If Robots could Love... They'd love us all to BITS.

Kenji was part of an experiment involving several robots loaded with custom software designed to let them react emotionally to external stimuli. After some limited environmental conditioning, Kenji first demonstrated love by bonding with a a stuffed doll in his enclosure, which he would embrace for hours at a time. He would then make simple, but insistent, inquiries about the doll if it were out of sight. Researchers attributed this behavior to his programmed qualities of devotion and empathy and called the experiment a success. What they didn’t count on were the effects of several months of self-iteration within the complex machine-learning code which gave Kenji his initial tenderness. As of last week, Kenji’s love for the doll, and indeed anybody he sets his ‘eyes’ on, is so intense that Dr. Takahashi and his team now fear to show him to outsiders. The trouble all started when a young female intern began to spend several hours each day with Kenji, testing his systems and loading new software routines. When it came time to leave one evening, however, Kenji refused to let her out of his lab enclosure and used his bulky mechanical body to block her exit and hug her repeatedly. The intern was only able to escape after she had frantically phoned two senior staff members to come and temporarily de-activate Kenji.

Full Story Here

OK.

So. It's settled then. We're officially doomed. With the advancements in AI, and programs to simulate 'Human' characteristics and behaviors in robots, it just seems like the doomsday clock has been going for a while. Don't get me wrong, it's definately a loooooong count, but it's ticking. I hope these guys aren't behind any future ventures developing AI for the military, and make a slight programming error on something which can actually 'learn', a true 'Artificial Intelligence', if you will. The possibility that one of those machines got hold of the internet, and POW. those sci-fi movies like The Matrix, but especially the 'Terminator' series (minus the time travel) could end up becoming self fulfilling prophecies. To me it would only seem as a logical progression.

Also, I don't think keeping an emotional Robot in such isolation is a good idea anyways... of course he'd rush to hug the technicians! Poor Marvin... Perhaps this is how they created 'Marvin the Depressed Robot'... Poor 'Marvin/Kenji'.



[edit on 19-3-2009 by jephers0n]