Robots R'Us

I. Introduction - Transplant

The technology for prosthetics has really advanced. I saw one recently, where the amputee with a prosthetic leg was functioning in terms of mobility just as though normal - indeed was running a mini marathon.

One would consider it common sense that this individual with a new artificial leg is the same person as before she lost her limb.

Imagine the same person now having a a heart transplant operation. So she now has another person's heart and new blood from others as well required for the transfusion.

You could still argue it was the same person albiet with artificial and borrowed organs.

Now imagine the same person has come out of a coma and has amnesia. And because her face needed cosmetic surgery, her appearance got altered as well.

Who is this person? (please don't forget to count in the amnesia bit for this exercise). Is she:

A. A physically altered human being, with all her human rights intact as before this remarkable transformation?

B. The same person in a fundamental sense

C. Lets issue this person a new name and social security number and get on with it!

D. All of the above

E. None of the above

It occurs to me that when you peel of the layers of our identity and associations, it gets tricky trying to understand the locus of our existence.


II. Direction of Technology

Understanding nature that both sorrounds us and is within us has been the aim of science. Aiding science in this pursuit and helping us lead a more comfortable life has been the aim of technology. Technology also aims at the betterment of the existing methods and developing new methods to be more efficient and productive in the above two objectives.

Lets take the example of a robot. The operation of a robot simulates the way in which a human or other living creatures work (spider for example). Hence we have touch sensing, vision and sound detection.
Olfactory sensing, i.e. the sense of smell is also at the cutting edge of new developments in Robotics. Not yet geusia, the sense of taste.

We try our best to simulate what we find in nature. The best we can therefore do is to create 'artificial nature'. The best we can do is to create a robot-being having all our functions - a humanoid. If the humanoid can be simulated to have 'feelings' (assuming technological advancement) it will try to create a robot as well!

If we therefore project backwards, we could be robots designing more robots. The frame of reference for all our activities, .i.e. humans and nature provides us a clue to investigate the false notion with which potentially our ancient ancestors started life, whose tradition we follow in developing modern technology.


III. Anybody home?

There are two examples different from each other, presented in sections I and II above. In the first section it was a person who got a bunch of transplants and has amnesia.

In the second section, it is a humanoid with feelings.

What is the difference between these two entities?

I take care to ask this question in an existential sense and not in the sense of common law, which would clearly and heartily favor the first in every sense of the term.

So existentially speaking, who is the master running the shop in each of these entities?


IV. The permeation of intelligence

Take the ubiquitous iPod as an example. Boy, many of us enjoy it today. But just a few years ago there was no iPod. Something happened between a few years ago and now that in a sense changed the world of music.

Henry Ford and the automobile. Louis Pasteur and the vaccine. Aryabhatta and Copernicus and the discovery of heliocentrism. These and other inventions and discoveries have permanently altered our view of life and way of life.

The common thread in all this appears to be intelligence.

There are two broadly used definitions of intelligence:

A. Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen somewhat different definitions.

B. A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.

It is this intelligence that has led to the various revolutions in science and technology over the years.


V. An 'intelligent' leap?

I am going to try and make an intelligent leap trying to answer the puzzle I posed in section III.

Existentially speaking, both examples in section I and II are products of intelligence.

Completely circumventing a discussion of ethics and rights as we know it now, I make the leap to say that both bodies are 'robots' and both are products of 'intelligence'.

As scientists, engineers, artists and humanists of the 21st century we are enjoying the fruits of science and technology. It is helping us better understand the nature of what surrounds us and what is in us, while at the same time improving our creature comforts.

Pausing and reflecting on 'who' is enjoying the fruits of this progress leads us to some existential questions.

I have made a 'leap of reason' and a 'leap of faith over the gap in reason' to make the point that intelligence has driven a lot of this.

One might argue if the brain led to intelligence, or intelligence led to the brain. But I have hopefully made this a moot debate by citing the example of the advanced robot with 'feelings'.

So...

Robots R'Us as we probably know ourselves.

Intelligence R'Us as we probably should know ourselves!