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Hello everyone,
For the inaugural post, I thought I'd start out with something that has been both brought up in the Will Smith movie I, Robot (and, of course, Asimov's works, but in various places) and the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In I, Robot, there is the following exchange:
Detective Del Spooner: You are a clever imitation of life... Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?
Sonny: Can you?
The implication being, of course, that Will Smith character could not himself do all of the thing he was claiming that Sonny could not do. Regardless of the somewhat faulty implication, as Spooner likely meant (or should have likely meant) that robots do not have capability to do these things, the question remains: Will robots likely have the ability to write a symphony that rises above a simple "smooth jazz" category and create a truly beautiful art piece? Could the robots then appreciate it as we do?
In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there this quote spoken by Sarah in one of the ending montages:
"We all have weak moments. Moments where we lose faith. But it's our flaws, our weaknesses that make us human. Science now performs miracles like the gods of old. Creating life from blood cells or bacteria or a spark of metal. But they're perfect creatures and in that way they couldn't be less human. There are things machines will never do. They cannot possess faith. They cannot commune with God. They cannot appreciate beauty. They cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us, they'll be us."
Again, same questions arise. Of course, Asimov's works have several examples of Robots who accomplish these things. One of my favorites is Dors from the Foundation series. But there too, you have to wonder if she ever truly loved Seldon or was it really just her duty to protect him that made it seem like she loved him. Protectiveness is certainly one aspect of love.
So, any constructive thoughts are welcome.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
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2 comments:
This kind of speculation is pointless as robots or androids of the sophistication of Asimov's, or of a character like Data, will never be possible. (Just like warp drive, it's a fantasy.) Were we capable of constructing artificial brains of the same or greater complexity than that of the human, I see no reason why they shouldn't be able to write symphonies of equal or greater quality. I see no reason why they would not be able to appreciate art, music, literature, etc.
Well, given that we are currenly making strides in that direction, I'd say it is very much possible to develop robots or androids like those of Asimov's or Data. Note the work of Henry Markram and the Blue Brain Project. See an interview with him here: http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/08/henry-markam-project-director-of-blue.html. As you can see, while still in a very early stages, the work will make Data like androids possible in the future, if not the near future. Within 100 years, if not less given the pace of technological innovation (see the technological state we were in just 20 years ago), it is a definite possibility.
That aside, while I don't doubt they'll be able to write symphonis of equal or greater quality, the key is whether it'll mean the same thing to them to do so and would they be able to appreciate their work both on the level of a job well done and on the level of appreciating the art of it. This is especially important if we ever decide to start merging machine and human, which again is not as far fetched as it sounds given the sometimes exponential or at least geometric advance of technology.
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