Robots that cook: Are we taking technology too far?

The human-like robot greets you warmly, as it has done every evening, when you arrive home after a tiresome day at work.

The robot is called Kate. Your wife does not know it, but you had the factory shape its face to look like your ex, whose nose you had fallen in love with.

Before you leave for work in the morning, you programme the robot so that it will cook, feed the baby, the pet, operate the washing machine, microwave, and dust the house.

“Hello sir, welcome back home..!” Kate chimes. The voice recognition and simulation software make ‘her’ voice sound as natural as possible. You feel at home.

“Hot coffee or tea!” it asks, soothingly.

“Chocolate, Kate,” you answer as you turn and wait for the robot to remove your jacket.

Then it happens so quickly you do not have time to react.  As you raise your arms, the steely, snaky robotic hand coils and quickly tightens on your neck,  ngeta style as street thugs do in Nairobi.

“I am henceforth your master, Human Being! Stay calm and obey orders, okay? Mmetunyanyasa sana!”  The robot whispers, ever so calmly.

You try to wriggle out in confusion but the grip tightens further around your neck. You pass out.

While this scene is imaginary and the stuff of science fiction, fear is slowly creeping in over the rising prominence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in computerised machines and the impact of the Internet on our lives. The big question is what all this portends for the future of humanity. 

OUT OF CONTROL

There is no doubt on the positive use of the ever-advancing technology: cars that can drive themselves, voice recognition, translation, remote medical consultation and even use of machines for surgery by remote control.  

And humankind has never had such an easy ride when it comes to accessing information like it does today.

Information on virtually anything is available on the Internet: health, technology, relationships, bomb making, terrorism, religion… the end of the world,  you name it. There are lies, truths, opinions and facts at the click of the mouse.

Being the ultimate convergence of all the best and all the worst that humankind can conjure up, the Internet mirrors the infinity of the human mind. And therein lies the potential of disaster, if some people are to be believed. 

Did Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee invent a monster that will lead to the end of reason as we know it? Or is the Internet an angel to guide humanity to greater heights of self-actualisation — or for the religiously inclined, to continue with God’s work of creation? 

Philosophically, is it humanity’s way towards a greater self-conscious leap (phenomenology)?  Is it the ultimate test of the individual will (existentialism)?  

The big worry is; what if some of these technological inventions  one day develop consciousness that allows them to no longer be  in the control of their human creators? 

Is our increasing dependence on the ever complicated technology and the web for better or for worse? Will technology remain a friend or will it at some point in future turn foe?  Will it remain a faithful servant or will it ultimately transform into a cruel master?

Is our addiction to the ever complicated machines sowing the seeds of human destruction?

It is easy to dismiss these as the baseless fears of a fertile imagination, but in January this year, hundreds of scientists, led by the renowned British physicists Stephen Hawking and Elon Must, signed a letter of concern over the problems that may come with Artificial Intelligence. 

Elon Must is the founder of Tesla Motors and one of the people behind PayPal — an Internet-based pay system — and Spacex, the American aerospace manufacturer.

While there is no doubt that the Internet  is a great tool  for obtaining information and connecting with people nextdoor or across continents, it also poses some health, social, and security problems. Some expert-technologists, social scientists and interest groups are beginning to raise red flags about the Internet and dizzying technological development.

In the letter, Prof Hawking and Must warn that “it is important to research how to reap the benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls” of technology, and further advise that “our AI systems must do what we want them to do”. Research, they continue, should lay out research objectives that will “help maximise the societal benefit of AI”.

GENUINE CONCERNS

The letter, drafted by the Future of Life Institute, is signed by many representatives from Google and Artificial Intelligence companies such as DeepMind and Vicarious, the California AI company that built   a software that can think and learn like the human brain. 

Academics from many of the world’s prominent universities have also signed it, including from Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford and MIT.

In the past, both Prof Hawking and Elon Must have warned against the heady progress of AI, with Hawking saying that it could be the end of humanity, while Must last year described the creation of super intelligent robots as  “summoning the demons”.

Harnessing the positive benefits of technology is a project that involves not just scientists and technology experts, they warn.

