video Borrowing from Biology
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Here's a first: Bug-size robots have been used to coax cockroaches into unnatural acts.
Research reported yesterday in the journal Science described how a team of European scientists placed tiny robots in a colony of laboratory cockroaches. Using behavioral modification methods, the whirring, partly-disguised faux insects were able to induce the real creepy-crawlies to follow their lead in seeking shelter in bright spaces. Bent behavior, indeed, for critters famous for lurking in dark, moist cracks.
No one cares too much if cockroaches can be hoodwinked into acting against their own interests. Still, it's surprising that robots can insinuate themselves into colonies of living things, however wee-witted, and more or less take charge.
Although not designed to address major philosophical issues, the research nonetheless points to how robot science appears headed in weird and unpredictable directions. Some scientists say it is inevitable that advances will ultimately affect the fundamental relationship between humanity and its machines.
And many analysts say it is high time that societies start seriously considering the ethical dimensions of the technological advances, although others contend the dangers are exaggerated.
Already, Asian countries that represent the gold standard in robotic research are pondering unprecedented new laws that would regulate how much independence robots should be given by programmers and even what "rights" should be accorded the clever devices, which one day may possess something approaching wills of their own, according to robotic gurus.
A particular issue is whether robots will be permitted to make life-or-death decisions involving humans in, say, hospitals or on the battlefield. Just two months ago, a quasi-robotic drone, or unmanned aircraft, deployed by US forces in Iraq racked up its first "kill." The machine was controlled by humans, but robotic warriors may eventually be programmed to literally call their own shots.
"As we make robots more intelligent and autonomous, and eventually endow them with the independent ability to kill people, surely we need to consider how to govern their behavior and how much freedom to accord them - so-called roboethics," renowned science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer wrote in an essay that accompanied the cockroach findings and other robot research in the journal.
Other articles examined the use of "thinking" robots to explore outer space; robots possessing physical agility that would be impossible for creatures of flesh and blood; and also robots copying nature's designs for locomotion - slithering like salamanders, zipping like flies, or using tiny foot fibers to scale walls like geckos.
Many analysts say robots will soon be thinking for themselves in ways no smart machine does today - acting as minders for the infirm or ill. Or making critical judgments during deep sea and far-space journeys.
Some prognosticators see robots as sinister devices of doom, noting that the United States is already spending multiple billions of dollars to develop robot soldiers and other intelligent war devices. The upside, of course, is that robots don't come home in body bags.
Starrier-eyed futurists see robots as potential lovemates, even spouses - one day, they say, robots will be cuddly, emotionally responsive, and programmed to meet our every ardent whim. Plus take out the trash and mow the lawn.
"Love with robots will eventually revise our thinking on relationships and morality," said David Levy, a London-based artificial intelligence researcher and author of the new book "Love + Sex With Robots."
By midcentury, Levy predicts, robots will have become so humanlike that there will be a political groundswell in liberal, secular democracies to accord them rights and legally-protected dignity. "I expect Massachusetts . . . will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages [of humans] with robots," he wrote in an e-mail.
Within decades, other analysts say, robots could come to represent a sort of species - able to replicate and even to evolve without human tinkering.
"We are embarking on the process of creating the first intelligent species to share the earth with humans since the time of the Neanderthals," Sawyer said in an interview. "We're racing past the era of robo-vacuum cleaners into someplace quite different and more complex."
Scientists in Japan and South Korea are already busily designing human-like androids to care for the sick and perhaps walk a police beat. Robots might bring medications, help frail patients move about, change bed linens, or simply provide company.
Skeptics say visions of robots giving comfort or imposing rule of law are pretty speculative, given the state of present technology.
"We are already surrounded by robots - bank ATMs, computer printers, industrial devices," said Jordan B. Pollack, professor of computer science and complex systems at Brandeis University. "But it's a much bigger leap to truly autonomous robots.
"Can we make a 'soldier' that's programmed to kill people wearing different uniforms? Sure we can. And all the enemy has to do is change uniforms. Not exactly a high-tech countermeasure, but it will fool robots. The best of them have the brains of a one-month-old baby . . . We remain a very, very long way from making general purpose humanoids with real decision-making intelligence."
But South Korea says such robots are close enough to reality that this year it began drafting a "Robot Ethics Charter," aimed at defining how much willpower and decision-making capability robots should be allowed. "The move anticipates the day when robots, particularly intelligent service robots, become part of daily life," the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy said in a statement.
The Seoul government predicts that "smart" androids will be a part of every South Korean household by 2020. Japan makes similar predictions.
Human ambitions for robots have clearly evolved since the word was coined in 1921 from the Czech word for drudgery. The idea of using smart machines to undertake abhorrent, repetitive, and dangerous tasks has been around for centuries. It's been reality in industrialized nations for decades. The military uses robots to defuse bombs and detect enemy hiding places.
The cockroach research introduced insect-size robots - little, wheeled, white boxes scented like roaches - into a lab colony. Over time the robots used motions and other ploys to persuade the real (and near-sighted) roaches to choose shelter in more lighted areas.
"Our study shows that it is possible to use . . . robots to modulate and induce new collective patterns in group-living animals," said Jose Halloy, professor of social ecology at Belgium's Université Libre de Bruxelles.
Conceptually, at least, the cockroach study points to how robots might someday be used to make higher organisms dance to robotic tunes. Preliminary research is underway in Europe to see whether "artificial intelligences" might be employed to direct human behavior in panic situations - to use robots to impose calm and order during fires, natural disasters, or terrorist attacks, for example.
"What's weird is how biological entities change their behavior when in the company of robots," said Sawyer. "When robots start interacting with us, we'll probably show as much resistance to their influence as we have to iPods, cellphones, and TV."
Colin Nickerson can be reached at nickerson@globe.com.
© Copyright 2007 Globe Newspaper Company.
