A Robot In The Family?

A Discussion On Families With Human­‐Robot Coexistence

Figure 1: Take a look at the paintings above. Can you tell which one of them is painted by an artist and which is an imitation by an AI? The one on the left is Leonid Alfremov’s Rain Princess and an AI, given a picture of a dome and the Rain Princess as the input, drew the one on the right! It also could just have been quite the reverse and we would not be able to tell which one is which.

Almost every year we see manifold technical developments and breakthroughs enabling humanoid robots be and act more like us. Researchers have been working on robots that can cook, have facial expressions, draw pictures, make music and almost any daily activity you can think of! Taking the amount of time and resources put into the AI research and humanoid robotics globally into consideration, nothing seems impossible to achieve by humanoid robots. Although it is debatable to what extent humanoid robots can become like humans, it is certain that they can give us the impression that they actually have human capabilities and limitations (Figure 1). This can make it very easy for people to build an emotional connection with a non-­biological system.

Robots are becoming more and more like people and they will certainly take more roles in our daily lives in future. However, in order to become ready for that, we need to redefine many societal concepts and structures. As the family is the fundamental social unit, one of the crucially important questions that needs to be answered for us to be ready for the robotic age is: Can a robot become a family member? Since we need well‐functioning families for a well‐functioning society, discussing this question is of paramount importance to predict and take measures against the possible challenges for the families within a society consisting of the biological and the robotic. Considering the fact that the definition of “family” has already been changing significantly in the last decades, our tendency as humans to attribute our capabilities and limitations to inanimate systems, and the success in the AI research & robotics so far, one can say that families with human-­‐robot coexistence are going
to exist in future.

First of all, it is important to note that for an inanimate system to give us the impression that it has human capabilities and limitations, it should be more than a tool and do more than ordinary physical activities like cooking or cleaning. Besides, the general opinion is that robots can accomplish ordinary physical activities, but they can hardly demonstrate some kind of creativity, intelligence or conscience. These concepts, being very hard to define, simply seem impossible to be simulated by means of electronics and programming. But the recent progress in AI research and robotics has been gradually proving this general opinion wrong. We already have AI that can mimic any artist (Figure 1) and robotic systems that can acquire information and knowledge through interaction with their environment and make decisions accordingly (Fukuda & Kubota, 1999). And what about conscience? There are already certain studies being conducted by the American roboticist and roboethicist Ronald Craig Arkin of the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The purpose of these studies funded by the US Army Research Office is to create robotic systems that can behave ethically and legally (Arkin, 2008). One could argue that “mimicking” creativity, intelligence and conscience does not demonstrate “actual” creativity, intelligence and conscience, but this is just the beginning and we already cannot tell the difference between AI painting and human painting! The terms “actual” creativity or “actual” intelligence etc. are very baseless and incomprehensible, because we ourselves cannot define them accurately and distinguish an “actual” one from a successful “artificial” one. They could, in fact, just be the same thing in different levels of development! In time, given this successful trend in AI research and robotics, even more sophisticated and successful systems will be developed that can be good enough for us to consider them “actually” creative and intelligent. Therefore, the unsubstantiated counter-­‐argument claiming that robots can never become like humans and thus, they cannot become a part of a family is prejudiced and invalid. Considering the trend so far, despite the hard-­‐to-­‐define nature of creativity, intelligence, conscience and some other complex human capabilities, it is obvious that humanoid robots of the future are going to be able to simulate these successful enough for us to consider them one of us, given our already existing tendency to attribute human capabilities to inanimate systems.

Another recent social development to be taken into account is the changes in the definitions of “independent individual” and “family” in the last years. Now, one might ask: “But robots do not have blood cells, they are not made of flesh! How can they be considered as a person?” Nowadays, being of flesh and blood is indeed a very important part of being an human, but this certainly can change in future. In his book “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology” the American author, computer scientist and inventor Ray Kurzweil describes how the human body and brain will have more electronic and robotic parts to extend its capabilities in future, and thus “transcend biology” (Kurzweil, 2005). Having non-­‐biological body parts will certainly change the conception of how being human relates to being biological. Additionally, in the industrial society nowadays, the variety of new lifestyles based on individualism and the recent developments like the legalization of gay marriages certainly challenge the current definition of “family”. A “normal” family is no longer a married mother and father living with their biological children under one roof, according to a survey conducted on 2,691 randomly chosen adults by the Pew Research Center (Walsh, 2011). The redefinition of the important concepts like “independent individual” and “family” is certainly going to weaken the hindrances on the way to families of the future with human-­‐robot coexistence.

In conclusion, the recent developments that are going to enable humanoid robots to become more like humans, the gradual changes in the definitions of the social elements like “family” and “individual” and the continuation of these trends in future are going to increase the likeliness for robots to take more important roles than being tools in the families of the future. They will simply be developed successfully for us to consider them as an individual and bond with them. Their capabilities in terms of creativity, intelligence and conscience might, in fact, not be that different than ours and eventually this could lead us to redefine what it means to be human and make the distinction between the biological and the robotic nebulous at best. Human-­‐robot coexistence can certainly be very beautiful, if we define “family” through the American writer Richard Bach’s perspective:

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other’s life.

Sources

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Kurzweil, R. (2005). The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. Penguin.

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