March 29th
Watson, Robots, and the Bunny
In preparing for a recent meeting of the Board of Directors of the Association of Independent Schools in New England (AISNE), Steve Clem, Executive Director, assigned each member of the Board the task of reading and reflecting on three to five essays from the book This Will Change Everything, edited by John Brockman. The essays, written by leading scientists, educators, psychologists, and futurists, attempted to answer the question, “What game-changing scientific ideas and developments do you expect to live to see?”
The essay that really grabbed my attention was written by Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at MIT. It was titled, “The Robotic Moment.” I’ve had a passing interest in robotics, primarily as a result of “Star Wars” and R2D2. I’ve always thought of them as machines, as most of us probably do, but R2D2 foreshadowed Turkle’s predictions. What’s game-changing about the future of robots, according to Turkle, is that robots will eventually become companions. As she states, “I will see the development of robots that people will want to spend time with. Not just a little time – in which the robots serve as amusements – but enough time and with enough interactivity that the robots will be experienced as companions, each closer to a someone than a something. I think of this as the robotic moment.”
I admit that I find this prediction a bit unnerving, a feeling that I also had when watching “Watson,” the IBM supercomputer, compete on Jeopardy several weeks ago. As most of you readers probably know, Watson won the competition against two of Jeopardy’s most successful contestants. I’m sure the scientists who constructed Watson were elated, but how did Watson feel? He/She/It, of course, didn’t feel anything, and that’s what makes me uneasy.
Sherry Turkle goes on to predict that robots will become “sociable technologies” that “will be presented as potential nannies, teachers, therapists, life coaches, and caretakers for the elderly.” They will become “preferable to an available human being.” A graduate student at a conference Turkle attended asserted that she would happily trade in her boyfriend for a robot if the robot could produce “caring behavior.” The implication, of course, is that this would be a relationship with little or no risk. That seems to be what people are looking for – no risk relationships. Are we looking at a future in which robots will become our preferred companions because they don’t threaten us and only serve to comfort us? As appealing as it sounds on the surface, I certainly hope not.
All of this also brought to mind the classic children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, by Margery Williams. Written almost a century ago, it still has lessons for us about what it means to be “real.” As an analogy to human relationships, we become real through the process of being loved, which involves tremendous risk. Are we going to be asking how robots become “real?” (Actually, I’m already asking that, and I think the answer is, “they don’t.”) The sad lesson from Sherry Turkle’s essay, I think, is that it’s a commentary on a tendency to want to avoid risk. It seems on the surface that it would be wonderful to enter into every relationship with the knowledge that in the end it will always be happy and fulfilling, but that’s not “real.” Real relationships involve the risk of disappointment and unrequited love, as well as the hope of fulfillment and unconditional love. It’s part of what makes us human. Would I like to have a robot to do certain tasks around the house? Certainly. Would I like to have a robot as a substitute for a human companion? Never. That truly would change everything, and it’s a future I don’t want to experience.
