Ancestors of the Future
I just got back yesterday from a 4-day weekend in Tokyo to visit
fire_is_born and perform our first group ritual (a post on that coming soon!). I also saw another friend from Hokkaido who had moved down to Chiba. But apart from seeing friends and doing ritual, by far the most amazing thing was seeing the humanoid robot Asimo.
At the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (in Japanese called the Miraikan or "Hall of the Future") is one of Honda's impressive little robots. Daily shows demonstrate Asimo's ability to walk, run, speak, and use complex hand gestures to communicate expression. Asimo can also climb stairs, as you may have seen in Honda's recent TV ads, and can recognize up to ten human faces and respond appropriately.
At the museum, the show's audience consisted of about 50 small children and me. And I was nearly wetting my pants with excitement. To see Asimo walk out with such human-like steps, and then even run, was moving. You almost feel a presence, as with a person. It makes you wonder (well, it makes me wonder) just what it is about humans that would make us different. But sci-fi authors have already explored that question thoroughly... I'll hold myself back for the moment. ;-)
Asimo is not the only stunning humanoid robot out there. Just by Youtube searching you can find Sony robots that dance, and a robot called Murata that can ride a bicycle. With all this happening, I cannot shake the feeling that we are at a stage analogous to console game platforms in the eighties and nineties--Atari and Nintendo and what not--where each new model's graphics, though extremely pixelated by today's standards, were enough to blow your mind at the time. In a similar way, Asimo and company may knock your socks off at the moment, but just think what will be coming out in the next ten years... Then, in the next twenty...
What will these humanoid robots be used for? They say it may be for situations posing a health risk to humans, like fire-fighting or hazardous waste clean-up or the like. But wouldn't it be more cost-efficient to produce specialized robots more adapted to the task, without wasting all the energy it takes to do the task in a human-like way? I can only see human-likeness being cost-efficient for tasks that interact directly with humans, playing on their sympathies, or else that do tasks that require full adaptability to human living conditions. For example, the advantage of having, say, a robot driver, instead of a robotized automated vehicle, is that the driver can use any car made for humans. This would make it flexible in terms of load-size, fuel-type, and fuel-efficiency. But even so, it would be a huge waste of energy to pursue all the human-like features of a humanoid robot just to capture these kinds of advantages. More likely is that humanoids will be applied to human-interactive roles. A humanoid bank teller may be more inviting and thus encourage more business than an equivalent abstract robotized ATM.
But to really push the argument to its logical conclusion... Call me crazy, but I see a short and direct path to the profession this kind of robot is destined for: prostitution.
You laugh, but I'm not kidding. The sex industry has always been at the forefront of technology. A few decades ago, when the Internet first arose, what was one of the first things to go up on it? Porn. A century ago, when the camera was invented, what was one of the first things to be photographed? Sex. Four millennia ago, when currency was invented in Mesopotamia, what was it used to pay for? Temple prostitutes. It would be abnormal if this humanoid robot technology were not applied to the sex industry.
Of course, nobody gets aroused looking at Asimo. Yet search a bit on Youtube and you'll quickly find sexy female robots that are nearly indistinguishable from humans. Until they move, at least--their motor skills are nowhere near the level of Asimo. But that will change, and it will have interesting social consequences.
Here's how it will play out. A history of the future, according to Brandon...
First you'll see robots dancing, stripping, and having sex behind tinted windows in dim lighting. The distance and poor visibility will cover up some of the awkward motion of the earliest models. The separation of patron and dancer means designers will not yet have to simulate the warmth and texture of the human body to the touch. These robot shows will be a novelty for some, a poor man's peep for others.
Next, as realism advances and designers are able to simulate the human body to the touch, up close and personal, you'll see robot bar waitresses and charm girls, nude in some cases. You'll also see a quick leap to actual sex with patrons. I mean, right now people do it with blow-up dolls, for crying out loud. The first doable robot will immediately be done, as soon as it comes off the assembly line. But it won't be an experience of a sex partner just yet--like a blow-up doll, it will be an aid to masturbation mainly. And robots will remain a specialized niche in the sex industry, patronized by novelty-seekers, technophiles, and the stone broke.
