16 June 2016

Robots As Friends

Does my robot love me?

By Chin Chin

Professor Noel Sharkey of Sheffield University is, you will be sorry to hear, worried.  No, it isn’t the refugee crisis or even whether to vote Leave or Remain which concerns him, though for all I know the professor is worried about those things too.  What keeps him awake at night is the loss of dignity which will be suffered by elderly people as the use of increasingly lifelike robots in the care industry earns the affection of their patients, an affection which the robots themselves can only return artificially.

The first place where this is likely to become a major concern is Japan.  All the necessary ingredients are there.  On the one hand they have an elderly population and lead the field in the development of care-home robotics.  On the other, if you have seen the Mikado you will know that Japan takes the strictest possible line when it believes relationships to be inappropriate. Remember the Imperial decree “that all who flirted, leered or winked (unless connubially linked) should forthwith be beheaded”? That particular ordinance may now have been repealed, but a country which took such a firm stance on flirting is unlikely to be sympathetic to people developing an unhealthy affection for machines.

It would be wrong, however, to think that the problem is entirely foreign.  Ideas travel freely from East to West (a lucky occident, I suppose) and a number of British universities are investigating the use of robotic care-home assistants.  When they hit the market, no doubt those assistants will be programmed to chat pleasantly to the people they are looking after.  Indeed that is likely to be an important point of distinction between the various models, with robots being priced according to the type of conversations they can carry on.

“Will our cheery joker model suit you, Sir, or would you prefer something a little graver? The Scottish Presbyterian model perhaps? We are doing a very reasonable price on the sports-chatter special at the moment, what with England out of the world cup…”

Whispered reply from old man in dirty raincoat.

“Oh, you want something that can do highly flirtatious chatter but also, at the flick of a switch, discourse gravely on Greek tragedy.  I am afraid split personality models are very expensive”

More whispering.

“Yes, we do can do the flirtatious chatter as a hidden mode which is only activated when you are alone in the room.  No, Sir, you don’t need to switch anything so you cannot be caught out.  Your friends will think it only talks about the classics although they may notice the attractive shape.  Shall we say ‘the classical scholar’ with a special ‘affectionate flirtation’ override’?

It sounds quite jolly, doesn’t it? Alas, Professor Sharkey’s concern is that it is shot through with dishonesty. He believes that people will be being deceived “into thinking that they can love something that can’t love them back”.

There is nothing new in the idea of relationships where real affection runs one way and a simulated affection runs the other.  Those are common enough and always have been.  The rich old man who marries the gold digger may be the butt of the satirist, but in reality he is just an example of something much broader. Look at the flatterer trying to crawl his way up the ladder in the office. What does he do but try to inveigle himself into the affections of his boss for entirely mercenary reasons?  How often do you hear someone say “keep close to X, they may be useful to you”?  Isn’t that a suggestion that you should appear to X as a friend, even though you are really motivated by ambition?

The truth is that we all sometimes encourage the affection or regard of others for our advantage.  It is part of life and even animals do it too.  Do you have a cat?  If so you will know how affectionate they become immediately before they are fed. “Affectionate cat”, you say. The truth is often “greedy cat” and you will find that, once dinner has been placed in the bowl, Pussy loses interest in you completely.  So was that real affection or a cynical display of feline coquetry?  Does it become worse when the simulated affection comes from a robot?

In the case of your cat, subordinate or lover, the affection may be simulated but it comes from a creature which could feel spontaneous affection if it chose.  Professor Sharkey’s concern seems to be that a robot can’t. True, it can do all the tricks but you cannot imagine it suddenly sacrificing itself for its master declaring “It is a far, far, better thing I do….” in a slightly tinny voice unless indeed it had been specifically programmed to do so. (“Our Sydney Carton model, Sir, now that would be expensive”). Still, it is hard to see why the fact that robots are incapable of spontaneous affection increases the level of dishonesty.  After all, in the case of the cat, subordinate or lover, the deceit is more likely to be successful. We may all be vain enough to believe that humans or animals who fuss over us actually like us, but you would have to be fairly far gone to think that a robot really liked you too.

Then there is the question whether we should be lavishing affection on what, after all, is just a machine.  In fact, we do that the whole time. Some love their cars; others their sound system; others their computers.  In each case that simply means that there are features of the object which give pleasure and lead to it being valued.  Of course people will feel the same about their robots, and there is no reason why they should not.  If some go further and start loving them for reciprocal feelings which they do not actually have, then that is a delusion and they have simply chosen the robot as the vehicle to attach it to. In fact, it is probably safer to love a machine for attributes it does not have than to try the same exercise with a real person

It will all get more difficult when people want to marry their robots.  One can see this getting a cool reception from the Established Church on the basis that there would be no true reciprocity of vows.  Whether this is important is a deep question of canon law and it would take an ecclesiastical lawyer to resolve it. Still, the State generally moves before the Church in matrimonial matters and humo-robotic marriages would have a certain secular convenience.  For one thing there would be no need for any sort of prenuptial agreement.  You would simply buy your robot with the divorce terms to which it would agree already programmed into it – at a small extra charge, of course.

 

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