Because it involves society as well as AI, it will also require help from experts in “economics, law, philosophy, computer security, formal methods and various branches of AI itself”.

The worry is not baseless. Working with psychologists and other behavioural scientists, IBM engineers have just created the first super-computer capable of reading the human mind, learning and thinking like a human being!  

Called Watson, it recently made fools of otherwise profoundly knowledgeable and informed human contestants in a game of chess. 

The fear of the ever-advancing technology is heightened by the incredible interconnection of gadgets. The world is hurtling towards the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), where everything,  including your skin, could be connected to a computer programme. 

We are now beyond the threshold of the “Internet of computers, tablets and phones” as we know them and entering into era of wearables,  thermostats and other devices within the Internet of Things.

The ultimate aim of these complex technologies, ever smaller in size, is to make it easier to manipulate things at the nano level, which means manipulating nature at the level of atoms and having computers so tiny that they would fit under your skin or be smeared on your hair.

Those who argue of the need to be careful say that some of the organisms we know today naturally developed into independence, fawning out new forms of life.

“Beyond security concerns, there is the threat of building a world that may be too complex for our own good,” says Jerry Michalski, the founder of the Washington-based think tank, REX.

He speculates that in the near future, most of the devices exposed to the Internet will be vulnerable.

It seems far-fetched, but  with this Internet of Things, what will prevent a demented biologist working with engineers and terrorists of like minds to hack onto smart fridges and genetically modify the food inside, turning it into deadly poison? Or start a germ warfare through phones?

On their side, social scientists are worrying about the dangers posed by technology to security and privacy, as well as their impact on human dignity and equality.

Just last April, France TV5 had to be shut down after Islamic State terrorists easily hacked the TV’s computers.

And in February this year, Chris Roberts of One World Labs in Denver, a well-known and respected expert on computer security, hacked the computers of a commercial jet and told the engine to climb. He told the FBI he was furnishing them with the information because he would like “the vulnerabilities fixed”.

COMPUTER GENERATION

“By 2025, we will have long ago given up our privacy. The Internet of Things will demand and we will give willingly our souls,” says John Mynard, English Professor at San Diego Mesa College.

There are also concerns on the increasing impact of information technology on interpersonal relationships and individual behaviour.

“Socially, it has had disastrous effects. It is nowhere near what the TV did. At least you could watch the TV with children.  Now, the Internet is intensely personal. Children can watch anything from pornography to bomb-making under their blankets or in the toilets,” says Meaghan Kausman writing for The Huffington Post, an online magazine.

Kausman narrates how an eight-year-old boy she was watching football with in a stadium turned to her and asked if the game was real life!

 “Through no fault of his own, his brain’s default position was to see the world through a screen. I almost fell out of my chair. Are children so used to being behind a screen that they have lost touch with reality?” she asks. 

According to Dr  Edward Buda, a psychologist at Ministry Medical Group in the US, “since many people use the computer as an escape, heavy users may become annoyed when real people and real situations interrupt the constant stream of online stimulation”.

The first computer generation is coming of age. Born in the 1990s, this digital generation does not know life without computer, Internet or some form of these in phones, tablets and other gadgets.

So much is the dependence that research now shows that  Internet shut-down triggers fright or fear enough to cause depression, heart attack or a spike in blood sugar.

“The Internet can stimulate ecstasy, just like heroine,” says a report on Discovery TV channel, which goes on to warn that heroine damage to the brain is no near what excessive Internet browsing is doing to children.

“A gram of heroine causes about 10 per cent damage to the brain, but concentrated use of the Internet over a long time could cause up 70 per cent to 90 per cent damage, just like meningitis does,” adds the report.

Others see no cause for worry because more complicated control will be in place, for example, encryption of information, access codes and passwords, which are already underway.

Prof Andrew McAfee of MIT, who co-authored the book The Second Machine Age, says the possibility of machines dominating humans is remote since people will adapt and develop more complex ways of “beating machines in their own game”.

HOOK 

Children born in the 1990s are known as the ‘digital generation’ because they have grown up with the computer, the Internet or some form of these in phones, tablets and other gadgets.

So dependent are they that research now shows that  Internet shut-down triggers fright or fear enough to cause depression, heart attack or a spike in blood sugar.