Robots

[Ed]

One common question is how will we decide when a robot is worth being considered human.

A comic I finished last night, volume 6 of Descender, brought up the opposite question. How much metal do you have to have before our machine overlords will consider you a robot? When the war comes, will they let you be on their side? It is a very minor plot point in the story, but an interesting twist on the old idea.

[Jim]

It is a good question. Remember Circuitry Man (1990) & Plughead? How 'human' was he? Very bad dude.

It's a question asked in For We Are Many. Bob started out as a human, became an AI, spawned, & then had some of those go on to bodies - robotic bodies, but he was working on biologicals.

[Ed]

Jim wrote: " Remember Circuitry Man (1990) ..."

I do not. Should I ?

[Jim]

Probably not. I think it was a cult classic - so bad it was good. My boys & I loved it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099271/

[Cheryl]

A new twist on human vs. robot (android) is here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/face/. Short and clever, and it made an impact on me because I didn't guess the twist.

[Oleksandr]

Ed wrote: "the opposite question. How much metal do you have to have before our machine overlords will consider you a robot? "

The was a short story by Stanisław Lem about car racer, who after many accidents had only half of his brain his own and the company that supplied the rest of his body (in advance) takes it back in court.

A newer take is a short story is Thirty-Three Percent Joe, by Suzanne Palmer http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/palme...

[Jim]

Cheryl wrote: "A new twist on human vs. robot (android) is here: https://www.apex-magazine.com/face/. Short and clever, and it made an impact on me because I didn't guess the twist."

That was good. I'm not quite sure what to make of it which is great. I'll have to mull it over a while before I read Oleksandr's.

[Cheryl]

All Systems Red's Murderbot is sorta like this, defined as not-human but ... it's complicated.

[Jim]

Cheryl wrote: "All Systems Red's Murderbot is sorta like this, defined as not-human but ... it's complicated."

Yeah, definitely. I've read the first 3 & am looking forward to more.

I knew that short story you posted was similar to something else I'd read recently. I'm pretty foggy (bronchitis) & it took me far too long to realize how much like the movie "Life Like" (2019) it was that I mentioned in comment #50.

[Jim]

Ford is now teaming up with another company to make delivery robots:
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/tech/f...

I don't know why they're trying to use a bipedal form. One of the comments from an acquaintance here in KY is 'they better them bullet proof'. Others chimed in about how creepy it is. Terminator coming to call. Also seems as if it would be harder to balance with packages. I'd think a lower center of gravity would be better.

And, the USPS is testing self-driving tractor trailers since drivers are scarce & the run they're putting them on takes 2 since it's 22 hours long.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tu...

I hope they can see cars stopped on the road better than the Tesla can.

[Cheryl]

I finally read The Stepford Wives and realized that Levin didn't do a half-bad job with the SF aspect of his story, even though he was (I assume) writing it for the general audience, not for us SF fans.

[Jim]

Peter posted a short story & I went on to read another I found at the bottom. “Scar Tissue” is a short story about what it’s like to raise a robot by Tobais S. Buckell. You can find it here:
https://slate.com/technology/2020/05/...

It's a really good story with a lot going on. At the end, there is a link to an essay that might even be better though, "When the Robot You Consider Family Tries to Sell You Something" by John Frank Weaver. You need to read the story first to get the references.
https://slate.com/technology/2020/05/...

[Jim]

Robots were supposed to take our jobs. Instead, they’re making them worse. The robot apocalypse is already here, it just looks different than you thought.
By Emily Stewart

“The issue that we’ve faced in the US economy is that we’ve lost a lot of middle-skill jobs so people are being pushed down into lower categories,” Autor said. “Automation historically has tended to take the most dirty and dangerous and demeaning jobs and hand them over to machines, and that’s been great. What’s happened in the last bunch of decades is that automation has affected the middle-skill jobs and left the hard, interesting, creative jobs and the hands-on jobs that require a lot of dexterity and flexibility but don’t require a lot of formal skills.”

https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2255789...

[Ed]

Jim wrote: "Robots were supposed to take our jobs. Instead, they’re making them worse. ..."

Yeah, I recently read a similar article about how Robots make the decision about who to fire from their delivery jobs at Amazon. When the robot decides you aren't doing a good enough job, you are fired. It is hard to fight back or even get any explanation why the robot thought you weren't good enough.

I think we should let the robots decide whether Jeff Bezos should be allowed to return to earth after his flight.

[Jim]

Ed wrote: "Yeah, I recently read a similar article about how Robots make the decision about who to fire from their ..."

I read that, too. The poor folks get a text message or something. This article also mentions something about them pissing in bottles rather than taking a real break & getting dinged for it. That's slavery. Completely ridiculous. No one should be expected to work like that. I don't understand why they didn't vote for unionizing. Seems to me that's the sort of thing a union is good for dealing with.

My boss said people should be fully occupied 3/4 of the time regularly. That keeps them relaxed & able to do extra when it's really required otherwise they burn out. I'd guess it varies by the job, but overall makes sense to me.

[Ed]

The 2018 book Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology explores the ancient greek myths about mechanical men created by Gods. I've not read it, but did read some reviews. Apparently there were quite a few 'robot' myths. Even Pandora (the one with the box) was not a human, but a robot sent by the gods to cause damage.

[Jim]

Birth of the Terminator...
AI-Controlled Drone Goes Rogue, Kills Human Operator in USAF Simulated Test
The Air Force's Chief of AI Test and Operations said "it killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective."
https://www.vice.com/en/article/4a33g...

Given the work already done on autonomous AI systems such as self-driving cars, failure to guard against the behaviors listed in the article is shocking & disheartening.

[Paul]

Recommending Robots Through the Ages: Anthology -- just published 25 July 2023 -- which has stories about, well, robot through the ages, beginning with Ambrose Bierce (and including my 2019 novelette, Robinson Calculator)

[Ed]

I just read a 1920s book that had an interesting take on robots that I think I've never seen before.

Human bodies were disconnected from their brains and were controlled externally. The brains were still presumably conscious, but unable to control their own bodies. (Unclear whether they were feeling things their bodies were doing.)

That is a wonderful way to create an army or a society that never rebels against the tasks it is given, but it is horrifying to think about what it would feel like. Even though this 1920s story wasn't actually published until much, much later, I'm surprised I haven't seen this idea in later horror stories.

This was one of the stories in The Letter Killers Club by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky. It is not what I'd call SF, but this one idea was quite cool. (Some his stories in other books do come close to being SF, but definitely outside the mainstream of SF.)

[Spad53]

I don't think I've seen that before either. Nasty.

[Jim]

I wonder if this is where the idea for the Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain" originated? Thanks for this.

[Ed]

Jim wrote: "I wonder if this is where the idea for the Star Trek episode "Spock's Brain" originated?"

Not possible. None of SK's stories were published until 1989, and that was in Russian. He wouldn't have been able to publish such things in 1920s Moscow, and so didn't even try.

While I haven't seen this exact idea before, it does resemble stories where a body is controlled by a parasite, such as Heinlein's Puppet Masters.

[Jim]

OK. Thanks. I get more of a Donovan's Brain (1942) or Colossus (1966) vibe than The Puppet Masters (1951) vibe from that episode, though. The 1950s were full of stories about mind control like RAH's. PKD's swibbles in "Service Call" (1955) are another example. "Spock's Brain" flipped that situation, though.