January 10, 2015

"Destroy that robot! Burn it to ash!"

Says Sigourney Weaver who is not a fan of the robot who — like all movie robots (and puppets) wants to be a real boy (or a robo-cop, I'm not sure):



Elsewhere in the robots-are-people news, the NYT Magazine has a piece titled "Death by Robot," by Robin Marantz Henigjan, who might be related to a HiFi amplifier.
Among the roboticists I spoke to, the favorite example of an ethical, autonomous robot is the driverless car.... Let’s say the only way the car can avoid a collision with another car is by hitting a pedestrian. “That’s an ethical decision of what you do there, and it will vary each time it happens,” he says. Is the pedestrian a child? Is the alternative to swerve away from the child and into an S.U.V.? What if the S.U.V. has just one occupant? What if it has six?...

Here’s the difficulty, and it is something unique to a driverless car: If the decision-making algorithm were to always choose the option in which the fewest people die, the car might avoid another car carrying two passengers by running off the road and risking killing just one passenger: its own. Or it might choose to hit a Volvo instead of a Mini Cooper because its occupants are more likely to survive a crash, which means choosing the vehicle that is more dangerous for its owner to plow into....

36 comments:

Jason said...

Robot Fight!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4aMD4uy-QGc

madAsHell said...

Sigourney Weaver is always doing sci-fi movies, or why doesn't she do romance-comedy films?

She looked pretty good in her underpants!!....albeit 30 years ago. So, that can't be the issue.

chuck said...

The car might avoid the child, but it will never avoid the lawyers. The automobile companies have a lot of money that could be better spent buying yachts and Manhatten condos for law grads.

Ann Althouse said...

"Sigourney Weaver is always doing sci-fi movies, or why doesn't she do romance-comedy films?"

Because she looks futuristic in sci-fi, but strange in rom-com.

She's very tall with a disproportionately small head.

JAORE said...

The algorithm should always target the Prius.

campy said...

The crashing robot car should also take into account the other car's bumper stickers.

Ann Althouse said...

Her uncle was Doodles Weaver, who did this Mad Magazine edit of the Gettysburg Address.

Rusty said...

Robocop meets Short Circuit.

furious_a said...

It's all good until Skynet becomes self-aware.

rehajm said...

Robolawyers will kill the algorithm first.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

It looks like a robot from "Ice Pirates."

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Johnny Five is Alive.

furious_a said...

Because she looks futuristic in sci-fi, but strange in rom-com.

Ms. Weaver was pretty hot in rom-dram The Year of Living Dangerously

furious_a said...

She's very tall with a disproportionately small head


YMMV.

Rick Moranis was a lucky man.

Anonymous said...

That's the kind of problem Isaac Asimov used to play with in his stories about the Laws of Robotics. I especially liked "That Thou Art Mindful of Him," which pointed out that for the purposes of the First Law we don't want robots to harm toddlers or lunatics, but for the purposes of the Second Law we want robots to obey competent adults who are authorized to give orders—so "human being" has to be defined differently for those two laws.

madAsHell said...

She's very tall with a disproportionately small head.

I don't see the disproportional small head.

I'll guess that she gravitates to serious characters with strong convictions....which is a nice way of saying that perhaps, she doesn't have the timing for comedy.

cubanbob said...

I'll wait until its on Amazon Prime.

Original Mike said...

This is one good reason we will not have self-driving cars for quite awhile. A related problem is the current notion that the car will suddenly dump control back into your lap when things go bluee. Great plan!

Phil 314 said...

When I first saw this trailer, within 10 seconds I thought "This has to be a Neill Blomkamp film".

I'm not sure I'm a fan but all of his films definitely has that certain "malevolent state against the downtrodden masses (even if they're robots or aliens)" vibe. South Africa has certainly influenced views.

(And consistent with "Interstellar" I now know robots are good.

Scott M said...

Crazy white male, bitchy corporate white female take down oppressed minority (the robot) who's being aided by a Colors Of Benetton ad.

Biff said...

