Can we really bond with robots? Can we feel affection and love from them when they have more human intelligence. And what happens when a robot realises that its not loved. And just used? These are important questions when it comes to robots. Soon robots will learn, And able to create. Look at darpa. Military war machines. Faster than us, Superior than us in many ways (not intelligence) And theres going to be a point where robots will decide there own fate when they become more anonymous.
The major question is, If this happens to your robot. Would you bond with it and help it? Or try to destroy it?
My answer is to help it. I would probably become its ally if it has a army of robots. And give them things they need, Sustaing a good relationship with a robot is good. Like Transformer. I would make my robot like them.
There’s a movie about a robot taking care of an elderly man. Haven’t seen it myself. The title contains “Frank”, I forgot the exact name. Also there’s a nice short with Mr. Dafoe http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0ntGGLuSiU
There is a story somewhere on CNN of a small US Army tactical unit that bonded with thier remote bomb detonator bot. After disarminga dozen bombs, it finally blew up. The soldier brought it to the engineer back on base and asked to fix him… not replace it… fix it. He was part of the team and they trusted him (yep, they called the mass produced robot a him).
There is a guy here in Iowa city who hacked some robot dog toy to try and make it a pet. He did well and his kids love it like it was real.
So I say yes… you can bond with a robot. But like any relationship it has to be mutual, you do something for it (in this case, expand its programming and continue to develop it) and it must provide some basic function for you (get your mail, entertain your kids, anything really).
I guess I could relate to the bonding with things, I have a laptop, its the same as the 20 or so other laptops in the office, but this one is mine, I take it everywhere, and even though all the other laptops look the same, and run the same software - none of them are mine. Mine does exactly what I want it too, I know how long it will take to do something, and can tell if something is wrong. I use other peoples laptops exactly like mine - but it feels like being trapped in an elevator with a stranger, dont know what to say, just awkward. I probably have similar bonds with a few other items along a similar vein. When my previous laptop died, i found it deeply upsetting, not because of data loss, I keep good backups. It was something deeper. Anyway, I think even if my bot doesnt have a personality, I will still bond with it because I will know it, and like the laptop, once I get to know it I will know when things arnt right - even if the data says otherwise.
ViperTiper, did you mean ‘anonymous’ or ‘autonomous’? I had a flash of Azimov’s Little Lost Robot story when I read that. (A robot with a weakened first law hides amongst a batch of ‘standard’ robots when ordered to ‘get lost’.)
Absolutely! It is burned into our dna to want to connect with others and develop relationships with animals, tools etc. We develop relationships and friends through this website with people we will likely never meet. Why would we not connect with a robot we see every day?
What is interesting to think about as well is what makes us want to connect with an inanimate object like a robot. I can think of a number of science fiction short stories and novels that explore these ideas.
