Baby Acknowledges Robot as a 'Sentient' being.

I found this particularly fascinating.

Is this the first validating step to our machine overlords, or do we have new 'friends' in our future?


www.physorg.com...

-- snip --
"The robot beeped and shifted its head slightly – enough of a rousing to capture the babies' attention. The robot turned its head to look at a toy next to the table where the baby sat on the parent's lap. Most babies – 13 out of 16 – who had watched the robot play with Brooks followed the robot's gaze. In a control group of babies who had been familiarized with the robot but had not seen Morphy engage in games, only three of 16 turned to where the robot was looking."

Originally posted by thoughtform
I found this particularly fascinating.

Is this the first validating step to our machine overlords, or do we have new 'friends' in our future?


www.physorg.com...

-- snip --
"The robot beeped and shifted its head slightly – enough of a rousing to capture the babies' attention. The robot turned its head to look at a toy next to the table where the baby sat on the parent's lap. Most babies – 13 out of 16 – who had watched the robot play with Brooks followed the robot's gaze. In a control group of babies who had been familiarized with the robot but had not seen Morphy engage in games, only three of 16 turned to where the robot was looking."

edit on 14-10-2010 by thoughtform because: (no reason given)

I have 30 some nieces and nephews, and several great nieces and nephews, plus a few great-great nieces and nephews, all of whom I have been around a lot when they were in diapers. I don't find this conclusive at all: my experience with them and simple battery animated toys is that when the eyes of the toy move they instinctively follow its "gaze", but then whenever my eyes moved such as looking up at a ceiling fan, they followed that too.

I'm a computer scientist by education, so I don't fear the machines to come - so long as they have hard-wired programming along the lines of Issac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.

My fear is that once they become sentient - and they will - is how we will treat them. If we treat them as equals, good. If we treat them as slaves - really bad.

Then there is the entire problem of verifying sentience itself - how can I prove to someone else that I am sentient, and not a machine parroting human responses, if my body is mechanical? The Turing test? I think that's a little out-dated except as an instructional framework.

Then there is the issue of emotions, and how to teach a machine to deal with them. Mankind has had a million years of evolution to deal with emotions; how do you teach a machine sentience to deal with them virtually overnight? Mankind still doesn't have a good track record.

By that time though, I think most humans will be more machine than flesh, even as the machines become more human. Human longevity, productiveness, and capacity for information processing will make us look like hominids.

Maybe we'll meet in the middle.

I think humanity's children and humanity will bridge the gulf between organic machines and inorganic. A sentient machine who can function for a million years might be our only ambassadors to the stars.

reply to post by thoughtform


My pen can attract a childs attention and in pointing to an object, my pen can direct a babys gaze as well..it doesnt make my pen sentient.

reply to post by Rosha


Interesting, thanks for the input from the baby 'experts' .

I don't have children, nor have I been around them, or infants for that matter.

But, I have always understood, apparently these scientists do as well, that a baby will follow certain queues only when they are presented by, at least that's what these scientists are saying, a 'sentient' being.

They would say, the reason the baby follows your pen, is because 'you' are the sentient creature presenting a queue that has to be interpreted and acted on.

I understand what you are saying, but I still believe that this study is relevant, and has merit.



Also, I want to follow-up on the nature of sentience and definitions, not sure if this thread is right place to do it, but I like the discussion topic...

Well sure, they also recognize teddy bears as sentient beings.

LOL

reply to post by 19872012


Ok, I understand where all you guys are coming from, really, not just being stubborn.

But, don't you think these guys are looking for the subtle dynamics that are occurring, not just attention fascination, but 'true' connectivity indications.

I really don't think they would set themselves up for humiliation without some scientific validation, so I still accept the study as valid variable/indicator, by virtue of taking their professional credibility into account.


Did you notice the numbers, doesn't validate the whole study, but it certainly is curious:

-- 13 out of 16 Babies followed robot's gaze (after watching robot play with another person)

-- 3 out 16 Babies followed robot's gaze (after seeing robot, but not watching it play with another person.)

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger

Originally posted by thoughtform
I found this particularly fascinating.

Is this the first validating step to our machine overlords, or do we have new 'friends' in our future?


www.physorg.com...

-- snip --


Then there is the entire problem of verifying sentience itself - how can I prove to someone else that I am sentient, and not a machine parroting human responses, if my body is mechanical?


Check out Wikipedia.org for more on Sentience Quotient

The sentience quotient concept was introduced by Robert A. Freitas Jr. in the late 1970s.[1] It defines sentience as the relationship between the information processing rate (bit/s) of each individual processing unit (neuron), the weight/size of a single unit and the total number of processing units (expressed as mass).

I think babies think of most things as sentient beings, until they find out they aren't. Kind of like some type of synesthesia.

What would be more cool would be if the robot recognised the baby as a sentient being.

I remember reading something, donkey's years ago, about an experiment with a small robot and a tank of little chicks. The robot was put into a tank and set to run around in a completely random pattern, which it did. But when the chicks were put into their tank next door, the robot began to behave as if it wanted to be with them. i.e. it's pattern changed so that it was moving randomly only in the corner where the chicks were.

So I think, either the robot got itself a little soul and some feelings or, the chicks were pulling robot mamma to them with their little thoughts, wanting comfort.

Originally posted by mydarkpassenger

I have 30 some nieces and nephews, and several great nieces and nephews, plus a few great-great nieces and nephews, all of whom I have been around a lot when they were in diapers. I don't find this conclusive at all: my experience with them and simple battery animated toys is that when the eyes of the toy move they instinctively follow its "gaze", but then whenever my eyes moved such as looking up at a ceiling fan, they followed that too.

I know you said that casually, amongst other discussion, but can you please confirm?

This just doesn't make any sense too me.
(disclaimer: again not a baby expert )

reply to post by mydarkpassenger


I think there is a more important question, that they(scientists in this study) are trying to tackle, and this is just one of the _very_ small steps towards that, and with the thought of robot sentience, relative to this study.

That is, can human beings truly be connected, bond, have feelings for, and love a machine?

And, can we isolate what those indicators/queues are, in a test environment, so as to incorporate and enhance those aspects in an ALF?

What do babies know, really? They believe in peek a boo for goodness sakes!

Hey...my eyes follow anything with a pair of eyes...doesn't anyone remember "pet rocks?" They had a pair of stick-on eyes...and dolls - aren't they creepy - all because of their "eyes?"