CNN
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Artificial intelligence (AI) has become an integral part of our everyday lives, present in every little thing from social media algorithms to e-commerce and navigation, but not everyone is comfortable with the idea. The key to successful over a skeptical public could be a household of robot “sisters.”
Sophia, Grace and Desdemona are humanoid robots, every programmed with refined AI. The oldest of the three, Sophia, was first activated in 2016 and gained widespread attention, principally for her seems to be. Whereas most synthetic intelligence operates discretely out of sight, powering issues like software program and smartphones, Sophia is designed to seem like a younger girl and gained movie star standing as the face of AI.
In 2017, Sophia was named the United Nations Development Programme’s first Innovation Champion — the first non-human to be given a UN title. In the identical 12 months she was granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia.
Since then, she’s been joined by two siblings, all three robots designed by David Hanson, founder of Hanson Robotics. However, their AI “brains” had been engineered by Ben Goertzel, former chief scientist at the firm, and now CEO of blockchain-based AI firm SingularityNET.
“AI mostly exists behind the scenes, in the form of algorithms doing various sorts of pattern recognition and cognition that are hard for people to understand,” Goertzel tells CNN. “The purpose of these robots was to be an interface with the AI world and the human world.”
“The face is one of the primary ways humans express emotions and connect with each other,” he provides. “If you have an AI that you can look in the eye and it smiles at you, that gives us a subjective feeling of connection.”
This sense of connection could make these humanoid robots extraordinarily helpful in some contexts. Goertzel and his crew have been trialling Grace to help aged folks in the early levels of degenerative mind ailments, resembling dementia.
Goertzel says that by means of these pilots they’ve seen a “profound and uplifting effect on some very lonely people.” Dementia may cause issues with short-term reminiscence, and he believes robots could be nicely suited to responding to victims’ repetitive requests.
“If you’re dealing with someone who is in the middle stages of dementia, they’re just asking the same thing over and over again,” says Goertzel. “It’s the same thing day after day. The robot will never get bored with it.”
Are we already dwelling in a robot future?
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CNN
Sophia’s different sister, Desdemona, demonstrates a really completely different utility for this type of expertise. She is a member of Goertzel’s experimental band, Jam Galaxy. Goertzel performs the keyboard, while the robot improvises spoken phrase poetry in response to musical and cultural references that Goertzel feeds into her programming.
Goertzel posits that the robots could additionally be used for schooling and in the service business too.
Earlier this 12 months, Dubai’s Museum of the Future launched an artificially clever robot information, Ameca, to its “Tomorrow Today” exhibition.
The robot, constructed by UK-based robotics firm Engineered Arts, can reply easy customer questions on the museum. Its facial expressions and bodily responses are virtually unnervingly sensible.
“This kind of technology has developed in ways that nobody could imagine,” says Majed Al Mansoori, deputy govt director of the museum.
“The goal of Ameca is to advocate, to showcase the technology … We’ve had people try to ask it really tough questions – visitors are trying to show how humans are more intelligent than the AI.”
Al Mansoori believes AI-powered robots could discover makes use of in the tourism and air journey industries, “and particularly as guides in places which require wayfinding, for instance hospitals, universities, shopping malls.”
As AI has come to subtly permeate our every day lives, research has shown that many individuals are anxious about its implications on privateness, job losses and human connections.
Researchers argue that AI-driven algorithms which can be used to supply suggestions on social media can create an “echo chamber” that re-enforces folks’s opinions and polarizes society. With the expertise getting used to create sophisticated deepfake videos, others have warned about the potential for malicious disinformation.
Giving folks the alternative to work together with relatable robots could assist humanize AI, and go some solution to bettering its picture.
“With the humanoid robots we are seeing being developed now, the voice, the expressions and smiles and gestures, all of that is designed to make you feel more comfortable interacting with the technology,” says Al Mansoori.
“There is a growing need for human connection as technology progresses. This is one of the reasons that people respond so well to humanoid robots.”