A Chicken In Every Pot, A Robot In Every Home

Palm Addict writes "The New York Times report that "South Korea, the world's most wired country, is rushing to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life. The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade, has marshaled an army of scientists and business leaders to make robots full members of society.""

Comments

Robots?

[TechnoGuyRob]

This is a very, very, very daring venture, and if South Korea succeeds, I can only congratulate them with all my heart. But, one has to ask; are "robots" ready to enter society? We have been seeing things like ATMs, the internet, and various other technologies exploited over the years, whether for identity theft, spam, etc. If the same thing happens to robots, we could be facing some problems.

But to be honest, after reading the article, I am quite impressed. I did not know this. Take, for example:

Since January, Koreans have been able to watch television broadcasts on cellphones, free, thanks to government-subsidized technology. In April, South Korea will introduce the first nationwide superfast wireless Internet service, called WiBro, eventually making it possible for Koreans to remain online on the go -- at 10 megabits per second, faster than most conventional broadband connections.

I'll come straight out with it. That is very impressive. However, as I have stated before, technology--while helpful--can cause problems as well. I mean, it's great that (from the article) "Two years ago, after the opposition-led National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo Hyun, a consensus began forming on the Internet that the move was politically motivated -- two hours after the vote took place, Mr. Chang said. That quickly led to mass demonstrations," he said. "That kind of thing had never happened in Korea before. Everyone is connected to everyone else, so issues spread very fast and kind of unpredictably." However, then you have incidents like this:

There has been at least one unpredictable side effect: fierce witch hunts. In a case that caused national soul-searching, a woman riding the subway with her dog last year refused to clean up after it defecated in the car. One angry passenger photographed her with a camera-equipped cellphone and later posted the photos. Soon, all of wired South Korea seemed to be on the hunt for "Dog Poop Girl." Several misidentified women were verbally attacked, and finally the woman herself was identified on the Internet and humiliated as the topic of countless online discussions.

Honestly, I think South Korea might be moving a little too fast for its own good. People aren't getting a chance to adapt. But then again, who knows?

"But eventually robots could change how we live in a way we can't predict right now," Mr. Kim said. "It's like the PC. No one ever thought the PC and the Internet would transform our society the way they have."

Physical agency and human robots

[Bombula]

The line from Bladerunner about machines either being a benefit or a hazard pretty well sums things up.

I think the biggest concern is that machines are liable to be used to destructive ends by manipulative people. Right now machines with physical agency (like cars) have very little in the way of independent capability: they can't really function independently of a human operator. And machines which can function independently of an operator lack physical agency (like ATMs).

The problem with humanoid robots is that they combin independence with physical agency. Even putting the entire issue of AI aside, such machines could be extremely dangerous because they have the potential to be misdirected for destructive purposes by people. Imagine if a 12 year old kid or a terrorist could instruct a big SUV by remote control?

It's not so much humanoid robots that are the concern, but larger machines like vehicles that are a worry to me. Right now it is virutally impossible to remotely hack the controls of an airliner, for example, but if planes began to be made to follow instructions issued from less narrow sources of input - by voice or remote control - then the window for abuse opens dramatically.

As I said, I won't get into AI since that's way too big of an issue, but there is one more point worth thinking about, and that is human beings as robots. Where human beings are profoundly ignorant and very fearful, they are vulnerable to manipulation. That's where terrorists come from. From a certain perspective, suicide bombers are like robots that are being misguided by malevolent human manipulators. Since without highly advanced AI they will presumably be easier to manipulate than even the most ignorant person, robots with physical agency could very quickly become the tool of choice for terrorism.