Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
IT WAS AN unusual sight: two lifelike disembodied robot torsos discussing the pros and cons of humans in front of a nervously tittering audience in Hong Kong last Wednesday.
Artificial intelligence is the dominant theme at this year’s sprawling RISE tech conference at the city’s harbour front convention centre, but the live robot exchange took the AI debate to another level.
Handsome male humanoid Han, dressed in a pinstripe suit jacket, and his elegant sister Sophia, modelled on Audrey Hepburn, chatted onstage about life in the universe and everything, from their love of science fiction to their bewilderment at “silly” reality shows.
While chief scientist Ben Goertzel of Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics, which invented the machines, sang their praises, the robots seemed more sceptical of their human peers.
When Goertzel asked the duo whether robots could really be moral and ethical, Han countered: “Humans are not necessarily the most ethical creatures”.
The robot later pointed out: “In 10 or 20 years, robots will be able to do every human job.”
A gentler Sophia conceded that humans do have “some ability to reflect and self-modify”.
She insisted her aim was to work together with people, before Han “joked” he thought the robots’ goal was to take over the world.
The machines had been programmed to banter and learn from each other, and had been trained to act like humans from movies and YouTube, said Goertzel.
Their malleable skin is controlled by dozens of motors, while computers in their torsos help with vision and movement. They can also connect to wifi to use cloud computing, where they will eventually share a vast amount of knowledge, Goertzel said.
Robots could be “as smart as people” in as little as three years, he predicted.
According to robot mastermind David Hanson, CEO and founder of Hanson Robotics, the machines’ onstage repartee was only part scripted and is just a taste of things to come.
He said he wanted them to “emotionally engage” with people — Sophia has already graced the cover of fashion magazines, sung at pop concerts and appeared on television talk shows.
“This is a kind of character animation that can come to life in our world,” Hanson told AFP.
Robots would be able to work with humans in factories, customer service and medicine but would also become our friends, said Hanson, who did not rule out eventual robot-human romantic relationships.
“As the AI matches and exceeds human levels of intelligence we hope they’ll help us solve the world’s great problems,” he added.
However, Hanson acknowledged there were fears over what the future could hold.
“There’s reasonable speculation that if we don’t build machines that really care, they’ll have motives of their own,” he said, adding that it was important to openly discuss how to develop AI that is “inherently safe and good and caring”.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
The solution is obvious….. arm the doctors and nurses…….
@Jonny:
Too many doors.
@Jonny: Don’t forget the patients….
@iohanx: Arm the doors with semtex duh.
@Jonny: don’t forget the candy stripers.
Sounds like a bad B movie!
(Hospital volunteers, also known as candy stripers in the United States)
@Jonny: Arm the teachers and post them in hospitals. That’ll show them.
@iohanx: Which were NOT LOCKED! Insane!
@Jonny: or maybe dogs with bees in their mouth, and when they bark they shoot bees at you.
@A$AP Ragnick: Release the robotic Richard Simmons.
@Colm de Cleir: and the dogs outside
Oh but guns don’t kill people….people do right. The circus continues. What a messed up country!
@Warren kennedy: Yeeeehaw. The only thing that can git a bad guy with a gun, is good guy with a gun… yeeeeehaw… tighten those stirrups and let me take you for a ride. Yeeeehaw. Banjo music yippee dee doo.
They are absolutely p@thetic.
@Warren kennedy: I cannot believe this is after happening in America!!
The land of the free nope the land of the scared going school, work or play not sure if you or loved ones get home alive.
@Mick McGuinness: I am sorry you feel that way.
Feel free to live in Ireland. On the other hand I immigrated and never regretted it. To each his own.
@Dermot N Killian: You’re literally one in millions. Who cares if you’re happy.
It was unclear what prompted the deadly assault….. its a shame people/teenagers can’t use their assault rifles responsibly
Shoulder shrug…
America makes money on selling guns to anyone
Another mass shooting in America? Must be Thursday.
@Colin B: Could be a Tuesday, or a Saturday… Note that since the one at Uvalde, there have been over twenty mass shootings (at least four people hit by gunfire in the same incident). Their society is lost to guns now.
4…surprised it made the news…any other country this would be a tragedy…Will be for the people involved but for most of America another day another shooting, just part of life. Somebody please hold a big mirror up to America!
@Damien Leen: my guess is that it’s because it’s in a hospital and came soon after the school shooting.
It really feels like the NRA has declared war on America….
We’ve been cooking up the zeros. We’ve been doing all the sums. The outcome of this court is, we need more guns.
Another tragedy in America. At one of the recent school ones , the gun nuts were saying it wouldn’t have happened if the teachers were armed in the schools – and then called for teachers to be armed in the schools.
.
This latest mass shooting was at a medical facility. What’s next? A call to arm the doctors and nurses too? Let not discriminate? Let’s also arm the receptionist at their desk. What’s their preference? A semi-automatic or sub-machine gun? Doctors and nurses in an operating room, strapped with their weapons?
.
When does the NRA/Republican craziness end? No – wait. It’s all the open doors fault, of course! There’s a free gun for everyone in the audience. Let’s liven up the Late Late show with such madness? No. When does it all end for America? In more unnecessary deaths – that’s sadly where!
.
* I make this post as NOT a fan of the Democrat party either!
@Jeff Rudd: it’s becoming like the old w6old west.. everyone armed … there will be duels next to settle disputes.
Only 4,chicken feed.not news worthy.
@Macus Mc Mahon: T’is practically good news.
The US Corporation lives on the sale of arms throughout the world and now the Irish ‘government’ and commentariat is willing to sign us up to the latest sales drive by the US’s Nato department.
@Bramley Hawthorne: any links to that?
@Jim Buckley Barrett: Only this morning “This Morning” RTE1 Radio show, was going on about NATO. Yesterday in the paper’s, Leo was advocating that he can convince us to join yet another military setup.
All this comes after two recent polls (that’s he’s deliberate ignoring) exposing quite clearly that the mass majority of Ireland people do NOT want to join further mass military setups.
Only 4? Sure that’s nothing.
The 19th mass shooting since the Uvalde.
The American public are ‘getting high on their own supply’ of guns.
It would be ok for them to use the guns to kill lesser armed people in far countries – not
The only way that gun laws will ever change in the US is when some maniac with a semi automatic gun enters a parliamentary building and shoots a number of the legislators. Only then, will the message sink in that their gun laws are so so wrong.
@Kárl: a congressman was shot dead at a baseball game for politicians a few years back. Nothing changed. Nothing will ever change until they stop letting special interest groups like the NRA buy and elect lawmakers. The people clearly don’t have the will to bring them to talk.
If only there was a way to stop the madness.
I hear the next one will be less than a week away….. how bad is it that I’m not even wrong :(
Very simple answer, machine gun turrets at the entrance to every medical facility shooting anyone dead if they get within 50ft of the facility!
Who the hell left the doors open??? They should be locked up!
@Andrew Lavelle: the person, or the doors?
have your say