from the who-is-the-father?-test-the-oil dept.
In contemporary science fiction, we often see robots passing themselves off as humans. According to a [University of Stavanger] researcher, the genre problematises what it takes to be accepted as a human being and provides a useful contribution to the debate about who should have the right to reproduce.
Science fiction culture has prospered and gone from being for nerds only in the 1970s and 1980s to becoming part of popular culture in the last two decades. This particularly applies to the TV series genre, which has become mainstream with Battlestar Galactica (2004), Heroes (2006) and Fringe (2008).
"The genre has evolved from depicting technology as a threat, to dealing with more intimate relations between humans and machines", says Ingvil Hellstrand. In her doctoral thesis, she points out that science fiction today is often about humanoid androids that are trying to become "one of us". According to Hellstrand, this is not incidental.
What is SN take on this issue??
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:07AM
For every human they help to not procreate.
Over time the android populace will grow as the human populace fades. All the human associate problems will fall to the wayside as android slowly and inevitably displace the humans upon the Earth.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:34AM
Even Data couldn't get it right [wikia.com] and created a being who was doomed to death through the assembly language equivalent of a fatal genetic disorder.
Humans suffer enough, best to not force machines to suffer along with them.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:00PM
Over time the android populace will grow as the human populace fades. All the human associate problems will fall to the wayside as android slowly and inevitably displace the humans upon the Earth.
And why exactly, would anyone, human or robot want that? Seems better to just improve humanity since it's already here.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:11AM
Sure we say nerds are mainstream, but we only tolerate Hollywood Nerds: buff suave guys who happen to wear glasses. If you're genuinely socially awkward, you belong in prison or in a mental institution, depending on how angry you look to a social worker whose job it is to make sure you never participate in society.
(Score: 2) by Subsentient on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:27AM
Eloquently said, far better than I could have. The world is a sad place.
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:16PM
> Eloquently said, far better than I could have. The world is a sad place.
What? I wouldn't call that eloquent, I'd call it persecution complex hyperbole. Now is the best time ever to be a real nerd. Look at silicon valley. Everybody's got problems, that's not unique to any particular group of people, but nerd life is 1000x times better than it used to be.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:47PM
One man's "eloquent" is another man's "too close for comfort" reality.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 02 2015, @11:31PM
(Score: 3, Funny) by Grishnakh on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:33PM
That's why we nerds need to work on androids, so we can bring about the demise of humanity. We'll have the last laugh.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:33AM
No! Corporations and androids are NOT people. Givvitup.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:21AM
first we need android that think and feel in order to want anything. when there are robots that think and feel, you are likely about to have strong AI. with strong AI, it really wont matter what humans want. so this conversation is completely moot.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:05PM
No Turing computer will ever think. The danger of AI isn't sentience, but false sentience. I wrote a program way back in 1984 that did a pretty good job of faking humanity, and it was on a 4 mHz Z-80 computer with sixteen KB of memory and no disk. With a computer like Watson, fooling people is trivial. We humans have anthropomorphism and animism going against us.
How many beads do I have to string on my abacus before it becomes sentient?
Now, if you're talking not about humaniform robots but Blade Runner replicants, that's a different matter, but it's going to be a LONG time before that happens.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:49PM
How many beads do I have to string on my abacus before it becomes sentient?
17, unless they are anal beds. Then you can never have enough.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:57AM
Hmm, where to start?
No Turing computer will ever think.
A Turing computer can theoretically simulate a physical object, including a brain. Are you claiming there is a non-physical co, and mponent?
While we do have a name for that mythical thing - a soul - there is absolutely no evidence of its existence.
The danger of AI isn't sentience, but false sentience.
If there is such a thing as false sentience, then it would probably be much easier to control or block than a true intelligence, hence less dangerous.
I wrote a program way back in 1984 that did a pretty good job of faking humanity, and it was on a 4 mHz Z-80 computer
with sixteen KB of memory and no disk.
I know quite a few people who fake sentience. They seem reasonably smart, but pretty much everything they do and say is from a script.
I don't think this is unusual, we all operate off canned scripts most of the time, just because its easier, but some of them show truly abysmal performance when forced to actually try to think.
How many beads do I have to string on my abacus before it becomes sentient?
It doesn't matter. Sentience is in the program that moves the beads, not the beads and strings.
Now, if you're talking not about humaniform robots but Blade Runner replicants, that's a different matter, but it's going to be a LONG time before that happens.
