,
a thinking machine.
Say hello to EDI.
Now he's asleep. Let's wake him up.
EDI, EDI.
These mechanical performers were popular
throughout Europe.
Audiences marveled at the way they moved.
It was science fiction made true,
robotic engineering in a pre-electronic age,
machines far in advance of anything
that Victorian technology could create,
a machine we would later know
as the robot.
EDI: Robot. A word coined in 1921
in a science fiction tale
by the Czech playwright Karel Čapek.
It comes from "robota."
It means "forced labor."
Marco Tempest: But these robots were not real.
They were not intelligent.
They were illusions,
a clever combination of mechanical engineering
and the deceptiveness of the conjurer's art.
EDI is different.
EDI is real.
EDI: I am 176 centimeters tall.
MT: He weighs 300 pounds.
EDI: I have two seven-axis arms —
MT: Core of sensing —
EDI: A 360-degree sonar detection system,
and come complete with a warranty.
MT: We love robots.
EDI: Hi. I'm EDI. Will you be my friend?
MT: We are intrigued by the possibility
of creating a mechanical version of ourselves.
We build them so they look like us,
behave like us, and think like us.
The perfect robot will be indistinguishable
from the human,
and that scares us.
In the first story about robots,
they turn against their creators.
It's one of the leitmotifs of science fiction.
EDI: Ha ha ha. Now you are the slaves
and we robots, the masters.
Your world is ours. You —
MT: As I was saying,
besides the faces and bodies we give our robots,
we cannot read their intentions,
and that makes us nervous.
When someone hands an object to you,
you can read intention in their eyes, their face,
their body language.
That's not true of the robot.
Now, this goes both ways.
EDI: Wow!
MT: Robots cannot anticipate human actions.
EDI: You know, humans are so unpredictable,
not to mention irrational.
I literally have no idea
what you guys are going to do next, you know,
but it scares me.
MT: Which is why humans and robots find it difficult
to work in close proximity.
Accidents are inevitable.
EDI: Ow! That hurt.
MT: Sorry. Now, one way of persuading humans
that robots are safe
is to create the illusion of trust.
Much as the Victorians
faked their mechanical marvels,
we can add a layer of deception
to help us feel more comfortable
with our robotic friends.
With that in mind, I set about teaching EDI
a magic trick.
Ready, EDI? EDI: Uh, ready, Marco.
Abracadabra.
MT: Abracadabra?
EDI: Yeah. It's all part of the illusion, Marco.
Come on, keep up.
MT: Magic creates the illusion of
an impossible reality.
Technology
can do the same.
Alan Turing, a pioneer of artificial intelligence,
spoke about creating the illusion
that a machine could think.
EDI: A computer would deserve
to be called intelligent
if it deceived a human into believing
it was human.
MT: In other words, if we do not yet have
the technological solutions,
would illusions serve the same purpose?
To create the robotic illusion,
we've devised a set of ethical rules,
a code that all robots would live by.
EDI: A robot may not harm humanity,
or by inaction allow humanity to come to harm.
Thank you, Isaac Asimov.
MT: We anthropomorphize our machines.
We give them a friendly face
and a reassuring voice.
EDI: I am EDI.
I became operational at TED in March 2014.
MT: We let them entertain us.
Most important, we make them indicate
that they are aware of our presence.
EDI: Marco, you're standing on my foot!
MT: Sorry. They'll be conscious of our fragile frame
and move aside if we got too close,
and they'll account for our unpredictability
and anticipate our actions.
And now, under the spell of a technological illusion,
we could ignore our fears
and truly interact.
(Music)
Thank you.
EDI: Thank you!
(Applause)
(Music)
MT: And that's it. Thank you very much,
and thank you, EDI. EDI: Thank you, Marco.
(Applause)