The Humanization Of Robots And The Robotization Of The Human Person

Can robots perform actions, make decisions, collaborate with humans, be our friends, perhaps fall in love, or potentially harm us? Even before these things truly happen, ethical and philosophical questions already arise. The reason is that we humans have a tendency to spontaneously attribute minds and “agency” to anything even remotely humanlike. Moreover, some people already say that robots should be our companions and have rights. Others say that robots should be slaves. This book tackles emerging ethical issues about human beings, robots, and agency head on. It explores the ethics of creating robots that are, or appear to be, decision-making agents. From military robots to self-driving cars to care robots or even sex robots equipped with artificial intelligence: how should we interpret the apparent agency of such robots? This book argues that we need to explore how human beings can best coordinate and collaborate with robots in responsible ways. It investigates ethically important differences between human agency and robot agency to work towards an ethics of responsible human-robot interaction.

This open access book examines recent advances in how artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics have elicited widespread debate over their benefits and drawbacks for humanity. The emergent technologies have for instance implications within medicine and health care, employment, transport, manufacturing, agriculture, and armed conflict. While there has been considerable attention devoted to robotics/AI applications in each of these domains, a fuller picture of their connections and the possible consequences for our shared humanity seems needed. This volume covers multidisciplinary research, examines current research frontiers in AI/robotics and likely impacts on societal well-being, human – robot relationships, as well as the opportunities and risks for sustainable development and peace. The attendant ethical and religious dimensions of these technologies are addressed and implications for regulatory policies on the use and future development of AI/robotics technologies are elaborated.

This broad overview for graduate students introduces multidisciplinary topics from robotics to sociology which are needed to understand the area.

Dr. David Hanson's work creates humanlike robots with increasing intelligence and feelings, resulting in many of the most startling robots in recent years including: Sophia, the walking Albert Hubo, and the android portrait of Philip K Dick. These robots can see you and talk with you with A.I., and express themselves with a full range of natural expressions. This book discusses the origins of this work in Hanson's Ph.D. research conducted from 2002-2007; a newly revised edit of Dr. Hanson's Ph.D. dissertation, "Humanizing Robots" describes his early integrated research in cognitive A.I., bio-inspired mechanics, material science, sculpture and animation, expressive robotic faces and walking robot bodies, and his personal efforts to bring robots to life quite literally. The work includes wide-ranging scientific, artistic and technological research seeking to bring these robots into the world, and considers the philosophical and ethical implications of creating such artificial lifeforms. Hanson's Ph.D. research produced walking, talking, emotionally expressive robots and technologies heralded as "genius" by WIRED magazine and PC magazine, and featured in many popular venues including National Geographic, Popular Science, Le Figaro, Science Magazine. This dissertation also includes selected excerpts from Hanson's published, peer-reviewed papers and articles in IEEE, Science, Springer, Cog Sci, AI Magazine, and SPIE journals, chapters in 4 books, and a coauthored book with JPL senior scientist Yoseph Bar-Cohen. A former professional sculptor and Walt Disney Imagineer, with a film degree from RISD, Hanson's Ph.D. dissertation also considers the art theory and practice of developing intelligent robot characters, and strives to bring together the arts with the sciences as a holistic "super-discipline" which intends to bring robots to life as self-improving super-intelligent friends to the human species. Funded in part under awards from the U.S. National Science Foundation, the Ph.D. research won awards from AAAI, Tech Titans, Cooper Hewitt Design Triennial, and a World Technology Award, and several best poster and paper awards, and was presented at TED in 2004 and 2008. In Humanizing Interfaces, Hanson describes details of his inventions and coinventions of numerous technologies during his Ph.D. reseach, including patented lipid-bilayer nanotech for naturalistic skin, expressive face mechanisms, virtual character tools, and neurocognitive-inspired software systems for machine cognition. The book also narrates the story of Hanson's developent of numerous noted robots, including the Philip K. Dick Android, the walking Einstein portrait Albert-Hubo (in collaboration with KAIST), Bina48, and the small Zeno RoboKind. He describes here the use of these robots serve a wide range of research in cognitive science, autism treatment, and robotics at institutions including JPL, Cambridge University, KAIST, UCSD, and the University of Geneva, U. Pisa, and the Autism Treatment Center in Dallas. Also, the book describes the exhibitions of these robots as artworks at the Cooper Hewwit, the Tokyo Modern, the Reina Sofia, and many other museums and galleries, with positive art reviews in the New York Times, the L.A. Times, and other sources. By emulating human bio-systems, from cognition to locomotion to social expression, Hanson seeks to unlock mysteries of human nature and yield machines that are creatively brilliant, truly conscious, and friends with us. Towards this end, in 2009 Hanson founded the nonprofit Initiative for Awakening Machines (IAM), dedicated to realizing super-benevolent, superintelligent AI. By diverse collaboration with many researchers in numerous scientific and arts disciplines, Hanson seeks to participate in an integrated "superdiscipline", of robotic artificial life and sentience, and pursue insights into the deepest nature of mind, meaning, of humanity and beyond.

This book aims to understand how public organizations adapt to and manage situations characterized by fluidity, ambiguity, complexity and unclear technologies, thus exploring public governance in times of turbulence.

Human–Robot Interaction (HRI) considers how people can interact with robots in order to enable robots to best interact with people. HRI presents many challenges with solutions requiring a unique combination of skills from many fields, including computer science, artificial intelligence, social sciences, ethology and engineering. We have specifically aimed this work to appeal to such a multi-disciplinary audience. This volume presents new and exciting material from HRI researchers who discuss research at the frontiers of HRI. The chapters address the human aspects of interaction, such as how a robot may understand, provide feedback and act as a social being in interaction with a human, to experimental studies and field implementations of human–robot collaboration ranging from joint action, robots practically and safely helping people in real world situations, robots helping people via rehabilitation and robots acquiring concepts from communication. This volume reflects current trends in this exciting research field.

Social robots not only work with humans in collaborative workspaces – we meet them in shopping malls and even more personal settings like health and care. Does this imply they should become more human, able to interpret and adequately respond to human emotions? Do we want them to help elderly people? Do we want them to support us when we are old ourselves? Do we want them to just clean and keep things orderly – or would we accept them helping us to go to the toilet, or even feed us if we suffer from Parkinson’s disease? The answers to these questions differ from person to person. They depend on cultural background, personal experiences – but probably most of all on the robot in question. This book covers the phenomenon of social robots from the historic roots to today’s best practices and future perspectives. To achieve this, we used a hands-on, interdisciplinary approach, incorporating findings from computer scientists, engineers, designers, psychologists, doctors, nurses, historians and many more. The book also covers a vast spectrum of applications, from collaborative industrial work over education to sales. Especially for developments with a high societal impact like robots in health and care settings, the authors discuss not only technology, design and usage but also ethical aspects. Thus this book creates both a compendium and a guideline, helping to navigate the design space for future developments in social robotics.