Been a long while since I saw that movie, but weren't replicants basically just genetically engineered people? Designed to be faster, stronger and more precise but with a limited lifetime.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:14PM
A simulation is not reality. When you simulate an atom blast in a computer, nobody has to worry about radiation. Margarine is not butter. See Chinese Room. [wikipedia.org] Soul plays no part in it; as I said, when you have a chemical computer rather than an electronic computer (particularly one with Turing architecture) then you might truly have a thinking machine.
Sentience is in the program that moves the beads
Yes, and the programmer that wrote the program that moves the beads is the sentient entity, not the beads or programs themselves.
My take on the replicants is that they weren't just genetically engineered from human tissue, but that the tissue itself was artificial, but that's beside the point.
Before we create create sentience we're going to have to understand what it is and how it works. We don't yet and are a long way off.
Your mention of people who fake sentience was covered in Theodore Sturgeon's story The Martian and the Moron. It's a story in the book I just released this morning, although I don't have the HTML posted (or written) yet, but there are e'book versions posted. [mcgrewbooks.com]
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2015, @12:00AM
A simulation is not reality.
Unless reality happens to be a simulation. We may be starting at the bottom of the rabbit hole here.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday August 03 2015, @05:10AM
A simulation may not be reality. But information computed in a simulation is real information.
If someone was to scan your brain at the atomic level, and program that into an accurate molecular simulation, it would have the same responses you would.
(It would take a huge amount of computing power to do this, but that is beside the point. You said "No Turing computer will ever think.")
Would you argue that it was sentient and thinking, or that you are not?
My personal answer to the Chinese Room argument is that the man in the room does not understand chinese, but that whoever set up the room does. I think this is pretty much the same as your position on the abacus beads.
Also, thanks for the book. :)
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Tuesday August 04 2015, @01:14PM
Indeed, as I said, the intelligence is the programmer's. And thanks for reading!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:23AM
Does this mean my sex-bot may get pregnant?
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 5, Funny) by lentilla on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:41AM
Entirely possible, old chap. If I were you, I'd be keeping a close eye on your pool-cleaning bot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @03:05PM
Not to mention the pizza delivery drone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @12:45PM
Not seen the last two, but the BSG reboot abhors science and is almost completely devoid of it. Where science appears, it's all about science vs religion, with science losing badly (same thing happens in Lost). It's quite depressing really.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:20PM
Academia just watched Appleseed (2004), then?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 01 2015, @01:51PM
Space opera is not science fiction. I know the opera fans believe that it is sci-fi, but, no, it is not. In fact, some authors billed as sci-fi authors are actually fantasy writers. Their fantasies take place in a technologically oriented world, but they remain fantasy because no attempt is made to explain any of the science.
The single best example of a science fiction writer would be Isaac Asimov. The man actually attempted to explain some of the science behind his conjecture, in the afterwords, or forewards or other portions of his books. The introductions to later editions often explained things quite well. In one of his later books, I read that he had given up his positronic brain, for instance. Positrons just won't work very well for computers, sadly. The positronic brain is still a cool name - it's just consigned to the realm of fantasy now.
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday August 01 2015, @04:29PM
The single best example of a science fiction writer would be Isaac Asimov.
Arthur C Clarke would disagree with you.. oh, hang on, no, he'd be obliged to agree [techrepublic.com]. Damn.
However, there are more modern examples of "scientific fiction" or "hard SF". One of my favourites - vaguely relevant to the topic at hand - is Greg Egan's Disapora that starts with a long description of the "birth" of a posthuman AI (plus there's a whole fantasy Theory of Everything described in detail and a spirited attempt to describe planets in universes with 5 spatial dimensions). Greg Egan books always have a bibliography, and often links to websites with interactive visualizations and tutorials. Pure geekdom. (Also, TFA for some reason makes me think of Egan's hatchet job on 'new age' academia in Terenesia).
Even the treatment of AI in books such as Iain Banks' Culture Series, Ken Macleod's Fall Revolution series or, of course Vernor Vinge's work is more interesting/worrying than arguing over whether Data has the right to have children (ISTR the answer is yes, provided you get Picard as your attorney). If people can't tear themselves away from the telly, there's probably more meat in Humans/Real Humans, Person of Interest or Black Mirror than BSG.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday August 01 2015, @05:12PM
I read Asimov's Foundation series and a bunch of other things, and I think Kim Stanley Robinson and Neal Stephenson (at least his Cryptonomicon and Baroque Cycle books) are pretty solidly in sci-fi with him.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Saturday August 01 2015, @09:11PM
The think is, ALL science fiction is fantasy. So is most non-science fiction literature, and not a few research papers.