Another aspect to consider regarding autonomous vehicles is that they presumably will be able to communicate with each other. As a result, it is likely that if one vehicle detects a dangerous situation, it will relay that information to nearby vehicles, and all nearby vehicles will be able to coordinate their behavior to avoid or minimize the danger much more efficiently than human drivers. Even human-driven vehicles might benefit from this, as they probably could be retrofitted with a simple communications link that can receive information from the autonomous vehicles, alerting the human driver that there is trouble brewing much sooner than the driver would otherwise notice, allowing more time to avoid the danger. To some degree, we are already seeing this kind of thing with mobile apps like Waze, which allow occupants of vehicles to warn each other of delays, road debris, stopped vehicles, and, of course, police.

That said, scenarios with more than a few vehicles add a lot of variables at once, and such systems may have emergent behaviors that are not optimal. (I know, that last clause had the ring of "famous last words" to it.)

virgil xenophon said...

As an ex-Air Force pilot who is somewhat familiar with the computer-controlled systems on the current airline "heavyweights" I'll just say that there are several various systems breakdowns in the man/computer/controls interface that have been attributed to several major fatal crashes--to include the Air France Rio to Paris flight that fell out of the sky over the Atlantic a few years ago, the Korean Air "tail-drag" landing more recently in S.F. and an Airbus crash on landing in Germany even further back. (To name a few that readily come to mind.) Further, many of these problems have still not been totally resolved. Biff is not far off the mark with his last para..

Original Mike said...

I expect fully self-driving cars to arrive concurrent with the introduction of flying cars ("It's the 21st Century. Where's my flying car? I was promised flying cars.")

Gahrie said...

Both of the Ghostbusters movies had their Rom/Com aspects....

Anonymous said...

Ash was the name of Bilbo's character in Alien. And he got burned pretty good, though he was burned by Parker. Checking IMDB, it doesn't appear that there are any characters named Parker in Chappie. Bad news for humanity.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

Biff-

We'll be able to dispense with traffic lights. And traffic signs. And lines painted on the road. And so on.

cf said...

It will be carbonating entertainment whenever my husband gets it into our tv, his 21st century magic, even if I have to wait a while.

And it is not right this pending moment anyway.

I am focused on the current Robots with their own agendas like the Born-Again Muslims, and generations in my daughter's range that think we won't have to kill to defend the most Good and True things, please love, hope, everyone shares. those two very different armies of robots will have to clash at some point.

cf said...

. . . And furious_a is right, ms. Weaver is hot.

furious_a said...

RIPLEY!

--and--

Rowwwrrrrrrrr....

Lance said...

Who would've thought they'd remake Short Circuit? What's next, Howard the Duck?

Also: the "I'm not a robot" screener would have to be adjusted if you want Chappie to comment on this blog.

SeanF said...

Let’s say the only way the car can avoid a collision with another car is by hitting a pedestrian. “That’s an ethical decision of what you do there, and it will vary each time it happens,” he says.

If the imminent collision is because of a mistake made by the driverless car, than the algorithm you need to fix is the one that allowed the driverless car to make that mistake in the first place.

If the imminent collision is because of a mistake made by the other car, then that other car automatically goes to the bottom of the priority list. Even if there are six people in that other car, you hit it rather than the pedestrian on the sidewalk simply because the pedestrian isn't a responsible party.

Laslo Spatula said...

Sybians are often involved in 'fender-benders'. Of a sort.

I am Laslo.

William said...

If I were buying a driverless car, I would make sure that the computer on board understood that its highest priority was the preservation of my life. That would be a big selling point in its favor....... I wonder if Ripley ever made it back to earth if she could get back pay for all that time she spent in suspended animation......The defining characteristic of a human being is not free will or intelligence but awareness of his own mortality and the futility of his existence. Despite Blade Runner, I don't think you can create a computer that is programmed to ponder the illogic of its predicament.

tim maguire said...

It sounds like you're asking, should the car make the best decision for society, or should it make the best decision for the "driver" of that car? Drivers usually react based on the dictates of their own survival instinct in the moment, not a careful analysis of the broader issues or even based on what, statistically, is the best move for that driver.

While I can see that this is a fraught decision for vehicle designers, I don't think it can be approached based on human equivalents.

Xmas said...

Yay! Die Antwoord!

I'm a bit hesitant about this movie, because I'm not sure Ninja and Yolandi will be able to carry a scene in a movie. It'd be like putting Billy Idol in a movie where he's not playing himself as his stage persona.

Quaestor said...

She's very tall with a disproportionately small head

OK. So? She's a dog.