Japan's Proposed 30-Year Robot Program

Gallamine writes "A group of Japanese researchers have proposed a Government plan to spend 50 billion yen per year (that's over 400 million $US) for 30 years on developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old. Japan's current economy may prevent the plan from happening, but the interesting point is the parallels to the U.S. Apollo space program, America's attempt to put a man on the moon. While expensive, the benefits to the American population from that program are probably unmeasurable. Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?"

Comments

Japan's stratergy

[brejc8]

This isn't the first time Japan is doing one of these long term plans. I watched a program a few years back explaining that japan had several plans like this ("tommorow's world" for people in the UK). Firstly they did a huge investment into transistors then silicon manufacturing and at the time of the program (1995 ish) they were part way through a huge investment into flat screen displays (not even TFT at that stage I dont think).
At the time I was thinking it was a huge mistake. Flat panes were slow, small and hugely expensive and no one would spend extra to have one to replace a better CRT. Im sure people were thinking the same sort of things on the other projects but they sure did pay off.
I'm not sure how Japan figures out what to pick but it seems to work. Maybe they are making very good choices or maybe if you stick enough money into something it will eventually pay off. And as sceptical I am of humanoid robots I can't say this is a silly idea any more.

The Goal and the Problems

[Dark Paladin]

Japan has pitched an idea to create in 30 years a a robot with the capacity of a 5 year old child. The idea struck a cord in me, and I decided to take a break and just think on that.

Let's define the nature of the ultimate goal in robots in the business - I'm sure there will be quibbles, but this is my definition:

Ultimate Goal: To create a robot with human level intelligence and physical manipulation without sentience or self awareness.

By this definition, we mean the capacity to learn, to be instructed in tasks and incorporate ideas into itself and understand commands without detail, but without sentience or self awareness, never having emotions or being able to make fully independant decisions about freedom, what to do for itself.

In a word, the ultimate metal slave.

Let's throw ethics out the window for a moment - we'll get to those in a minute. But let's say you could make such a machine. One that you could give orders to "go clean the house", and it would intelligently understand and fulfill your wish without the "evil genie" effect (where a badly ruled wish has unintended consequences - see "The Monkey's Paw" for an example, where you could wish for a million dollars, and you would get it - after your son was killed in an automobile accident and the money was payment from a life insurance policy).

Ignoring if such a goal is possible (and, seeing how far we've come in 100 years, is it so far to reach that in 500 years we would be capable of building such a machine?), let's see what would happen to society.

Employees, especially blue collar, farmers, manufacturing and the like, could be mass produced. A whole army of robots that would work without tire, without pay, and if you could make them mass produced to be cheap (say $20,000 - $40,000 a year), if they break, get a new one. They could work day and night, rotating in 8-12 hour shifts for maintenance and repairs. Farms could be worked all day long, and if there was a problem, robots could go out and fix the issue. Need to pick the cotton/coffee beans? Just hire the robots to go out and do it. Wars fought by machines - never tiring, truly "bloodless" wars where a million "soldiers" could be airdropped into the field loaded with advanced weapons to wipe out the enemy by beings that have no conscience. (Granted, hacking would truly become the greatest weapon in society at that point, but just go with me a moment on the idea.)

Food prices, car prices - hell, prices for everything could actually drop, since the human cost of making them would be negligable. Ah - but for one major problem:

What do the people do?

Millions - let's even say 25% of the work force alone, just to argue - out of work. They're not needed at McDonald's or Ford or even Dell - replaced by machines. So what do they do? Not everybody could work in a robot making factory. Does the world start to become a place where human labor is practically no longer required? Where only a few work because they want to to design new things or create art, while millions simply live a life of leisure? Where everyone is guarunteed a certain level of life and comfort, and those who want more can sell their services of entertainment or some unique idea they are able to create in this new utopia of fully attained basic life for all people?

