AIs will have to be constrained by moral standards and ethics
Chance that robots want to rise up is as slim as that they want to drink booze or take drugs
or is she just a chatbot with a face? Although remarkable progress has been made, Sophia still has a long way to go in terms of artificial general intelligence and a sentient being.
What is certain is that we will see many more artificially intelligent robots in our homes.
The first home robots appeared in the 1990s and have assisted with many domestic tasks such as cleaning, entertainment and domestic security. However, the use of more advanced AI technologies in home robots is relatively new.
The newest cleaning robots driven by AI have advanced decision-making capabilities to recognise obstacles and compute the most efficient route; speech recognition to take user commands and report their current status; and interactive drawing capabilities to draw maps of their environment.
In entertainment, artificial intelligent robots, using deep AI and computer vision, are increasingly displaying inimitable personalities and human emotions. They can identify and remember people and have “evolving” personalities to adapt to their owners.
Furthermore, they can interpret users’ facial expressions, vocal intonations and linguistic patterns; proactively start conversations rather than responding to users’ commands; and simulate emotions like empathy. These robots also have the ability to retrieve information and communicate with other connected devices and, for instance, would automatically adjust the music according to the mood of a person.
Artificially intelligent robots are also becoming more common in home security and surveillance. They can recognise faces and detect suspicious sounds, so that it can warn the homeowner of intruders. Some can even predict and disrupt crimes before they occur.
In the coming years, the need for medical rehabilitation will increase as the rate of survival after diseases with severe functional limitations, such as a stroke, will increase. Socially Assistive Robots are already being used in rehabilitation. A milestone was reached when the first artificially intelligent robot in space, named Cimon, arrived at the International Space Station on July 2, 2018. It uses IBM’s famous Watson system and can communicate with people, knowing whom it’s talking to due to facial-recognition software.
Cimon’s purpose is to assist astronaut Alexander Gerst in several investigations by accessing a large amount of relevant information, including photos and videos.
Cimon is smart enough to deal with questions beyond the investigations that Gerst might have.
Cimon is an experiment of human-machine interaction and collaboration in space with the aim of eventually helping astronauts repair damaged spacecraft systems or treating sick crew members.
Artificially intelligent robots create wonderful opportunities, but may also be fear-inducing. For many people, the idea of intelligent robots creates visions of robots that take over the world.
However, the chance that robots want to rise up and dominate Earth are as slim as that they want to drink alcohol or take drugs. That is uniquely human.
But we will still have to ensure that AI and robotics are developed conscientiously and constrained by moral standards and ethics.
Professor Louis Fourie is deputy vicechancellor: knowledge and information technology – Cape Peninsula University of Technology.
Hanson Robotics humanoid robot Sophia attends the Rise conference in Hong Kong in July. Among other technologies, Sophia uses AI, visual data processing, voice recognition and facial recognition, and is designed to get smarter over time. | / Bloomberg