ROBOPHILOSOPHY

October 11, 2019October 11, 2019

A Markup Language for Moral Machines

A markup language is a machine-readable language for structuring and formatting texts and other data. The best known is the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). Other well-known artifacts are SSML (for the adaptation of synthetic voices) and AIML (for artificial intelligence applications). We use markup languages to describe properties, affiliations and forms of representation of sections of a text or set of data. This is usually done by marking them with tags. In addition to tags, attributes and values can also be important. A student paper at the School of Business FHNW will describe and compare known markup languages. It will examine whether there is room for further artifacts of this kind. A markup language, which would be suitable for the morality in the written and spoken as well as the morally adequate display of pictures, videos and animations and the playing of sounds, could be called MOML (Morality Markup Language). Is such a language possible and helpful? Can it be used for moral machines? The paper will also deal with this. The supervisor of the project, which will last until the end of the year, is Prof. Dr. Oliver Bendel. Since 2012, he and his teams have created formulas and annotated decision trees for moral machines and a number of moral machines themselves, such as GOODBOT, LIEBOT, BESTBOT, and LADYBIRD.

October 10, 2019October 11, 2019

Towards Robots with Artificial Skin

“Sensitive synthetic skin enables robots to sense their own bodies and surroundings – a crucial capability if they are to be in close contact with people. Inspired by human skin, a team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a system combining artificial skin with control algorithms and used it to create the first autonomous humanoid robot with full-body artificial skin.” (Press Release TUM, 10 October 2019) The robot skin consists of hexagonal cells which are about the size of a two-euro coin. Each of them is equipped with a microprocessor and sensors to detect contact, acceleration, proximity, and temperature. “Such artificial skin enables robots to perceive their surroundings in much greater detail and with more sensitivity. This not only helps them to move safely. It also makes them safer when operating near people and gives them the ability to anticipate and actively avoid accidents.” (Press Release TUM, 10 October 2019) The artificial skin could become important for service robots of all kinds, but also for certain industrial robots (Photo: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Astrid Eckert).

October 9, 2019October 9, 2019

Interpretable AI for Well-Being

The papers of the AAAI 2019 Spring Symposium “Interpretable AI for Well-Being: Understanding Cognitive Bias and Social Embeddedness symposium” were published in October 2019. The participants had met at Stanford University at the end of March 2019 to present and discuss their findings. Session 5 (“Social Embeddedness”) includes the following publications: “Are Robot Tax, Basic Income or Basic Property Solutions to the Social Problems of Automation?” (Oliver Bendel), “Context-based Network Analysis of Structured Knowledge for Data Utilization” (Teruaki Hayashi, Yukio Ohsawa), “Extended Mind, Embedded AI, and ‘the Barrier of Meaning'” (Sadeq Rahimi), “Concept of Future Prototyping Methodology to Enhance Value Creation within Future Contexts” (Miwa Nishinaka, Yusuke Kishita, Hisashi Masuda, Kunio Shirahada), and “Maintaining Knowledge Distribution System’s Sustainability Using Common Value Auctions” (Anas Al-Tirawi, Robert G. Reynolds). The papers can be downloaded via ceur-ws.org/Vol-2448/.

October 4, 2019October 4, 2019

Honey, I shrunk the AI

Some months ago, researchers at the University of Massachusetts showed the climate toll of machine learning, especially deep learning. Training Google’s BERT, with its 340 million data parameters, emitted nearly as much carbon as a round-trip flight between the East and West coasts. According to Technology Review, the trend could also accelerate the concentration of AI research into the hands of a few big tech companies. “Under-resourced labs in academia or countries with fewer resources simply don’t have the means to use or develop such computationally expensive models.” (Technology Review, 4 October 2019) In response, some researchers are focused on shrinking the size of existing models without losing their capabilities. The magazine wrote enthusiastically: “Honey, I shrunk the AI” (Technology Review, 4 October 2019) There are advantages not only with regard to the environment and to the access to state-of-the-art AI. According to Technology Review, tiny models will help bring the latest AI advancements to consumer devices. “They avoid the need to send consumer data to the cloud, which improves both speed and privacy. For natural-language models specifically, more powerful text prediction and language generation could improve myriad applications like autocomplete on your phone and voice assistants like Alexa and Google Assistant.” (Technology Review, 4 October 2019)

