In a time when technology is growing at such a rapid rate, many times people question where it is we will be going. One of the most sought after products that are currently in development are robots and androids. The reason for this is because they are able to do work for humans, except more efficiently and with less risk. The work robots do are often referred to as the three D’s, dirty, dull, and dangerous. In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, by Philip K. Dick, androids can exist on Mars but not on Earth, because they are considered a harm to society. The novel tells the story of a bounty hunter on Earth, who is tasked with terminating a group of escaped androids from Mars. As he goes hunts down these androids he learns that not all of these androids want to harm people, and that even though they are mechanical, they can still have a positive impact on society. With the current growth rate of technology, it is likely that soon we may see androids and robots that are able to function and fit in with society as we know, but what will their place be in our society, and what will be their functions.
Integration
In the movie, I, Robot, robots are an integral part of society, where most families have their own robot who functions as a personal butler, maid, etc. This movie does a good job of showing robots integrated into society to support humans, rather than trying to fit in with them. The movie is loosely based on the book I, Robot, by Isaac Asimov, but they both share a key set of rules that is used for determining the functions of robot in society. These rules are known as the Three Laws of Robotics, or Asimov’s Laws and are as follows:
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 Laws.
These laws provide a foundation for what all robots should be programed to do. Based on these three laws, robots in the movie can perform their day to day functions without being a harm to society. Generally, when seeing these laws, most people believe themselves to be completely safe, but this may not be case. Firstly, it’s important to note that the robots in I, Robot are autonomous artificial intelligence based robots, and therefore can think like a human, but also must follow their programing. Per Robin Murphy in his article Beyond Asimov: The Three Laws of Responsible Robotics, he explains that these laws wouldn’t be practical for current robots that we have, seeing as we have yet to create artificial intelligence. Also, it is very difficult for a robot to tell a human apart from another a realistic android. For the second law, in the book and movie, robots take verbal cues from human to do what their told, realistically, robots take orders from coding that are provided by humans, meaning they will always have to obey what humans say. As for the third law, Murphy states that since robots are generally expensive to manufacture and maintain, that most all creators of robots will design robots to protect themselves from damage. In place of these laws, Murphy offers a set of alternative laws of robotics:
1. A human may not deploy a robot without the human–robot work system meeting the highest legal and professional standards of safety and ethics.
2. A robot must respond to humans as appropriate for their roles.
3. A robot must be endowed with sufficient situated autonomy to protect its own existence as long as such protection provides smooth transfer of control to other agents consistent with the first and second laws.
These alternative laws are written more for the humans designing the robots than the robots themselves, but are more applicable than Asimov’s Laws. A good example of robots that could follow these laws is the iRobot Roomba. It’s a small automated device that vacuums the floor of a house by itself. It can be programmed to run every day at a certain time, and is smart enough to self-sustain itself by not falling down the stairs, and follows the commands it is given by humans through its programming. Therefore, following these laws robots would be more likely to integrate into society than they are now.
Love and Arts
In the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, the protagonist, a bounty hunter named Rick Deckard, hunts down escaped androids from Mars who are illegally on Earth. One of the androids that Rick hunts down, Luba Luft, he finds at an opera. After watching her beautiful performance, he begins to wonder why it is that he needs to kill her, as she is not harming society, but adding something beautiful to it. The next instance that Rick runs into Luba, he finds her at an art gallery, admiring a piece from Edvard Munch. This goes to show that androids can be able to understand and appreciate art just as humans do which means that androids could possibly live harmoniously with humans, acting as they do, thinking on their own, and overall being a benefit to society.
Later in the book Rick realizes that he might be falling in love with another woman, Rachel Rosen, even though he knows she is an android. He wonders why it is that androids aren’t allowed to fit into human society, when it’s clear that they can blend in without problem, and function at a higher level so that they can’t be told apart from humans. He also thinks about how it would be if androids were apart of society, and if others would also be in love with androids. In the article Towards a formulation of love in human - robot interaction, researchers write about the main factors that are necessary to stimulate love between humans and if it’s possible to do between a human and android. These main factors include proximity, repeated exposure, attraction, similarity, and overall intimacy. In the case of Rick Deckard, most of those factors are met, mainly proximity, attraction, and intimacy, which ultimately lead to him falling in love with Rachel Rosen. These two key characters are important to understand just how androids may fit into human society and what it is that they could provide for it.
Another situation where this is encountered is the movie Ex Machina. The made plot of the movie is that a computer programmer, Caleb, was brought to a location to run an advanced Turing Test on an android that someone has created. Throughout the movie the android converses with Caleb just as a human would, but later in the movie it is revealed that she is manipulating him to help her escape. After some time, she manages to escape from her testing facility, which is essentially her passing the Turing Test. Although it was only a means to an end, it’s clear that a human would be able to fall in love with android that has a higher thinking capacity. Ex Machina does a good job of implying that autonomous robots can be just as smart as humans, if not smarter, when it comes to what they want, whether it be love, or anything else.
