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from the and-don't-believe-promises-of-cake dept.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
As a new generation grows up surrounded by artificial intelligence, researchers find education as early as preschool can help avoid confusion about robots' role
If you want your preschooler to grow up with a healthy attitude toward artificial intelligence, here's a tip: Don't call that cute talking robot 'he' or 'she.'
Call the robot 'it.'
Today's small children, aka Generation Alpha, are the first to grow up with robots as peers. Those winsome talking devices spawned by a booming education-tech industry can speed children's learning, but they also can be confusing to them, research shows. Many children think robots are smarter than humans or imbue them with magical powers.
The long-term consequences of growing up surrounded by AI-driven devices won't be clear for a while. But an expanding body of research is lending new impetus to efforts to expand technology education beyond learning to code, to understanding how AI works. Children need help drawing boundaries between themselves and the technology, and gaining confidence in their own ability to control and master it, researchers say."
[...] How to Raise an AI-Savvy Child
* Use the pronoun "it" when referring to a robot.
* Display a positive attitude toward the beneficial effects of AI.
* Encourage your child to explore how robots are built.
* Explain that humans are the source of AI-driven devices' intelligence.
* Guard against AI-propelled toys that presume too much, such as claiming to be your child's best friend.
* Invite children to consider the ethics of AI design, such as how a bot should behave after winning a game.
* Encourage skepticism about information received from smart toys and devices.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Thursday August 29 2019, @03:48PM (24 children)
I am sounding so reactionary i am getting fed up of myself. But hey it's free speech as in beer!
What is with the thing of controlling language. Even if there might be an academic interest or curiousity on which gender to apply to a robot. Why is this relevant for a kid's education, and why is it relevant to teach children to mind the gender or the correct pronoun for something. What a life eh? So many things to teach about and this is what is remarkable for a newspaper like WSJ.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday August 29 2019, @04:03PM (1 child)
Is it WSJ's Sue Shellenbarger, or are the busybody authors, researchers, and professors to blame? Probably all of them.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:51PM
It's SJWs wanting to make themselves feel important in yet another arena.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 29 2019, @04:11PM (6 children)
Language directly influences brain structure development and later behavior on a broad scale.
How you talk about the future, what the words you use mean (including meanings you're not intending in the current usage), directly affects your behaviors with respect to spending / saving, preservation of the environment for future generations, etc.
If education isn't about shaping future behavior, what good is it?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by EEMac on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:58PM (2 children)
Is doubleplus good.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:14PM (1 child)
The best kind of good, by really great people, just great. Positively positivity for positive imaging. Could get you elected president some day, you never know.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:20PM
Way to channel ‘realDonaldTrump’ btw what happened to him? Hope he wasn’t banned
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @06:53PM (2 children)
No, it doesn't. Wharfianism has long since been debunked because it's not true. People regularly coin phrases and terms when the language fails to express something conveniently that the speaker needs to communicate. The linguistic limitation was never really established as humans regularly communicate in other forms when language is insufficient. Actual language is only like 10% of communication.
If a language can't easily express something, it's usually because it's not relevant. It's why most of those 3rd person pronouns will never catch on. It's a tiny portion of the population trying to dictate how the language works trying to compete with 3 preexisting pronouns to cover the situation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @11:07PM
What about co-opting words such as "friend" and "like" and "sharing"? Corporations already do this today. Bet they are going to try "love" and "family" next.
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Sunday September 01 2019, @03:09PM
Actually, it does. Languages that use gender for objects often have more problems with sexism in the population.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @04:22PM (10 children)
This has nothing to do with gender. This is about teaching children that a robot is a thing, not a person.
On a side note, you english speaking people should consider yourselves lucky. Distinguishing things from people is as easy as using the right pronoun. Many languages, like french for example, do not have gender-neutral pronouns, and therefore have no choice but to call robots "him" or "her". Therefore, teaching little kids that robots are not persons is not as simple as it is for english speakers.
(Score: 2) by aiwarrior on Thursday August 29 2019, @04:29PM (4 children)
Which means that the pronoun is not so important or you would think whole languages, portuguese included would lead to hopelessly brain damaged adults.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:14PM (3 children)
Well French doesn't even have separate verbs for liking and loving, so maybe their pronouns are the least of the problems.