September 27, 2019September 27, 2019

The Future of Autonomous Driving

Driving in cities is a very complex matter. There are several reasons for this: You have to judge hundreds of objects and events at all times. You have to communicate with people. And you should be able to change decisions spontaneously, for example because you remember that you have to buy something. That’s a bad prospect for an autonomous car. Of course it can do some tricks: It can drive very slowly. It can use virtual tracks or special lanes and signals and sounds. A bus or shuttle is able to use such tricks. But hardly a car. Autonomous individual transport in cities will only be possible if the cities are redesigned. This has been done a few decades ago. And it wasn’t a good idea at all. So don’t let autonomous cars drive in the cities, but let them drive on the highways. Should autonomous cars make moral decisions about the lives and deaths of pedestrians and cyclists? They should better not. Moral machines are a valuable innovation in certain contexts. But not in the traffic of cities. Pedestrians and cyclists rarely get onto the highway. There are many reasons why we should allow autonomous cars only there.

September 22, 2019September 22, 2019

Towards Full Body Fakes

“Within the field of deepfakes, or ‘synthetic media’ as researchers call it, much of the attention has been focused on fake faces potentially wreaking havoc on political reality, as well as other deep learning algorithms that can, for instance, mimic a person’s writing style and voice. But yet another branch of synthetic media technology is fast evolving: full body deepfakes.” (Fast Company, 21 September 2019) Last year, researchers from the University of California Berkeley demonstrated in an impressive way how deep learning can be used to transfer dance moves from a professional onto the bodies of amateurs. Also in 2018, a team from the University of Heidelberg published a paper on teaching machines to realistically render human movements. And in spring of this year, a Japanese company developed an AI that can generate whole body models of nonexistent persons. “While it’s clear that full body deepfakes have interesting commercial applications, like deepfake dancing apps or in fields like athletics and biomedical research, malicious use cases are an increasing concern amid today’s polarized political climate riven by disinformation and fake news.” (Fast Company, 21 September 2019) Was anyone really in this area, did he or she really take part in a demonstration and throw stones? In the future you won’t know for sure.

September 20, 2019October 22, 2023

Robot Priests can Perform your Funeral

“Robot priests can bless you, advise you, and even perform your funeral” – this is the title of an article published in Vox on 9 September 2019. “A new priest named Mindar is holding forth at Kodaiji, a 400-year-old Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan. Like other clergy members, this priest can deliver sermons and move around to interface with worshippers. But Mindar comes with some … unusual traits. A body made of aluminum and silicone, for starters.” (Vox, 9 September 2019) The robot looks like Kannon, the Buddhist deity of mercy. According to Vox, it is an attempt to reignite people’s passion for their faith in a country where religious affiliation is on the decline. “For now, Mindar is not AI-powered. It just recites the same preprogrammed sermon about the Heart Sutra over and over. But the robot’s creators say they plan to give it machine-learning capabilities that’ll enable it to tailor feedback to worshippers’ specific spiritual and ethical problems.” (Vox, 9 September 2019) There is hope that the robot will not bring people back to faith, but rather enthuse them for the knowledge of science – the science that created Mindar.

September 19, 2019October 22, 2023

Pepper’s New Job

SoftBank Robotics has announced that it will operate a cafe in Tokyo. The humanoid robot Pepper is to play a major role in this. But people will not disappear. They will of course be guests, but also, as in the traditional establishments of this kind, waitresses and waiters. At least that’s what ZDNET reports. “The cafe, called Pepper Parlor, will utilise both human and robot staff to serve customers, and marks the company’s first time operating a restaurant or cafe.” (ZDNET, 13 September 2019) According to SoftBank Robotics, the aim is “to create a space where people can easily experience the coexistence of people and robots and enjoy the evolution of robots and the future of living with robots”. “We want to make robots not only for convenience and efficiency, but also to expand the possibilities of people and bring happiness.” (ZDNET, 13 September 2019) This opens up new career opportunities for the little robot, which recognizes and shows emotions, and which listens and talks and is programmed to give high-fives. It has long since left its family’s lap, it can be found in shopping malls and nursing homes. Now it will be serving waffles in a cafe in Tokyo.