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Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

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Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#21

Post by bdonlan »

velocicopter wrote: post #6

The moment we make a robot capable of reliably fetching a sandwich it will no longer be ethical for us to order it around (at least, not without paying a salary).

What if the robot really enjoys fetching sandwiches? Sure, that may be because we programmed it to enjoy (experience a high fitness value for) obeying orders, but once we've created such a being, do we not have an ethical obligation to order it around, so that it can feel enjoyment?

Why should we go out of our way to build robots with similar ideas of what is pleasurable to us?

Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#22

Post by ars »

AretNCarlsen wrote: post #19
icebraining wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The programmer will write an algorithm which is capable of generating a fitness function for each action based on its current goal(s). Then it'll decide what to do based on the action with the best fitness value.

Just like I do when I want a sandwich.

Except you wrote your own fitness function, it wasn't written for you.

Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#23

Post by rcfox »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #9

I'm really not seeing anything impressive here. There's zero "true" AI at work, and common sense is actually the cornerstone of true AI. The robot still needs to be told the existence of subway and the probability of getting a sandwhich there. It can't deduce for itself that the new restaurant across the street has sandwiches. Edit: please don't downvote because you think my opinion doesn't coincide with your awe at…

You've fallen victim to the AI effect. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect#AI_is_whatever_hasn.2...

People still need to be told where sandwich shops are. If you walk by any given commercial space, you either need to see that it is indeed a restaurant, or have an explicit mention of sandwiches in order to make a guess at the probability of being able to get one there. Reasoning about restaurants isn't the purpose of the research presented here though.

There is no one thing called AI. AI could involve one or more of search algorithms, object recognition, parsing, statistical reasoning, state machines, and several other things. None of these on their own would be considered AI, but their research is crucial to developing AI.

Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#24

Post by aufreak3 »

Actually it will be interesting and useful if an automaton displayed "common sense" _merely_ in the programming world!

"Hey, make me a web app with twitbug authentication and google payment integration."

Wouldn't you like it if it finds you aren't registered as a developer, applies to twitbug, waits for approval, follows up when approval is received (or whatever that process turns out to be) by creating a stub application, creates an Amazon account on your behalf, sets up a server and launches a proto web app using what it knows to be your favourite setup, or just decides for itself based on what others think is a good idea to use and a while later goes "TADA! Here you go!"?

Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#25

Post by mannicken »

bdonlan wrote: post #21
velocicopter wrote: post #6

The moment we make a robot capable of reliably fetching a sandwich it will no longer be ethical for us to order it around (at least, not without paying a salary).

What if the robot really enjoys fetching sandwiches? Sure, that may be because we programmed it to enjoy (experience a high fitness value for) obeying orders, but once we've created such a being, do we not have an ethical obligation to order it around, so that it can feel enjoyment? Why should we go out of our way to build robots with similar ideas of what is pleasurable to us?

What if you programmed a human to enjoy finding sandwiches?

Well, now that you think of it we are all in a way programmed to enjoy certain things through classical conditioning.

Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#26

Post by philh »

bdonlan wrote: post #21
velocicopter wrote: post #6

The moment we make a robot capable of reliably fetching a sandwich it will no longer be ethical for us to order it around (at least, not without paying a salary).

What if the robot really enjoys fetching sandwiches? Sure, that may be because we programmed it to enjoy (experience a high fitness value for) obeying orders, but once we've created such a being, do we not have an ethical obligation to order it around, so that it can feel enjoyment? Why should we go out of our way to build robots with similar ideas of what is pleasurable to us?

To me, "ordering it around" implies the threat of negative consequences if it refuses. If it really enjoys fetching sandwiches, there's no reason we shouldn't ask it to; but if it decides for whatever reason that it doesn't want to fetch sandwiches even though it really enjoys doing so, we can't say "fetch me that sandwich or I'll activate your disutility circuits".

Re: Robot: I Now Have Common Sense. Engineer: Great, Go Fetch Me a Sandwich

#27

Post by code_duck »

philh wrote: post #12
code_duck wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would the robot need a salary? So it can buy afford robot entertainment on the weekends?

It wouldn't necessarily be a money-salary. But to be precise: at that point, it will no longer be ethical for us to order it around. We will have to resort to asking politely or to bargaining, such as giving it some form of salary in exchange for fetching sandwiches.

Fetching a sandwich means nothing. Deciding to fetch a sandwich because I'm hungry, seem stressed and the robot likes me... but won't get a sandwich for my coworker, because he's a jerk - then it may be time for compensation. The robot still is not likely to need a salary anymore than a horse needs a salary, however.
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