Westworld's Scientific Adviser Talks About Free Will, AI, and Vibrating Vests (sciencemag.org)

Science magazine has interviewed David Eagleman, the scientific adviser for HBO's Westworld. Eagleman, a neuroscientist at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, spoke with the publication about how much we should fear such an AI uprising. From the story, also spoiler alert for those who have not watched the show: Q: Has anything on the show made you think differently about intelligence?
A: The show forces me to consider what level of intelligence would be required to make us believe that an android is conscious. As humans we're very ready to anthropomorphize anything. Consider the latest episode, in which the androids at the party so easily fool the person into thinking they are humans, simply because they play the piano a certain way, or take off their glasses to wipe them, or give a funny facial expression. Once robots pass the Turing test, we'll probably recognize that we're just not that hard to fool.

Q: Can we make androids behave like humans, but without the selfishness and violence that appears in Westworld and other works of science fiction?
A: I certainly think so. I would hate to be wrong about this, but so much of human behavior has to do with evolutionary constraints. Things like competition for survival and for mating and for eating. This shapes every bit of our psychology. And so androids, not possessing that history, would certainly show up with a very different psychology. It would be more of an acting job -- they wouldn't necessarily have the same kind of emotions as us, if they had them period. And this is tied into the question of whether they would even have any consciousness -- any internal experience -- at all.

Comments

Re:Yeah right

[kbg]

Yes it seems that he doesn't know about the uncanny valley effect. We humans have been training our brain all our lifetime to recognise humans and especially human faces. We can spot a mile away if flesh isn't just the right texture or movements are not correct. Just look at the new star wars movie Rogue One. It had top of the line CGI characters that still where really plastic looking and with wierd facial expressions.

Basically the only way to have a lifelike robot would be if it had actual skin, intelligence and the same knowledge as we do. But in that case it wouldn't be a robot any more it would be a living entity, just like us humans.

It is a plot device

[houghi]

The first question is about the show, so that is fine. The second is about the future and although it is nice to hear his opinion, it is not more or less relevant than yours or mine.

I see this also when people quote the three laws of robotics as if they are real. They are not. They solely exist because they can be used to drive the plot. Without them the books would be boring. In fact, the books are basically showing how to get around these laws.

So please take it as it is, a persons opinion that is just as valid as that from any troll.Because what he is saying is "I imagine that it can be possible." That is good and that is also his job and a way to make a great show possible. That does not mean it is realistic.

Re:Yeah right

[jellomizer]

However we are in a process now of going up on the uncanny valley. Where CGI characters use to seem like animated corpses, now they seem like people with Novocain injected in their faces. Even in Rouge One, I didn't really notice the CGI characters until my second viewing, they did a decent job on its editing to try to distract us from the fact there was a CGI guy in front of our faces. Sure the face moved a bit odd, However it would have moved odd if they had some sort or prognostics as well.