
Be wary of robot emotions - rmason
https://www.apnews.com/99c9ec8ebad242ca88178e22c7642648
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RodgerTheGreat
If I buy or build a robot "pet" that is programmed to act curious and
friendly, and I personally derive pleasure from watching it and interacting
with it, any sense of companionship I feel is legitimate, whether or not
someone else wants to classify it as "love".

When it comes to robotic companions, the real thing to be wary of is whether
or not it's actually _your_ robot. An Alexa, for example, is a sales and
marketing organ of Amazon, and any attempt at eliciting a sense of personality
is in service of that device gathering information about you and using it to
sell you stuff.

Twitter accounts for brands are not companions. The chatbot on your travel
booking website is not a companion. Irrespective of any technology described
as "AI" behind it, Alexa is _structurally_ not a companion.

~~~
laHiesh1
I can't wait until Amazon launches genetically modified pets that try to sell
you things.

Dog opens it's mouth and speaks pre-programmed phrase. "Show how much you love
your pet and buy Amazon premium++ dog food, now half price!"

~~~
8note
=> one that requires you to buy it dog food, and can auto-order more when it
notices the bag getting low

and when he's been a good boy, it auto orders fancier treats

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robbrown451
This idea that machines can only "simulate" things like emotions, while what
humans have is "real," is very common.

But it also doesn't make sense unless you embrace some sort of Cartesian
dualism.... humans are physical machines with some sort of magical "spirit"
added. I would think science oriented people would reject that sort of view in
2019.

~~~
p1esk
It’s like a flight simulator vs an actual flight. The difference does not
involve any ‘magical spirit’.

~~~
robbrown451
I don't see how the analogy applies.

What if we were able to make a an exact copy of a human brain, and the
behavior was indistinguishable from a "naturally formed" human? Would that
still be like a flight simulator vs actual flight?

I think a better analogy is a natural diamond vs an artificial one. Or for
that matter an artificial heart. Is an artificial heart vs a natural heart
like a flight simulator compared to actual flight?

~~~
p1esk
Making a copy of a brain is equivalent to making a copy of a plane - if you
can fly in that copy it’s not a simulator, it’s a real thing.

At some point while building better and better flight simulators we might end
up building an actual plane. Same can happen when simulating emotions or
intelligence.

All this makes sense without involving Cartesian dualism.

~~~
robbrown451
Well, sorry, but I think your analogy is a stretch. A flight simulator is
simulated flight. An airplane is artificial flight. A bird is natural flight.
Is the airplane closer to the bird or the flight simulator?

And what about the word "flight"? Most people think airplanes fly, even though
they are not autonomous entities, and they don't flap their wings like birds
or insects or bats. But is it really flight?

Ok, you probably think yes, of course it is. Then what about submarines? Do
they swim? If not, why not?

(yes I am referencing Edsger Dijkstra's famous quote that is relevant here:
"The question of whether machines can think is about as relevant as the
question of whether submarines can swim.")

~~~
p1esk
You’re the one who’s stretching the analogy. Just like there’s no need to
introduce dualism, there’s no need to introduce different kinds of a flight.
For the purposes of this discussion, flight is what’s being simulated by the
flight simulator, just like emotions is what those robots are trying to
simulate. I don’t see how that’s different in principle.

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hanniabu
Love is all about perspective.

Sometime people make certain actions out of love, but the recipient doesn't
always take it that way. Example: Breaking up a relationship even though they
love you due to some context that you know is bad for the other person, or
telling somebody the truth even if it hurts because you love them enough to
not lie.

Sometimes people make certain actions our of selfishness and the recipient
takes it as actions out of love. Example: Telling a partner you love them and
other actions just to get in bed with them or take advantage of them in some
other manner like gold digging.

Sometimes you may love something that's just a momento, a physical object
that's come to represent a thought and emotion for you.

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noonespecial
Bad news. People simulate love all the time.

When you can't tell the difference, does it matter?

~~~
drb91
Sometimes love is less in the outward expression and more in the intent and
shared understanding of the world. There is no companionship with a robot—at
least, not without AGI.

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cookingrobot
People can love their houses, or cars, or a piece of jewelry, and can feel sad
when it’s gone. Feeling that about other things doesn’t seem very surprising.

~~~
drb91
The love you have for a lover is exactly equal to the love you have for
jewelry? I would hope these refer to entirely different concepts.

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mistersquid
Given love bears so much cultural freight and that people express love
differently, when people express love to each other are they not often
performing love or—more to the point—simulating (what they have come to
believe are the signs of) love?

This is certainly different than whether the individual _feels_ love, but from
the viewpoint of a receiver that might not much matter.

For example, one can know one is loved but yet still want to hear the other
person say, “I love you”. The feeling in such a case is not as important as
the appearance, the simulation, of love.

EDIT: add indefinite article before “case”.

~~~
thaumasiotes
There's a robust genre of country music involving a husband who loves his wife
deeply, and his wife who goes crazy because he doesn't show it overtly enough
for her. (Or, more commonly, involving part but not necessarily all of that
setup.)

The Bed:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfTBfa6qZPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfTBfa6qZPk)

Me Too:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwE2XKWtqXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwE2XKWtqXw)

Why Didn't I Think of That:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrLQGjQyus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFrLQGjQyus)

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seba_dos1
Sufficiently simulated love is just as real as real love.

~~~
thaumasiotes
"He'd take care of the boy because he felt he ought to, because he felt a
bounden duty, but the boy'd never know the difference -- it'd feel like love
to him, and it'd be a whole lot more dependable than love ever was."