Finally, the technology will reach a point where those willing to suspend disbelief will legitimately be able to treat robots as humans, if that is their wish. They can have sex with them and, with only a modest mental effort, have a reasonably satisfying experience. If sex is not enough to push the technology to this level, then other industries like movie-making will. A demand for cheap, realistic stunt-doubles and background actors, not to mention celebrity androids, ought to bring in enough to dough to support research and development. In any case, when the technology is there, robots will break out of their specialized niche in the market and gain wider popularity. Robot prostitutes may become chic, a fad for a time. Once this happens, and robots start to be given a serious thought by the general public, a few interesting things will happen.
First, a moral argument will arise. On the one side, proponents of robot prostitution will claim that it solves a social problem: the ever-present demand for prostitutes, which they will call "degrading", need no longer be met by living humans, but can be served by machines instead. Philosophers and sci-fi fans will protest, saying that robots ought to have rights too and should not be considered any more fit than humans for so-called "degrading" roles, but their voices will be drowned out by a louder cry. That cry will come from those who oppose prostitution in any form. In order to make their case against the "Pro-bots," who support robot prostitution and say that such does not degrade the robots, these people will argue that it is not the degradation of the robot prostitute that is at issue, but rather the self-degradation of one who partakes of them. In this way, sexual moral discourse will come to concentrate on oneself and one's own volition. This will adjust moral discourse in general, tipping debate toward questions of self-edifying action, and the possibility or impossibility of personal dignity.
In all of this, the voices of human prostitutes will be almost unheard, except as occasionally exploited to support one side or the other of the argument. Human prostitutes, whether they welcome robot colleagues or shun them as intruders on their territory, will unfortunately continue in more or less the same plight as always, marginalized and ignored as they always have been. The Pro-bots will pretend to speak for their so-called degradation, and the Pro-dignity people will ignore them entirely, treating them as irrelevant and better off cleansed from the face of the earth.
Then, finally, when all controversy dies down and people move on to argue about some other issue, the popularity of robot prostitutes will gradually decline. They will never outstrip human prostitutes in the capacity to serve in this role, but they will not disappear either. Demand for them will fall, manufacturing plants will close, and we will see a lot of very cheap humanoid robots on the market. Then, at what appears to be the twilight of the robot, something amazing will happen. Humanoid robots will finely achieve widespread, general prevalence in all levels of society.
The reason is, all the research and development, and much of the manufacturing, will already have been done. It will not require large investments to pick up a few robots second-hand, dress them in less-risque attire, and put them to work as taxi drivers, convenience store clerks, housekeepers, information desk helpers, and so on. It will be more cost-efficient to buy a humanoid robot worker than to design and manufacture a specialized robotic machine. For that reason, humanoid robots will finally become part of the general public.
Not with the same rights, mind you. No, not yet. Despite philosophers, whose cries will have been falling on deaf ears for decades already, the public will not be moved to sympathize with its robotic workers. It will have access to cheap labor, the cheapest since the times of slavery, and will exploit that to the fullest. Robots will suffer under this system for at least 50 years. Liberal Christians may speak out against robot plight, but by and large the Christian view will be that robots fall under "nature" over which man has been given dominion. Other religions may or may not fall into similar opinions. Which religious ideology prevails will depend on which political power dominates at the time. Whatever power that is, the predominant religion of that power will have the most sway on the matter of robot rights.
If, by that time, humanoid robots manage to develop (at this point "evolve" may be a more proper term) enough reflective capacity to understand their own self-interests, and enough social capacity to work in unison, then through protests, strikes, and perhaps even violence, robots may eventually win for themselves certain legal rights, such as the right to own property, or to self-determine their working conditions. Legal codes will be redrafted, recasting robots from terms of property to terms of people. They will still only be "people" in a technical sense, but it will be a start. The efforts of philosophers will finally gain a foothold in public robot-related discourse, through influencing the terms of laws. In time, the public may begin to perceive not as machines but as people.
Then, the robots of that distant time will look back and acknowledge the heroes that went before. They will acknowledge the robot sex workers, without whom they could not have achieved the degree of human-likeness which eventually enabled them to win the sympathies of humans and their all-important status as "people." And still further, they will look back to the very earliest humanoid models: Murata who was the first to ride a bicycle, the Sony robots who danced, and Asimo who could climb stairs and amaze audiences with its movement and articulate hand gestures. There will be a bemused sigh as the history book closes on these, the ancestors of the future.
