I’m continuing the robots and ethics thread that I started with that Kevin Warwick interview last week here. This week I bring you the perspective of Daniel Wilson author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising, a funny and informative book on the future of robotics that reads like a quirky non-fiction take on science fiction.

MT What’s the weirdest reaction you’ve had to How to Survive a Robot Uprising?

DW The book is humorous and that is *usually* pretty clear to people. But not to people in Berkeley, California. During a book talk in Berkeley I had a crowd that was intensely worried about robot domination. The most popular question: “Should we trust the scientists to build robots!?” Now, I know from experience that most scientists are evil geniuses bent on the destruction of humankind. But my response was still, “Hell yeah.”

MT Unmanned space missions are increasingly getting their budgets squeezed to make room for manned space missions. If it comes to a choice of one or another do you think near future space travel should focus on manned or unmanned missions?

DW Robots will (and do) outnumber humans on space missions, period — regardless of whether the flight is manned or unmanned. That said, I support a focus on manned space travel. Gathering solid information is crucial in any case. So unmanned robotic probes are a vital part of manned space flight. However, only manned space flight (i.e., people goofing around in outer space) is proven to capture the public
imagination and thoroughly catalyze general interest in science.

MT Have you ever been injured or attacked by a robot yourself? If not, do you know anyone who has?

DW Due to my panther-like reflexes, I came through my Robotics Ph.D. without a scratch. Others, however, have not been so lucky. A friend of mine was slightly bloodied while testing a cat-sized, six-legged climbing robot. It turns out that titanium-tipped claws are good for climbing trees and for shredding human flesh. Who knew?

In a University setting the robots are mostly tame. The first season of the “Robot Wars” TV show was a different story. This is a show where radio-controlled robots fight each other to the death. Without proper safety precautions this can be understandably dangerous to soft, squishy human bystanders. In the first season (when the producers were still newbies) a guy was impaled through the ankle by a spiked robot and drug around the battleroom floor. Another time, a man has his face bashed in by an automated hammer. My advice: When a spike-covered, hammer-swinging robot approaches hold out your palm so that the robot can sniff your hand and get used to you.

MT We’ve seen a few robots now that seem a bit anthropmorphized to give them a personality that people can relate to. Do you see any problems in the future arising due to overlaying a cutesy personna on technology that doesn’t really represent it’s true nature?

DW Robots look like people because it makes it easier for humans to interact with them. A broken robot may look sad, not because it has emotions, but because it makes it natural for a human to ask “What’s wrong?” The robot is more likely to get fixed than if it beeped or flashed LEDs. The vast majority of the time it is *great* for robots to take on human attributes. It makes it easier to deal with them.

But. What about when a robot “lies?” A robot that misrepresents itself would be very ill-designed and possibly dangerous. Usually this happens when robots are not anthropomorphic enough. If a person can’t guess what a robot is thinking, then that robot becomes unpredictable and potentially dangerous.

Related

How to Survive a Robot Uprising (link)
Daniel’s blog (link)

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