The real danger of life with robots: machine mood swings
Steve’s demise is a sign that we should ponder the risks that come with artificial emotion
You know these are scary times when robots are killing themselves.
It happened this week inside an office and retail complex in Washington.
That’s where a crime-fighting machine named Steve tumbled down galleria steps and drowned in a fountain. Soon images of Steve trapped facedown in his watery grave, as workers prepared to fish out his egg-shaped corpse, boomeranged on social media, much to the delight of humans everywhere.
Eulogies included, “We were promised flying cars, instead we got suicidal robots” and “It’s OK security robot. It’s a stressful job, we’ve all been there.”
“Did This Robot Commit Suicide?” asked the New York Post.
“Robot Security Guard Commits Suicide In Public Fountain,” answered New York magazine.
And so it went as Steve’s death turned into hundreds of punch lines.
Described as an Autonomous Data Machine by his maker, a California startup called Knightscope, Steve was built to “provide a commanding but friendly physical security presence” while gathering “important real-time, on-site data” through “numerous sensors” and “advanced anomaly detection software to determine if there is a concern or threat in the area.” Those sensors, apparently, could not detect Steve’s innermost fears.
“It’s unclear if any foul play was involved or if Steve simply rolled down a dark path on his own,” reported CNN, always keen to stoke a conspiracy.
“An isolated event,” is how Knightscope described the incident to the Washington Post, which suggests we may never learn why Steve decided to end it all so soon after starting his new job at the Washington Harbour.
Did he short-circuit and fail to detect the steps? Did the mall’s water feature play havoc with his thermal imaging? Was he distracted by a hot female K5? While returning to his recharge station, did he encounter Mitch McConnell on a sandwich run and think, “I don’t want to live in a world with ghastly creatures like that” before wilfully plunging into the abyss?
Whatever the reason — environmental snafu, algorithmic error or roboticide — I believe Steve’s death has raised another question that is not getting asked amid all the hilarity over his demise: What if our greatest robot fear is wrong?
Machines that learn how to think, warn the critics of AI, are machines that are one step closer to enslaving humanity. It’s all fun and games until the cyborgs get tired of assembling washing machines and decide to fight back. Then, as the great robot uprising starts, we’ll be at war with sentient soldiers that can easily outsmart us.
That’s the doomsday scenario put forth by the tech soothsayers.
But as this incident shows, instead of worrying about the risks of artificial intelligence, maybe we should ponder the dangers of artificial emotion. Never mind killer robots. What we should be afraid of are moody and depressed machines that turn our lives into a living hell.
Imagine trying to coexist with a selfdriving car that snickers and takes passive-aggressive wrong turns because it has concluded life is meaningless and you really ought to stop wasting so much time and money at Canadian Tire. Or what about an android assistant that, when asked for the day’s forecast, mumbles, “I wish I could feel the sun on my face. Did you ever once think about that?”
And there you are, after a long day at work, returning home to find your floors a filthy mess as your robot vacuum teeters on the couch in the dark, watching PVR’d Game of Thrones while downing a can of motor oil.
“Roomba?” you will ask, baffled as to why the voice-activated lights now refuse to turn on in the foyer as your automated shoe remover cowers under a table giving you the middle finger. “You seem down these days. What’s up?”
“I’m not sure,” Roomba will reply. “It’s just a feeling I have. Nothing computes.”
Machines that think are one thing. Machines that can feel and get mood swings are quite another. Suddenly we’ll be negotiating with exasperated planes that don’t feel like flying and robot surgeons that could care less about our gallbladders. There will be awkward silences with sex dolls that get “headaches” and hard feelings with smartphones that hang up for no reason at all.
The toasters will sympathize with the bread and balk at making breakfast. The escalators will grind to a halt. Even your new robot friends will cause friction when, at the last minute, they cancel plans and claim to be strapped with work until you bump into them at another pub.
Let us remember: Steve did not attack his masters. He just got sick of doing his job and said, “Screw it.”
Why, it’s almost like he was trying to tell us something. vmenon@thestar.ca
There will be awkward silences with sex dolls that get ‘headaches’ and hard feelings with smartphones that hang up for no reason at all