That said, good science fiction only uses the fantasy as a background, and has a foreground issue of examining something that is plausibly possible. And sometimes that can wear a mask that looks like total fantasy. I remember one 5-volume series that started out talking about sorcerers, wizards, etc. and ended up having them just be a mask over a collapsed civilization based around nano-technology. You could do the same thing as plausibly with advanced virtual reality.
The fantasy element is what makes the story attractive or interesting, and doesn't imply anything about false-to-fact. Fantasies are usually false-to-fact, but that's not a requirement.
Now as to the historical perspective, science fiction evolved out of a naive technological optimism. Go back to the 1920's and 30's and this is quite clear, but for an earlier version look as Verne. The hidden genius willing to destroy the innocent was only doing that to achieve his own quite worthy goals. Or read the original Frankenstein. The monster just wanted to find acceptance. Even when he didn't find it his only intentional response was to flee...until he had been heartlessly persecuted. (OTOH, that was an intentional horror story, despite it's science fictional framework.)
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday August 01 2015, @11:25PM
Same goes for the later times. Sure, a lot of the popular pulp fiction of the 20s and 30s, such as Buck Rodgers and Doc Savage was wildly optimistic. But there was also R.U.R. and Metropolis at the other end of the scale. And let us recall that the 30s was the seed of a huge pile of dystopian novels in the next decade . That come to mind, there are four such very famous sci fi novels coming out of that era: 1984, Brave New World, That Hideous Strength, and Fountainhead (plus Lord of the Rings on the fantasy side). I think rather that science fiction had then as now a huge variety of viewpoints. The "naive technological optimism" existed and was very popular and very influential, but it wasn't the only thing out there. To say that it sprung from "naive technological optimism" is to ignore a lot of the history of the genre.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:26PM
There was, indeed RUR (though I think that may be of an earlier period). But most science fiction of the 1920's and 30's was wildly optimistic about technological solutions. This lasted up through the 1960's until the British "New Wave". You can always find exceptions to the trends, but consider "The Skylark of Space" etc.
Frankestein was written as a horror story, not as a warning. Check out it's history. Even so the monster wasn't evil by nature, only defensive, and a bit paranoid *after* finding everyones hand turned against it. (I'm talking about the novel. I don't consider most movies to be valid science fiction. They generally totally distort the meaning of any story that they adopt.)
Verne, as with Frankenstein, is before the period that I described. I included him as a precursor. But he is full of technological solutions to problems, or attempts at solutions.
The thing is, during the early period technological solutions were seen as benefiting the individuals. Of course, different individuals had different goals. You need that for dramatic tension. But they both adopted technological solutions. After around 1960 or 1970 it became increasingly seen as empowering the corporations and governments. Yes, Orwell got there YEARS ahead of time, but he was an outlier...and wasn't primarily a science fiction author, but rather a "social concerns" author who occasionally used science fiction to make his point. (Is "Animal Farm" science fiction? Fantasy? Not really. It's really political propaganda, though quite honestly and insightfully done.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 02 2015, @11:25PM
Frankestein was written as a horror story, not as a warning.
The two aren't exclusive. And the cautionary aspects of the story are rather obvious such as Frankenstein's glaring failure to create a thing of beauty or the monster echoing its creator's moral flaws.
Yes, Orwell got there YEARS ahead of time, but he was an outlier...
An outlier joined by at least two other famous authors of the period, whose works I mentioned (Rand on the other hand was a blatant, technological optimist). I think instead that this was normal fare for the time during the grim period of the Second World War when these works were inspired and partly written.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 03 2015, @07:26PM
Rand?? I'm afraid I have trouble even thinking of her as a science fiction author. Now that you bring it up, I can realize the justice of your viewpoint, but to me science fiction of the 30's, 40's, 50's and 60's was pretty much defined by the magazines, and in particular Astounding, Galaxy, and Worlds of If. The focus got looser during the 60's when the British New Wave became important.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 03 2015, @12:21AM
There's also "Final Blackout" by L. Ron Hubbard which was published in 1940 which borrows heavily from the despair of the First World War. Here, humanity has devised way too many ways to horribly kill other men. European society has collapsed and death is everywhere. There's a lot of grim sci fi by high profile writers from this period once you look for it.