Medical and Research Uses
Robots and androids can also be extremely helpful when it comes to medical research. Currently they are being used for many purposes, from assisting doctors with patients, to crash test dummies used in automobile safety research. One major use could be synthetically created androids to help with medical research. In the show Westworld a team of scientists created extremely realistic androids that they used in a theme park for people to visit and interact with. After some time, they developed their technology from mechanical androids to fully synthetic 3D printed human tissue. In the show, they possessed the patent to this technology and only used it inside of their theme parks, but technology like this could be extremely valuable to scientific researchers.
Having fully androids made completely from human tissue can have an immense impact on medical research. Currently, most medical research is done of lab animals, ranging from rats to goats to primates, but primarily on mice. In his article The Ethics of Animal Research Simon Festing discusses how it is determined if it is ethically suitable to conduct research on an animal. Essentially, the value of the animal is compared with the value of the research, and then it is deemed whether the experiment should be conducted. With the development of technology that is in Westworld, it would be possible to print a fully functioning human body, and then run experiments on it, without needing to determine the ethical implications of it.
Another major benefit to this is the ability to program theses printed androids to assist with the research in different ways. For example, a scientist could be running an experiment on how a certain type of medication affects people with a disease. They would implant the android with the disease and then apply the medicine to it. They would then have the android programmed to tell them what side effects they are feeling, and such as pain in a particular part of the body. This would be much more efficient than using test groups of people, as they would also be able to recycle the android when they are done with it.
Currently medical research is leading us toward this directing of 3D printed tissue. Many companies are using organic tissue to 3D print organs to be used for organ transplants in patients. C. Lee Ventola writes in the article Medical Applications for 3D Printing: Current and Projected Uses about the many different uses that the medical industry has for 3D printing beyond just organ replacement. Ventola discusses the possibility of using creating customized prosthetics, as well as designing pre-surgery mockups for surgeons to practice on. With this technology in development currently, it’s completely possible that 3D printed androids can become a reality.
Military Implementation
One common use for robots and androids that can be seen in science fiction is military and combat uses. All the way from Terminator to Star Wars robots have different applicable military uses. Star Wars is one of the best examples of integrated robots because there are so many of them shown in the movies. The most common robots in Star Wars are C-3PO, R2-D2, and the different variations of battle droids. Other than these main robots, there are many others who serve different purposes in the Star Wars Universe.
C-3PO serves as a protocol droid, his main purpose is to serve primary to assist with etiquette and protocol. He is fluent in over seven million forms of communication, and can calculate odds of success during risky encounters. One of the most useful things about C-3PO is his ability to translate and communicate across the galaxy, with both hostiles and friendlies. This is an extremely useful skill to have as not everyone knows the same language. Currently this type of technology is in development, primarily by Google. They are studying the way language works and implementing this into their software Google Translate, and making it available for the whole world to use.
R2-D2 is an astromech whose main purpose is serve as an onboard mechanic onboard starships. Astromechs also serve as co-pilots and can control the entire system of a starship to assist their pilot. R2-D2 served loyally whoever his master was in many ways, but generally in combat situations. Boston Dynamics is a company that is working hard to create autonomous robots for a variety of uses. Their project BigDog, was designed with military aspects in mind. Its goal is to aid soldiers in the military by carrying heavy loads for them, and providing them with bullet shields and support. Although not entirely military based, Boston Dynamics is working towards creating autonomous robots for a variety of tasks, whether it be for menial labor, or for assisting soldiers in combat.
The different battle droids in Star Wars also plays a big part of the military. The confederacy uses armies made entirely of battle droids and super battle droids. This allows them to create a large disposable military with minimal ethical dilemmas. If they lose a battle, they can simply leave their troops without the need for worrying about lives. Thomas Hellstrom discusses the use of robots in the military in his article On the Moral Responsibility of Military Robots. One of the biggest factors he discusses is that when going through military training, soldiers are taught to dehumanize the enemy. With the use of robots in place of soldiers, lives are saved on one side, but it can be difficult to make certain decisions because of this. Many times, moral dillemas can be a good thing in the military as they can lead to better judgement, but not the case with robots since they have no morals, only programming. The most commonly used robot in the military are predator drones, which allows pilots to remotely control unmanned aircraft to ensure their own safety. Overall robots could have a huge impact on the way militaries operate around the world.
Conclusion
Although many works of science fiction, such as the Matrix and I, Robot, have evil android or ai, this doesn’t necessarily predict the future that robots will take over the world. Robots are made to follow their programming, and have backups in place. Robots typically turn evil in science fiction because it makes the plot interesting. Most robots are completely safe to people and are designed to serve their purpose. Although artificial intelligence is being researched, there are very few commercial applications for an AI system.
Robots could potentially have many places in society, whether it be integrated to live side by side, to serve for medical purposes, or even in the military, they are a vital part of developing society. Robots are integral to the next era of society as they can assist humans with so many tasks that would otherwise be difficult. Overall the integration of robots is a gradual process, but with many companies working hard to develop this technology, it’s possible to see them integrated into our lives very soon.