The Veritas Forum at Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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Living Machines: Can Robots Become Human?

March 3, 2007 at (TBD)
(location TBD)

Presenters:

Rosalind Picard, Founder and Director of the Affective Computing Research Group, MIT Media Laboratory
Rodney Brooks, Director of the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and Panasonic Professor of Robotics

Can robots become human? Will we ever design life? Rodney Brooks, who engineers robots and self-identifies as a robot (and a human), and Rosalind Picard, who develops emotional interfaces in computers, dialogue about life, God, and robots. Each speaker begins with an opening presentation, followed by a moderator-guided discussion.

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To answer the question regarding robots becoming human one has to first of all clearly define what is meant by "robot" and "human". The dictionary definition of the former is as follows:

Definition of ROBOT

1 a : a machine that looks like a human being and performs various complex acts (as walking or talking) of a human being; also : a similar but fictional machine whose lack of capacity for human emotions is often emphasized b : an efficient insensitive person who functions automatically

2 : a device that automatically performs complicated often repetitive tasks

3 : a mechanism guided by automatic controls

And the definition of "human" is as follows:

Definition of HUMAN

1 : of, relating to, or characteristic of humans

2 : consisting of humans

3 a : having human form or attributes
b : susceptible to or representative of the sympathies and frailties of human nature

From the above, it is clear that a robot can never become human inasmuch as it always remains a artifice - however sophisticated. It is never able to possess the autonomy in activity that a human must possess in order to qualify as being human at all. Something autonomous, to the extent that it is so, simply cannot be an artifice - and vice versa.
Posted by Zik on 10/22/2011 8:16:50 AM