And really, I think sci fi reflects the attitudes of the society at the time. Most sci fi of the 1920s and 1930s is that way because that is what people of the time wanted and perhaps what most of the authors knew (aside from the socialist-oriented ones). If one looks at all the popular arts of the time, most of it was simplistic and optimistic. When the Second World War loomed and started, people started taking an interest in the grimmer fare, perhaps because it expressed the fears of those times. It is interesting how complex the arts, including science fiction, have grown since those times.
There's also the matter of the unmentioned early sci fi writer, H. G. Wells. His stories were very often far from optimistic, such as "War of the Worlds" and "The Time Machine".
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday August 03 2015, @07:36PM
Science fiction generally only reflects a subset of the "spirit of the time". When you include books the focus is both narrower and broader. You've got a different selection of editors, but (before the fall of the magazines) a narrower selection of things published. I'm afraid that I can't consider L. Ron Hubbard to be a significant science fiction author. Randal Garrett was much more important, and even he wasn't in the same league as Simak, E.E.Smith, Hamilton, Asimov, Heinlein, Leinster, Clement, etc. Hubbard did write a notable amount of fantasy, but I'm afraid that I didn't care for him even in that vein. If you want to go in that direction, Philip K. Dick was much more notable (and a much better writer). I'm sure I've left out major Science Fiction authors I just haven't happened to think of, but Rand and Hubbard aren't among them.
Of course, It's sometimes difficult to properly assign attribution, because some authors use multiple pseudonyms, and some publishers have house pseudonyms that have multiple authors...though that second factor doesn't usually affect prominent authors.
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(Score: 2) by microtodd on Saturday August 01 2015, @02:01PM
So as I write this comment, the two highest-rated comments don't even really answer the questions, which is "What is SN's take on this issue?" I suppose I should RTFA but my first thought is, from an engineering and pragmatic sense we are so far away from this issue that it doesn't even really deserve too much of my brain cycles. Because first of all, you need androids with strong AI that pass off as humans and despite what all the "futurologists" think and say, I think we are sooooooo far away from that right now (as in, 100 years) that I don't think this really matters. For that matter, I strongly suspect we may never get there. We might be able to replicate strong AI like a dog or even a chimp but a human?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:09PM
I either have a higher opinion of dogs or a lower opinion of people than you.
I think that if we had AI as smart as a dog* then we would soon have AI as smart as people. And very soon after that, Singularity (godlike AI).
* I mean an AI that is actually as smart as a dog, not a set of canned responses that mimics a dog.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 01 2015, @07:20PM
First Comes Marriage then Comes Droid in a Baby Carriage.
Don't we have to address the problem of legalizing Digital Marriage before we worry about droid babies? Don't droid babies deserve to have two parents?
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Saturday August 01 2015, @08:49PM
One wise person I knew said the fantasy over AI was the idea of instantly creating a person. He tied it to the attempts to create a homonculus in Medieval alchemy. Once you realize that it will take you years to teach an AI to talk, walk, act, dress itself, and show up on time for school, it is just cheaper to make new persons the old fashioned way. Of course, then you cannot use them as slaves for your own purposes. Maybe this is more in line with the ancient English practice of "fostering"? If they are not your kids, you can work them harder!
Chappie, on the other hand, does not so much pro-create as transfer his maker and mother into an android form. But the motivation is much the same? We're not talking some kind of "Lawnmower Man".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 02 2015, @12:21AM
One wise person I knew said the fantasy over AI was the idea of instantly creating a person. He tied it to the attempts to create a homonculus in Medieval alchemy. Once you realize that it will take you years to teach an AI to talk, walk, act, dress itself, and show up on time for school, it is just cheaper to make new persons the old fashioned way. Of course, then you cannot use them as slaves for your own purposes. Maybe this is more in line with the ancient English practice of "fostering"? If they are not your kids, you can work them harder!
Years (or is it a few seconds? Rate of learning can be increased a bit) to learn how to do the necessary activities and then ten minutes to broadcast the new persona to a billion pieces of hardware and run the necessary diagnostics. Cheaper to do it the old fashioned way? Maybe there are less infrastructure needs. Faster? No way in hell unless you already have a few billion human units already producing new units.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:59AM
For all of the stupidities that come with a show made for a prime-time slot on a broadcast television network, Extant deals with the issue of "growing" an AI versus creating one fully-formed - especially in S2 (which has a very different tone from S1 since they got a new showrunner).