NY TImes piece on Military Robotics

Sunday's frontpage New York Times piece on the trend towards increased roboticization of the military is accompanied online by an interactive graphic showing the latest platforms used by the U.S. Military. The article quotes Ron Arkin as saying that 56 countries now have military robotics programs, and Wendell is also quoted a couple of times, drawing attention to the long-term downside of these developments. The recent ICRAC meeting in Berlin is also linked.

Machine Consciousness 2011

SECOND Call For Papers:
Machine Consciousness 2011: Self, Integration and Explanation

Abstract submission deadline: December 31st, 2010

Submissions are invited for presentation at MC2011, a two-day symposium to be held in conjunction with Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour 2011 (AISB 2011), April 4-7 2011, University of York, UK. It is anticipated that the symposium will be held April 6th-7th (TBC).

Machine Consciousness (MC) concerns itself with the creation of artefacts which have, or model, mental characteristics typically associated with consciousness such as (self-) awareness, emotion, affect, phenomenal states, imagination, etc.

Specific Foci
We encourage submissions falling under one of more of these topics:
• MC and Self modelling
• MC and Information integration
• The explanatory power of MC models
• MC and Neuroscience
• MC and Functional versus phenomenal consciousness
• MC Ethics

Ryan Calo on the Legal Challenges Arising from Open Robotic Platforms

A very interesting article by Ryan Calo on issues of legal liability and open or closed robot platforms has been published by the Maryland Law Review. The full article titled, Open Robotics is available for download online.

Abstract:
With millions of home and service robots already on the market, and millions more on the way, robotics is poised to be the next transformative technology. As with personal computers, personal robots are more likely to thrive if they are sufficiently open to third-party contributions of software and hardware. No less than with telephony, cable, computing, and the Internet, an open robotics could foster innovation, spur consumer adoption, and create secondary markets.

But open robots also present the potential for inestimable legal liability, which may lead entrepreneurs and investors to abandon open robots in favor of products with more limited functionality. This possibility flows from a key difference between personal computers and robots. Like PCs, open robots have no set function, run third-party software, and invite modification. But unlike PCs, personal robots are in a position directly to cause physical damage and injury. Thus, norms against suit and expedients to limit liability such as the economic loss doctrine are unlikely to transfer from the PC and consumer software context to that of robotics.

This essay therefore recommends a selective immunity for manufacturers of open robotic platforms for what end users do with these platforms, akin to the immunity enjoyed under federal law by firearms manufacturers and websites. Selective immunity has the potential to preserve the conditions for innovation without compromising incentives for safety. The alternative is to risk being left behind in a key technology by countries with a higher bar to litigation and a serious head start.

Babies Learn from Robots and Vice Versa

The NSF website has an article of interest titled, Babies Learn From Robots While Robots Learn From Babies: Interdisciplinary research combines infant learning and computer science

The study indicates that more than appearance, robots will need to possess sophisticated cognitive abilities such as being able to understand speech and imitate human actions in order to pass the test of human social acceptance. The specific set of movements or gestures a robot should have will depend on a number of factors such as the domain in which it operates--whether the robot is an emergency responder or a child's tutor, for example. Programming for local culture also is important for determining whether humans will interact with it.

"Some skills such as being able to interact through speech and understand a human's intentions are universally applicable to all robots that interact with humans," said Rao. "Other skills will need to be learned on-the-fly, which is one of the reasons why we have focused our robotics research on learning by imitating humans."

IEET Poll: Consensus on Improving Human Morality

In an IEET poll only a minority of respondents believe we will need the assistance of AI to improve human morality.

Tiny Steps Toward the First Ethical Robot

The Singularity Hypothesis

Springer has commissioned an edited volume in The Frontiers Collection (which deals with forefront topics in science and philosophy) about the singularity hypothesis and related questions, such as the intelligence explosion, acceleration, transhumanism, and whole brain emulation. The book shall examine answers to central questions which reformulate the singularity hypothesis as a coherent and falsifiable conjecture, examine its empirical value, and investigate its the most likely consequences, in particular those associated with existential risks.

The purpose of this volume is to report the results of using the standard toolkit of scientific enquiry and analytic philosophy to answer these questions. Chapters will consist of peer-reviewed essays addressing the scientifically literate nonspecialist in a language that is divorced from speculative, apocalyptic, and irrational claims.

Visit The Singularity Hypothesis Blog.