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @08:58PM (1 child)
Nice, France: It's pronounced neece, not nice; they have no word for nice in French.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @10:04PM
What about "French"? Oh wait, that's the opposite of nice...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 30 2019, @08:18PM
Apprécier et aimer ?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by HiThere on Thursday August 29 2019, @07:38PM (3 children)
On what grounds to you assert that a real robot would not be a person? It would certainly be much more deserving of that description than is a corporation.
Now it's true that we don't *yet* have real robots...but you should expect we will be the time the children who are now pre-schoolers can vote. And even the current robots are probably as worthy of that description as a phone-spammer.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @09:17PM
This is about today, now. Today, robots are not persons. And we have still a looooonnng way to go before they ever are. This isn't science fiction, this is the real world. That's why we don't have hoverboards, moon bases, and flying cars. I want my fucking flying car !
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Friday August 30 2019, @06:32AM (1 child)
Yeah, of course Corporate Personhood is just a legal fiction to absolve or reduce the culpability of CEOs and shareholders by making the Corporation the person who committed the crime and not the real criminals, who at worst, will be accused of aiding the 'person' who committed the crime. Of course that 'person' will never have to face the actual consequences of the crime as it can never be jailed, only fined, broken up or dissolved.
You're correct, even Siri, Alexa or Cortana is more deserving of personhood.
As far as phone spammers go, I'm up for remote electrocution. Not to the point of death mind you, just make it painful to be one.
Unless of course it's the fifth time with the same guy who you've already said:
"Please remove me from your list."
"I've told you before, remove me from your list."
"Goddammit, I said remove me, NOW!"
"Fuck off."
"I ate your ancestor for lunch goat fucker."
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Friday August 30 2019, @12:14PM
Oh, I don't know; it just needs a little creative thinking. Add some bars to the windows and barbed wire fences if the corporation hasn't already got them, turn the cubicles into cells, remove internet access and all sharp objects, upgrade the reception area.
Ah no, wait, would that be equivalent to turning someone into a jail, rather than actually jailing them? In that case just build a big jail around the outside of the building!
If a cat has kittens, does a rat have rittens, a bat bittens and a mat mittens?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday August 30 2019, @04:48AM
Wonder what they'll be teaching children when some robots become persons? If my coffee maker is programmed to regard itself as male or female (or any of the other zillion gender labels allegedly being created today), who am I to disagree?
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Thursday August 29 2019, @04:54PM
So many things to teach about and this is what is remarkable for a newspaper like WSJ.
Still owned by what's-his-name, right? That tabloid is a rag.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @05:39PM
Language has always been politicised. Look no further than Orwell's "Politics and The English Language" for a discussion of the reshaping of language to fit a desired ideological viewpoint. And again Orwell's 1984 revisits the topic, with "newspeak" being developed by the Party with the aim of literally control thought.
But you don't have to look to fiction for the major political language moves. Today hardly anyone in Scotland or Ireland speaks Gaelic. Hardly any native American's, North or South, speak their ancestral tongues. Not by voluntary choice, but as the outcome of explicitly oppressive government policies to force entires people's to speak English and Spanish, in an effort to loyalise people's minds.
Those are the biggest changes in language. But those in the State-nexus often promote shifts in language to further their own ends. Sometimes the shift is successful, and remains long after anyone can remember it happened, or how their perspective has been changed by it. From the King James Bible to Charles Krone "biz-speak", we are left with a plethora of langauge shifts with non-one left alive who remembers why they were pushed in the first place. And they still get pushed today. From from gender-pronouns to corporate-speak, people continue a long tradition of molding language into an industrialized tool for reshaping minds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @09:06PM (1 child)
I think the idea is if kid's going to be exposed to robots then humanizing the bots at a very young age would be psychologically disastrous.
Besides, _Humans_ is the better robot uprising franchise and we need to optimize conditions for that outcome.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 29 2019, @10:06PM
it's a valid concern. Look what's happened to millennials who have been exposed since youth to humanizing queers and trannies. Psychologically very disastrous.