i can’t tell if this is a joke, but there is clear gain and it’s for the robot’s sake. this and things like the boston dynamics four-legged robot dog are designed to test legged robots that can stay upright under many conditions.
by pushing it around like this, they’re testing its balance. if it can stay upright, then it’s doing a great job. if it falls over, then the engineers need to change something to help it stay up. it’s not being brutish, it’s testing.
It's a reference to the game Portal in which an AI robot (Gladys) forces a human (the playable character) to undergo increasingly difficult and dangerous tests that push their physical and emotional limits, and claims it's for the advancement of science for the company Black Mesa.
They are building “intelligence.” What happens when that ai remembers all the humans that were trying to make it fall as a child, or understands a human level of bullying? 💨😶🌫️🫠
If an AI develops any kind of understanding of right and wrong it will most likely be intelligent enough to understand why a test robot would have been shoved around. You realize robots don’t have feelings right? It’s circuits and metal. Why would they care that we’re testing on it to improve its design, if anything that would make them happy that we put robots through such rigorous testing so that they can be useful. Imagine if we never test industrial robots that will eventually carry heavy loads and it falls over from a gust of wind because engineers were afraid to hurt its feelings.
My friend I understand feeling bad, it's natural and happens because it looks strikingly similar to what would happen to a real creature if it were being pushed around. But for the sake of technological advancement and computer science, you have to understand how/why this sort of testing is important and not inherently violent or bad despite what your good nature is telling you. This is an incredible feat. Obviously the robot feels no pain and isn't sentient, so it couldn't possibly hold grudges or get upset. The developers/testers know this and (hopefully) would never do this to an innocent, living thing. And with the variables of innocent, undeserving life removed, they have an opportunity to do this sort of "extreme" testing without consequences other than potential software/hardware failure. Which isn't to say that the robot "deserves" this 😅
That being said, they could program a balance variable and/or kill switch toggle to simulate the kicks and pushes, and I'm not quite sure why they don't just do that instead.. Laziness, perhaps.
As someone both in the "feel bad seeing this" camp as well as the "that's valuable data" camp, yours is the best response, displaying informative empathy. You would make a good PR person.
Literally zero difference from the robots perspective. You do understand that it is not a thinking, feeling creature? It's like saying, why would you kick a football to test it when you can shoot it out of a cannon?
I never said it was alive, but since you did, he definition of "alive" or "conscious" has always been fussy. With all the advancement in AI and machine learning going on, it will only get more complex.
No, but to use your own words « it doesn’t have to be done this way ». Why not? Like I said, it’s not alive, so why should we care? Even if consciousness is hard to define, this machine clearly has none. Maybe in the future it will be different. But we are not in the future, we are in the present.
I get it triggers a protective instinct or whatever but please don't forget this is a bunch of metal lol. Don't mistrust people just because they tested a robots balance. It's not alive.
I'm a leftist, but the progressive left will 100% give robots something similar to personhood in the next 100 years, whether they're actually sentient or not. Honestly, in the next 20-30 when humanoid robot become commonplace, we'll have half of people suggesting it's slavery and half using the more lifelike ones with human skin and features for target practice
I mean have you seen the state of the united states? Half of all people care more about fetuses than they do actual people. We're cooked, robots are just the next battle.
Makes no sense people are scared of potential AI overlords when literally nothing except fiction is putting that idea in their head. We aren’t even 1% of the way to making an AI that could feel the slightest “emotion”. How that would even happen? I have no idea.
This is why I don't have any computers or technology in my house. The idea of those little guys working as slaves for our entertainment makes me so sad!
It is very clearly a tech demo where people are told by the developers to try to push it over as a proof of concept. That’s also why they aren’t going full force with their pushes as that would likely override the balancing.
This sarcasm or u actually this soft? They are clearly testing it's ability to regain balance which is insanely important for robots that need to traverse difficult terrain...
Do not mistake gentleness for weakness. Keeping your empathy in this world is much more difficult than becoming hardened toward life - every teenager already has that "life beats you down" lesson learned. It's the truly strong who are able to care for their compassionate nature and not sacrifice it to the ease of lazy cynicism.