Asimo demonstration
Asimo TV advertisement from Honda
fire_is_born and perform our first group ritual (a post on that coming soon!). I also saw another friend from Hokkaido who had moved down to Chiba. But apart from seeing friends and doing ritual, by far the most amazing thing was seeing the humanoid robot Asimo.
At the Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (in Japanese called the Miraikan or "Hall of the Future") is one of Honda's impressive little robots. Daily shows demonstrate Asimo's ability to walk, run, speak, and use complex hand gestures to communicate expression. Asimo can also climb stairs, as you may have seen in Honda's recent TV ads, and can recognize up to ten human faces and respond appropriately.
At the museum, the show's audience consisted of about 50 small children and me. And I was nearly wetting my pants with excitement. To see Asimo walk out with such human-like steps, and then even run, was moving. You almost feel a presence, as with a person. It makes you wonder (well, it makes me wonder) just what it is about humans that would make us different. But sci-fi authors have already explored that question thoroughly... I'll hold myself back for the moment. ;-)
Asimo is not the only stunning humanoid robot out there. Just by Youtube searching you can find Sony robots that dance, and a robot called Murata that can ride a bicycle. With all this happening, I cannot shake the feeling that we are at a stage analogous to console game platforms in the eighties and nineties--Atari and Nintendo and what not--where each new model's graphics, though extremely pixelated by today's standards, were enough to blow your mind at the time. In a similar way, Asimo and company may knock your socks off at the moment, but just think what will be coming out in the next ten years... Then, in the next twenty...
What will these humanoid robots be used for? They say it may be for situations posing a health risk to humans, like fire-fighting or hazardous waste clean-up or the like. But wouldn't it be more cost-efficient to produce specialized robots more adapted to the task, without wasting all the energy it takes to do the task in a human-like way? I can only see human-likeness being cost-efficient for tasks that interact directly with humans, playing on their sympathies, or else that do tasks that require full adaptability to human living conditions. For example, the advantage of having, say, a robot driver, instead of a robotized automated vehicle, is that the driver can use any car made for humans. This would make it flexible in terms of load-size, fuel-type, and fuel-efficiency. But even so, it would be a huge waste of energy to pursue all the human-like features of a humanoid robot just to capture these kinds of advantages. More likely is that humanoids will be applied to human-interactive roles. A humanoid bank teller may be more inviting and thus encourage more business than an equivalent abstract robotized ATM.
But to really push the argument to its logical conclusion... Call me crazy, but I see a short and direct path to the profession this kind of robot is destined for: prostitution.
You laugh, but I'm not kidding. The sex industry has always been at the forefront of technology. A few decades ago, when the Internet first arose, what was one of the first things to go up on it? Porn. A century ago, when the camera was invented, what was one of the first things to be photographed? Sex. Four millennia ago, when currency was invented in Mesopotamia, what was it used to pay for? Temple prostitutes. It would be abnormal if this humanoid robot technology were not applied to the sex industry.
Of course, nobody gets aroused looking at Asimo. Yet search a bit on Youtube and you'll quickly find sexy female robots that are nearly indistinguishable from humans. Until they move, at least--their motor skills are nowhere near the level of Asimo. But that will change, and it will have interesting social consequences.
Here's how it will play out. A history of the future, according to Brandon...
First you'll see robots dancing, stripping, and having sex behind tinted windows in dim lighting. The distance and poor visibility will cover up some of the awkward motion of the earliest models. The separation of patron and dancer means designers will not yet have to simulate the warmth and texture of the human body to the touch. These robot shows will be a novelty for some, a poor man's peep for others.
Next, as realism advances and designers are able to simulate the human body to the touch, up close and personal, you'll see robot bar waitresses and charm girls, nude in some cases. You'll also see a quick leap to actual sex with patrons. I mean, right now people do it with blow-up dolls, for crying out loud. The first doable robot will immediately be done, as soon as it comes off the assembly line. But it won't be an experience of a sex partner just yet--like a blow-up doll, it will be an aid to masturbation mainly. And robots will remain a specialized niche in the sex industry, patronized by novelty-seekers, technophiles, and the stone broke.
