How do we prevent robots from turning on their human masters?

Science  fiction features robots with artificial intelligence (AI), capable of  thinking and acting independently and turning on their creators. Stephen  Hawking and other scientific prophets have worried about AI surpassing  human intelligence, becoming reproductive and enslaving its former  masters.

There  is a presumption that robots and AI will be dispassionate and  mechanical when it comes to dealing with their human neighbours on the  planet; or worse, copy evil human traits and become cold-blooded  killers. What adds fuel to these fears is that the military in several  advanced nations are well ahead of civilian AI research through  developing killer robots and drones for the battlefield.

Will  this result in the military setting the direction of future civilian AI  research, which seeks to spin off what the military has achieved? If  this were to happen, and if AI becomes conscious, then the situation is  grim indeed. We’d be superseded by an intelligence which has no  morality, conscience or empathy.

How  can this fate be avoided? How can the robots and AI of the future be  designed with heart as well as mind? Capable of being our friend and not  our enemy?

A biological precedent exists: the domestic dog.

Selectively  bred from wolves in the wild over countless generations, dogs have  become “Man’s best friend”. If trained correctly they are worshipful,  obedient, loyal, loving, forgiving, contrite and helpful — just the  qualities we would seek in our future smart robots, and the same as  exhibited by R2D2 from “Star Wars”.

Even  if robots become more intelligent than you, you’ll have nothing to fear  — provided they have the personality and emotional attachment of your  pet French poodle.

That  begs the question: what is at the root of your pet poodle’s benign  traits?  After all, its DNA originated from that of the wolf — a  calculating and vigorous hunter and killer. However, over multiple  generations of selective breeding, humans have selected-out offspring  with the violent traits and selected-in (for further breeding) those  with the human-friendly and trainable traits. Over ten thousand years or  more, this has produced your pet poodle.

What  then underlies these good poodle traits? It is not so much intellect,  but emotion, which in turn is linked to needs, and the drives to satisfy  those needs. So, at the basic level, if the puppy’s body is sending a  signal that it is hungry, then it needs to be fed, and the human master  is the one who provides the food and satisfies that need.

It  was biologist Ivan Pavlov who presented an experimental dog with meat,  while measuring the saliva secreted from its mouth. After a number of  trials, the dog salivated whenever it heard the footsteps of the  assistant usually bringing the meat, even if no meat were presented.  This association of one thing to another is called “classical  conditioning”, an important discovery in the psychology of learning.

So in a Pavlovian sense, the poodle pup is conditioned to feel pleasure whenever it sees its human master.

The sense of pleasure, felt by a pup on seeing its human provider, ultimately becomes love at a higher level.

In  the same way, all the good traits of the pup are derivatives of some  basic biological or psychological need which is satisfied by the human  master. These include the need for warmth, for safety from harm and, and  for belonging. The need to hunt and to compete with other species for  survival, so necessary for a wolf in the wild, which has a violent edge  to it, did not have to be selected-in during domestic breeding of the  poodle, as humans provided the food and protection that such behaviour  was meant to deliver.

Analogously,  since our ideal robot does not have to go through the evolutionary  process of survival of the fittest, then it also does not need to be  hardwired with the drive to kill and to compete with others.

So,  if these basic needs of dogs have been integral to their selective  breeding and training, then how do we design them into a robot’s  electrical circuit?

The  equivalent responses in a puppy are emotional as well as cerebral; and  emotions spring partly from the body which is linked to the environment  through signals sent by its sense organs. So, our empathetic robot is  going to need a body as well as a brain; or, if not an actual body, a  generator of signals which simulate those of a body.

However,  it may be possible to take a short cut here. Since our empathetic robot  does not go through the process of evolution, it does not need the  basic drives like seeking food. What’s more, we won’t have to leverage  off those drives, as with the pup, to condition the robot to be  human-friendly during training. If future humans are smart enough to  make a robot conscious, then they should be able to hardwire  human-friendliness directly into it. From medical interventions in  humans, neurosurgeons know at least as much about how the emotions work  as they know how the mind functions.

But  who is going to design and build such robots? Certainly not the  military. They want robots that will obey orders without question. They  don’t want them screwed up with emotions and empathy. They don’t want  them with a conscience. They want cold-blooded killers. If these develop  minds of their own, then humanity will truly be in trouble.

Similarly  with the tech companies. They want self-driving cars which obey all the  rules of the road and can execute manoeuvrers with precision  to avoid  accidents. They would see no commercial advantage (and some operational  disadvantages) in producing a self-driving car with emotions. They might  program in decision pathways for ethical issues, but these would be  purely mechanical.

The  best chance of producing smart robots with heart is in the service  industries, where empathy and kindness add value. Smart robots could be  doctors, nurses, waiters, personal trainers, hairdressers, pets and  companions. If these have hearts, they would deliver benefits to us  humans, for which we may be willing to pay.

Such robots may yet replace the family dog; and you wouldn’t even have to take it for a walk twice a day.

Furthermore,  human-like roots may ultimately become sought after companions for  lonely women and men. Of course, no self-respecting woman (or man) would  be seen dead on a date with a robot. She (or he) could not be so  desperate. But in the privacy of the home, it may be a different matter.

Then  again, a friendly and intelligent slave robot may be in much demand as a  status symbol. It could be seen as a fashionable accessory like a Gucci  handbag or a Maserati. To play such a role the robot would need to have  a heart as well as a mind.

Demand  for intelligent  and kind robots could spur R & D in that  direction. Look how the demand for PC’s, laptops, the internet, iPads,  iPhones and social media exploded beyond all expectations of their  inventors and founders. All these inventions are partly or wholly within  the personal enrichment space — as would be intelligent robots with a  heart.

It  has long been recognized by pioneers in the field that morality needs  to be programmed into AI so that it does not harm humans or humanity. In  this respect, Estonia has enacted a “Kratt Law” to regulate robots, the  term coming from mythical creatures of Estonian folklore. The kratt was  a mythical figure brought to life from hay or household objects. When  the owner acquired from the devil a soul for his or her kratt (in modern  language read “algorithm”), the kratt began to serve its master.

Along  similar lines, the designers of self-driving cars are trying to develop  rules for moral dilemmas, such as that posed when a decision has to be  made by the car whether to run over a child on the road or swerve and  hurtle over a cliff, killing all the adult passengers on board.

But  is programmed morality enough to stop robots with free will from  running amok? If they are independent thinkers, learning from their  environment, they may well reprogram themselves and their offspring with  a new set of moral rules which suit their ends and not ours. Morality,  conscience and empathy must be hardwired at a deeper level within any  robot’s DNA, as they are for your pet poodle. This must be such as to  put out of mind any desire by the robot to rewire its own or its  offspring’s circuit.

In  the meantime, do we trust governments to regulate robot production and  to ensure the military and tech industries do not develop killer or  amoral robots?

Governments  might be induced to place a moratorium on producing robots without  feelings, for example. I am all for such regulations, but we have to be  realistic about their chances of success.

History  is not very encouraging in this respect. Little success has been  achieved in stopping other existential threats to humankind, such as  nuclear weapons, global warming and gene editing of human germ cells to  create designer babies (and inevitably new human or post-human species).  Some nations have aligned with such moratoriums and some have not: nine  nations still possess nuclear weapons; the USA is pulling out of the  Paris Accord on climate change; and China has not banned human gene  editing.

It  seems that our best chance of creating AI and robots that will not  destroy or enslave us is if the personal enrichment sector and the  service industries take the lead, and set the tone in AI development.  That is our best hope for producing human-friendly robots.

Playful robot puppies and kindly robot companions: human ingenuity may save us yet!