Grace and Robots

[GuidoHunter]

Okay, so Honda's ASIMO robot (the one that can climb stairs) recently gave a performance at SMU. I watched it give some very impressive performances, but I noticed something that really piqued my interest...

Whenever ASIMO would do something cool, people would clap.

I asked myself: "Self [inside joke, sorry, but I couldn't resist], why would people clap for a lifeless being who can't appreciate it?" I came up with a couple possible reasons:

1. People are gracious by nature, and feel they need to clap when something is impressive. Often, this is done without question. That is to say, the audience saw something that was worthy of applause, so they gave it; the fact that the robot couldn't appreciate it didn't cross their mind.
2. People applaud the people behind the action. That is, they are giving their admiration to those that gave the object to them to admire, i.e. the scientists and engineers who designed the robot.

Now, I belong in the second group. At first, I didn't want to clap because that's like praising a rock, but then I got to thinking about where the hard work came from, and had no problem giving my props to the designers who were behind the scenes.

However, that didn't keep my gracious nature from wanting to clap for the robot because, well, it did something cool, but I knew that I would just feel stupid if I did so. Which brings me to my point...

If these ASIMO robots spread into the home market and acted as personal helpers to those in need (for the sake of the scenario, that means you), how would you act toward your personal robot?

Say you asked/told your robot to bring you a drink. You wouldn't think of insulting a human being by not recognizing their selfless effort to help you when you need it and thanking them (okay, so maybe some of you would, but bear with me), so why go around your natural inclination to say "Thank you" to a humanoid robot? Of course, a human would have a genuine response to your words or silence, whereas a robot won't care either way (I'm sure there are programs to recognize thanks, but ultimately it just boils down to a set of processes; the CPU doesn't care about what you say).

So, would you treat it as another human around the house, or as a personal tool? Personally, I would find it much more difficult to not treat it with respect, but my pride as an intelligent being would definitely get in the way of treating it as an equal. After all, we are superior, aren't we?

Now consider this: What if the robot talked to you in a human-like voice? It would certainly be easier to just order it around if it never uttered a sound, but if it understood commands and responded, would you feel any different towards it? If, when you said "Thank you" it would respond with "You're welcome", when you said "Please" it would say "It would be my pleasure", or even if it asked politely for something when it needed it (hey, robots need maintenance, too), would you want to talk to it as if it were human? Even with simple "Hello"s and "Good-bye"s I would be torn by my desire to be compassionate and my pride.

So, I ask you now: What would you do, and why?

--Guido

http://andy.mikee385.com