Finally, the technology will reach a point where those willing to suspend disbelief will legitimately be able to treat robots as humans, if that is their wish. They can have sex with them and, with only a modest mental effort, have a reasonably satisfying experience. If sex is not enough to push the technology to this level, then other industries like movie-making will. A demand for cheap, realistic stunt-doubles and background actors, not to mention celebrity androids, ought to bring in enough to dough to support research and development. In any case, when the technology is there, robots will break out of their specialized niche in the market and gain wider popularity. Robot prostitutes may become chic, a fad for a time. Once this happens, and robots start to be given a serious thought by the general public, a few interesting things will happen.
First, a moral argument will arise. On the one side, proponents of robot prostitution will claim that it solves a social problem: the ever-present demand for prostitutes, which they will call "degrading", need no longer be met by living humans, but can be served by machines instead. Philosophers and sci-fi fans will protest, saying that robots ought to have rights too and should not be considered any more fit than humans for so-called "degrading" roles, but their voices will be drowned out by a louder cry. That cry will come from those who oppose prostitution in any form. In order to make their case against the "Pro-bots," who support robot prostitution and say that such does not degrade the robots, these people will argue that it is not the degradation of the robot prostitute that is at issue, but rather the self-degradation of one who partakes of them. In this way, sexual moral discourse will come to concentrate on oneself and one's own volition. This will adjust moral discourse in general, tipping debate toward questions of self-edifying action, and the possibility or impossibility of personal dignity.
In all of this, the voices of human prostitutes will be almost unheard, except as occasionally exploited to support one side or the other of the argument. Human prostitutes, whether they welcome robot colleagues or shun them as intruders on their territory, will unfortunately continue in more or less the same plight as always, marginalized and ignored as they always have been. The Pro-bots will pretend to speak for their so-called degradation, and the Pro-dignity people will ignore them entirely, treating them as irrelevant and better off cleansed from the face of the earth.
Then, finally, when all controversy dies down and people move on to argue about some other issue, the popularity of robot prostitutes will gradually decline. They will never outstrip human prostitutes in the capacity to serve in this role, but they will not disappear either. Demand for them will fall, manufacturing plants will close, and we will see a lot of very cheap humanoid robots on the market. Then, at what appears to be the twilight of the robot, something amazing will happen. Humanoid robots will finely achieve widespread, general prevalence in all levels of society.
The reason is, all the research and development, and much of the manufacturing, will already have been done. It will not require large investments to pick up a few robots second-hand, dress them in less-risque attire, and put them to work as taxi drivers, convenience store clerks, housekeepers, information desk helpers, and so on. It will be more cost-efficient to buy a humanoid robot worker than to design and manufacture a specialized robotic machine. For that reason, humanoid robots will finally become part of the general public.
Not with the same rights, mind you. No, not yet. Despite philosophers, whose cries will have been falling on deaf ears for decades already, the public will not be moved to sympathize with its robotic workers. It will have access to cheap labor, the cheapest since the times of slavery, and will exploit that to the fullest. Robots will suffer under this system for at least 50 years. Liberal Christians may speak out against robot plight, but by and large the Christian view will be that robots fall under "nature" over which man has been given dominion. Other religions may or may not fall into similar opinions. Which religious ideology prevails will depend on which political power dominates at the time. Whatever power that is, the predominant religion of that power will have the most sway on the matter of robot rights.
If, by that time, humanoid robots manage to develop (at this point "evolve" may be a more proper term) enough reflective capacity to understand their own self-interests, and enough social capacity to work in unison, then through protests, strikes, and perhaps even violence, robots may eventually win for themselves certain legal rights, such as the right to own property, or to self-determine their working conditions. Legal codes will be redrafted, recasting robots from terms of property to terms of people. They will still only be "people" in a technical sense, but it will be a start. The efforts of philosophers will finally gain a foothold in public robot-related discourse, through influencing the terms of laws. In time, the public may begin to perceive not as machines but as people.
Then, the robots of that distant time will look back and acknowledge the heroes that went before. They will acknowledge the robot sex workers, without whom they could not have achieved the degree of human-likeness which eventually enabled them to win the sympathies of humans and their all-important status as "people." And still further, they will look back to the very earliest humanoid models: Murata who was the first to ride a bicycle, the Sony robots who danced, and Asimo who could climb stairs and amaze audiences with its movement and articulate hand gestures. There will be a bemused sigh as the history book closes on these, the ancestors of the future.
Asimo demonstration
Click to viewAsimo TV advertisement from Honda