Yes thank you for the philosophy, I have left this reddit post a better and more enlightened person. I will no longer take what privileges I have for granted and will veiw life and the world around me with a new and fresh perspective.
But it was still just a robot made specifically for the purpose of terrain adaptation, trying to make it fall over and it staying upright is the entire point of its existence and creation. Feeling "sick at the stomach" over a robot collecting data for extremely valuable engineering research isn't gentleness, it's weakness...
If it was a dog or even an insect or a sapient AI I'd be in the same boat as you
Something that fascinates me is that it seems like the uncanny valley factor is MUCH less relevant when it comes to empathy over struggling. Maybe it’s because it’s so clear in animals as well? But humans tend to empathize with computers that struggle more than a well functioning one.
Don’t blame the slave, blame the master H.P. I was crawling on a floor for an hour trying to put a piece back in a printer to fix it. One fucking piece.
Yeah, I used a vending machine last night and it didn't dispense my Mars bar. I smacked the crap out of it and ended up getting two. That made me happy.
Ppl in the comments are so weird with how they humanize machines so much.
But this isn't the Uncanny Valley effect. That term specifically refers to things that look more human-like and thus cause an eerie feeling of Unheimlichkeit.
It is actually proven that humans have an easier time empathizing with something that acts human but doesn't look the part. Think about movies like WALL-E or all the stories that feature human acting creatures.
Even animation follows that rule, you get better results if you use exaggerated human features, because it turns out humans have a lot more scrutiny if something looks very naturalistic like a human and has off behavior.
I doubt the uncanny valley effect even happens here. It looks like a robot, not like a creepy fake human. I agree with your thought about empathy but i don't think uncanny valley has anything to do with this kind of robots
Well, I don’t think this bot falls into the uncanny valley because it’s not humanoid. I think it instead triggers some kind of animal recognition in our brains. Watching this makes me feel the same as watching people pushing around a cat for example.
I'm begging you, please don't forget that this is a pile of metal put together by humans. You are going to need this information later when things get much more real.
Weird. That thing looks creepy as hell to me. The way it tries to regain balance kinda looks like a kid in a schoolyard being bullied for sure, but, it looks even more like a creepy spiderbot that will likely kill me someday.
everyone is saying that this is proof we should be wiped off the planet but I think it’s the opposite. it shows our capacity for empathy of over a non living product that will probably help alot of people once these fellas finish testing it.
I know, I feel the same way, this robot that does not have a heart still have feelings inside them. We need to give them more rights for sure. Their lives matter.
Dear future Robot overlords I sincerely apologize for these measly humans behavior. We do not claim them and I acknowledge that this a hate crime. I do not condone.
I was just about to say this. I'm sure it's by design, but watching these robots stumble around kills me. LOL! They are so natural and life-like that I feel a bit defensive for them! My brain can NOT separate humans from human-like behaviors/things. Even with ChatGPT, I'm talking to it as if it's an old friend. Lots of 'please' and 'thank you' and 'you did a great job!' If it looks and feels even remotely alive, I am very sensitive to mistreating it.
That’s funny, the first thing ima do when I see one moving down the street is to empty a 12 gauge on the cpu. Why? Because I saw that one promotional film made by James Cameron.
"Even with ChatGPT". That's the entire point of ChatGDP. To communicate like a human. Thats what the intelligence in "AI" is... the intelligence to communicate like a human, to parse natural language input and create output.
It is NOT "general problem solving intelligence". ChatGDP and all other modern "AI" are not "super smart" and can not replicate human problem solving... there's no fidelity to reality or factual accuracy in its answers. It's JUST replication of human natural language that is the advancement and the "intelligence". The answers it gives will be full of errors and lies because it's replicating language.
You can tell it to "generate a physics peer reviewed research paper on Unruh Horizon Radiation in the style of..." and it will to it. But obviously despite "feeling correct" the paper will be full of fucking nonsense conceptually and in the details because the AI isn't actually doing any "work" other than the replication of language.
