The UK invited a robot to ‘give evidence’in Parliament for attention

Pepper the robot preprogrammed answers

The UK Parliament caused a bit of a stir this week with the news that it would play host to its first nonhuman witness. A press release from one of Parliament’s select committees (groups of MPs who investigate an issue and report back to their peers) said it had invited Pepper the robot to “answer questions” on the impact of AI on the labor market. “Pepper is part of an international research project developing the world’s first culturally aware robots aimed at assisting with care for older people,” said the release from the Education Committee. “The Committee will hear about her work [and] what role increased automation and robotics might play in the workplace and classroom of the future.”

It is, of course, a stunt.

As a number of AI and robotics researchers pointed out on Twitter, Pepper the robot is incapable of giving such evidence. It can certainly deliver a speech the same way Alexa can read out the news, but it can’t formulate ideas itself. As one researcher told MIT Technology Review, “Modern robots are not intelligent and so can’t testify in any meaningful way.”

Parliament knows this. In an email to The Verge, a media officer for the Education Committee confirmed that Pepper would be providing preprogrammed answers written by robotics researchers from Middlesex University, who are also testifying on the same panel.

“It will be clear on the day that Pepper’s responses are not spontaneous,” said the spokesperson. “Having Pepper appear before the Committee and the chance to question the witnesses will provide an opportunity for members to explore both the potential and limitations of such technology and the capabilities of robots.”

But is this misleading? If the aim of the Education Committee’s report is to soberly assess the impact of AI and robotics on the workplace, you can argue that it undermines this goal to suggest that a robot can give evidence, especially given the headlines it creates. On the other hand, bringing Pepper in is an arresting way to demonstrate contemporary tech, and if the robots limitations are fully explained, it could be very i nf or m at i ve.

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