~~~
Tagbert
Good quote. Where is that from?

~~~
jessedhillon
Prentice Alvin, by Orson Scott Card

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Smithalicious
So, uh, what's the issue? I don't see how loving something relates to that
thing having an internal life. You can't even prove whether another person (or
a robot for that matter) even has an internal life, so I don't think something
so vague and immaterial should have any impact on what I do or do not love.
Not to mention that having an "internal life" is a spectrum where I'd say a
robot falls somewhere in between a rock (which would be odd to love) and a dog
(which is obviously loveable).

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microwavecamera
Where's Haddaway when you need him?

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m463
He probably got a girlfriend (who is a good dancer) and dropped off the map.

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LogicalBorg
This story made me think of an analogy about robot emotions. I use Alexa and
she has a cheerful female voice. I could argue that Alexa has real emotions.
Here's my argument. Imagine that a TV show has real emotions even though it is
a recording, because real human emotions were involved in creating the show.
The actors knew they were faking it, but their feelings are still real human
feelings. In the same way, a robot can reflect the emotions of the person who
created it. A cheerful person will create a robot that has a cheerful
personality, and a helpful person will create a robot that tries to be
helpful. So robots display human values and emotions in the same sense as a
recorded TV show even though they are only reflecting the original emotions.
In this sense, we can describe robot emotions as real.

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Mugwort
Is simulated hate never hate?

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RandomInteger4
Wow, way to be a fleshist. This is going on your record for when the robot
apocalypse comes and we choose not to make you into cyborgs against your will.
Robots have feelings too you know ...

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DoreenMichele
Some of us prefer the term _organicist._ Plants have feelings too.

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icu
I've spent a lot of time thinking about the philosophical nature of love. My
abstraction is that 'love' is a sufficient level of interest at the expense of
our own interest. Indeed, it is rationally irrational, and 'sufficient' is
dependent on each individual.

One of the best ways I can explain the mechanism is to use a percentage
analogy. For a given relationship, say you have 100% interest in yourself,
than you have 0% interest in that other person. Things get interesting above
the 50% mark because you are willing to take risks for the other person.

Say you are single and meet an attractive and interesting person... are you at
a point where the risk of being rejected is less than the reward of a future
relationship? If you have an 'interest level' of >50% I'd say yes, you would
take that chance. Likewise in dating, heterosexual males tend to have interest
levels that start out much higher than heterosexual females. A successful
dating strategy for a heterosexual male would be to accurately gauge a
heterosexual female's interest level and act as if his interest was no higher
than hers, but to continually work at increasing her interest level in him.

I think the magic threshold for what is considered love is a band between 90%
to 100% interest level in another person because this leaves you with between
10% to 0% interest in yourself... i.e. you are overwhelmingly putting that
other person's interest before your own, up to the point where you would
sacrifice your life for theirs (0% interest in yourself).

Where things can go wrong is where this level of interest is not reciprocal or
at the very least balanced. 'True love' could be a perfect balance whereby you
both have 100% interest level in each other and therefore your needs are met
by your partner and you meet their needs.

There are exceptions, say the love of a dedicated parent may be at the 100%
threshold and they would willingly sacrifice themselves when it isn't clear if
their child can conceptualize that level of love, or be able to return it.

Anyhow, I have a lot more to say on the topic but I'll digress too much.

My point is, to give a framework to think through the mechanics of 'love'...
and to back up some of the posters here who have made assertions such as:

* Simulated love is equivalent if you cannot tell the difference (à la Blade Runner)

* Love is a contextual perspective

* You can feel love with no reciprocation (this would cover love towards inanimate objects, and situations where your love interest is not interested)

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LoSboccacc
> never

eh, you need to define what love is first if you want that kind of imperative,
and there lies the core of the issue.

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thanatropism
Topical recommendation of the novel “Android Karenina”.

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octocode
It's hard to understand (and fully accept) that humans are just meat robots,
so we're constantly trying to categorize things into "us" and "them".

~~~
drb91
Well we aren’t meat robots, we are linguistic creatures and yet have no luck
teaching this trick to actual robots.

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analognoise
Beep-boop. Good enough for me.

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thwaway4342334
I wonder if 'human love' is 'real' love, whatever that is. Many such articles
surrounding AI/robots skirt constantly around the issue that we have no idea
how to define these terms in a consistent manner to make sense of such issues.

For instance, one could extend this to say 'dog love' is never love, or that
animals are not 'intelligent' and don't have soul or can feel emotions.
Ultimately, these theories are often not the result of careful science, but
meant to allow actions which are profitable (such as meat eating, as in Bible
etc).

This can't even be defined consistently even within humanity across cultural
borders. I distinctly remember being extremely cynical/adversarial about
relationships with people from different cultures. It's quite hard to
understand women from say the US or Japan for someone not familiar with them.

~~~
taneq
Why stop at love? If you look close enough, there really isn't any such thing
as life: [https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/why-life-
doe...](https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/brainwaves/why-life-does-not-
really-exist/)

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rmtgk
How many are stuck in relationships with no love of any kind? At least
simulated love exists.