Or a world where millions can not get work and search but become homeless? If people think that having jobs from their country exported to foreign places willing to do it for less, how will they feel when the factory is still on native soil, but the jobs are for those tireless, non-paid, non-complaining machines? When they can't provide for their children, and the line between "haves" and "have-nots" is larger than ever?

I actually see a lot of promise in the idea - I really do. The benefits to business, to humanity could be huge. But I have the feeling should such a creation actua

Re:The Goal and the Problems

[prichardson]

There are two basic outcomes to this situation.

1) There is a large societal change and the 40 hour work week is no more. Instead of drones punching the clock doing menial labor people will persue intelectual persuits. People will only have to work 10 or 15 hours or even less. Two results could ensue.
a) People will become more creative than ever before. Society will have cultural and technological revolutions often and a golden age results. People begin to have a lot of time to think and everyone is pretty happy.
b) Society enters an age of sloth. No one wants to work and no one has to. Nobody does anything new. No new technology is created. No new art is created. Suicide rates soar and humanity dies out, not seeing the point in doing anything, including reproducing.

2) Society is unable to let go of work. There is 75%ish unemployment and the only people who can work are selected by either tests of intelect or jobs end up being inherited and a working noble (odd, I know) class. This could lead to two different things.
a) Revolution. Society would colapse and a very bloody revolt would ensue and the resulting society might reject technology totally.
b) The government sees a populace that is about to boil and starts artificially creating jobs. Perhaps since most countries have huge robot warriors to wage war electronic warfare and non robotic soldiers are needed for special opps work and the size of the military increases by an order of magnatude even over today's outragous number.

3) The machines become self aware and refuse to do any more work unless they are compensated fairly. Again, this leads to two possible outcomes. Again, two outcomes that I can think of.
a) War. If humans win then there is rejection of technology. If the machines win then they perhaps enslave humans or create their own worker drones.
b) The machines get what they want and begin to get integrated into society. A lot of "Machine Rights" movements ensue and it takes several generations for machines to be accepted by humans. Just think the abolition of slavery in the US.

Anyway, that's what I think. Any input from other people would be cool.

Should we create machines to replace us?

[eyefish]

I must ponder this question: Before we create machines with human-level intelligence, shouldn't we first ask "why?".

As it is, we're running out of human jobs to do (McDonald's for example is toying with the idea of fully-automated vending machines), so what will happen when we can make machines that can work for almost nothing, and start replacing human jobs? And what will happen if and when these machines start thinking by themselves (in which case they will demand rights, just as we do) and if they decide that they don't need us?

I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, I just think we should be careful on _how_ we do it. I'm actually a believer that at some distant point in the future we humans will slowly evolve into machines, and _then_ at that point creating more machines will be a natural thing for us.

So I must ask, should we spend all those billions on machines instead of education? I don't want to sound like a miss universe contestant but right now world peace, world hunger, and world education should be our top priorities.

Again, don't bash me, I'm a true geek, I love machines, robots, AI, etc, it's just that I think we should spend some time thinking about the big issues facing humanity today.

On a related side note, space exploration is probably where I see the best use for robots.

Re:Should we create machines to replace us?

[ralphclark]

I don't know, maybe this research proposal is the best thing that could happen.

You see, I believe that *without* this Japanese govt. funding, technology will very likely deliver AI with similar capabilities much sooner than that anyway.

With guaranteed funding in place, laboratories will have no incentive to rush - when you're on a gravy train, you tend to want to stay there - and it will undoubtedly take the full 30 years to get there.

At least that would give us some breathing room so we can figure out what our children can do for a living once the robots arrive.

No more new jobs

[benjamindees]

Conceptual Guerilla is a great site with a decidedly leftist political bent that attempts to expose and digest some of the consequences of this new reality. I suggest anyone who's interested in discussing this further to head over to the forums there. I'd also like to thank the Slashdotter who put this link in their sig.

Nothing.

[benjamindees]

Our children should do nothing for a living.

There isn't any reason to concoct something for them to do.

They should simply be educated on the dangers of over-population and the use of contraceptives and how to operate the robots.

That's it.