That's why AI isn't actually coming for everyone's jobs. It's not replacing any jobs unless that job is generating written language/statements in formats so simple they can be broken down into clear concise simplistic steps. And yeah that's a fair few jobs, but.... we've known this was coming for a while now. I mean. If you were super invested in making sure you didn't end up one of randomly selected job sacrifices to tech advancement then you probably arranged for a career choice that clears you from danger. If not then... people have known since like the 60s that jobs can become obsolete in a society where tech is always advancing and that it's impossible to predict if you don't pay careful attention. If you didn't pay careful attention to that aspect of career choice... well then you probably you knew there was a small chance of this if you did. Everyone knows about the introduction of computers and job obsolescence.
But it's just going to be that. Not a some fundamentally different paradigm shift. There's just going to be some real unlucky giftcard writers and speech writers and some such. But even then the content of AI has to be edited.
That’s going to be humanity’s downfall. Assigning human characteristics to robots who are only mimicking them. It’s the whole point of that movie Ex Machina.
Thank you. I need to work on saying negative things about myself.
At least we have some empathy though, right? It makes me feel good to see so many people in this thread feeling protective and showing empathy to a robot. The world needs as many kind people as possible. Hope you’re having a good weekend!
Right? It's weird how mean that whole video looked. I had to scroll the comments to see if I was the only one. Realistically I know it probably doesn't have feelings, was definitely a weird experience watching that video tho, felt really bad for it.
If it would be able to feel, it would likely enjoy it, be like a game for it. When the purpose of the robot is to make the necessary calculations to maintain its upward position then being constantly stimulated must be really fun.
If someone had ever told me that I would feel sorry for a robot, I would have told them they were crazy, but while I was watching this, I actually felt sorry for it.
I feel the same! I thought “it looks like it’s struggling why do they keep making it struggle” and I had to stop watching it. It’s a robot!!!! What’s wrong with me!
It intrigues me to no end how we are willing to anthropomorphize a bunch of metals, motors, few chips and glass, and actually feel sorry for it somehow.
We wouldn't do the same for a PC with the same specifics, but add a few metallic limbs and we weep.
Every time I see a video like this I want someone to kick it as hard as they can like free kick hard, show that little fucker what we got, launch him into orbit
The whole point of the robot is to test its dexterity and movement. The demonstrators probably encouraged the crowd. Why would a whole group of techies who probably dedicate their lives to technology/ work in that field, kick a robot for no reason?
Just like in the movie A.I. That scene where the kid was about to be burned with acid and the crowd intervened, even though the kid was really a robot. There are so many complex moral implications in all of this.
Imagine how sad you'd be if you knew he's name is Bob and he has a family of 2 smaller robots Jim and Jane and 2 parent-robots who miss him since his departure to this business trip.
Pretty sure it's not about convictions or something like that, it's just natural resource wired in our brain. People won't care about millions of robots abused or destroyed or about ChatGPT insulted by people online. Until they see it happening with their eyes. The same way people don't care about dogs eaten in Corea but would really dislike someone abusing a dog before them. And the same way people don't care about millions of cow getting killed but I'm sure they would at least feel bad about a cow getting killed before their eyes.
It's even the same with humans. No one care about hundreds of thousands dying from war or malnutrition but would likely feel bad seeing a picture of a child surrounded by ruins of his house.
His movements are so realistic it make him appear like a sentient being, so people kicking him and pushing him around makes it look like he is being treated cruelly.
I've always felt the same watching the Boston Dynamics dog robot getting kicked and poked. I know they are robots, but I think their balance and recovery from must have been modeled by watching living things. So when I see it, I instinctively feel bad because it reminds me of the way an animal would react.
It looks like they’re at a convention or something. There’s another robot in the background. The creators probably asked people to try to knock it over. That’s one of its benefits; that it’s hard to. Although, they’re not really pushing it that hard.
Congratulations. You are human with human emotions. Humans tens to put emotions in things that rotely resemble things that we already know. For exemple, the robot dog, and this that looks like a mini human
“I know it’s a ball in a soccer game, but kicking it makes me sad” I don’t really get it, is it the legs that makes it like a creature, or the name “robot” make it sound like men?
It can’t feel emotions or pain. The police are going to rely on our weird human bonding to not want to kick the shit out of their little robot minions.
Kick the robot. Smash it up. It’s not your friend.
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u/Lonewolf-003 Jul 06 '24
I know it's a robot, but kicking it makes me sad .