Posted January 03, 2013
I don't want to hijack the old topic with this. Thought this might be a better place. Said so far:
Dzsono: "Didn't you think it was weird that there was a pseudo-love story between the main character and your avatar (I'm crap with names) in Primordia? I mean, they're robots...."
Starmaker: "There wasn't one. As for why Crispin courted Sidekick Factorbuilt - rule of funny. Robots imitating human social conventions are supposed to be absurdly funny, because these conventions are completely ridiculous when viewed from outside.
Since personalities are programmable, Crispin's character is still more realistic than eg. Frankenstein's monster. Humans in Primordia developed a lot of tech for entertainment, from microbots and submersibles to Arbiter and Steeple; there's one liquid-dispensing robot in Metropol whose internal tag is "beerbot". So it's not inconceivable that AIs were set up or evolved to favor imitating humans."
My response: I disagree about there not being a "love story". Crispin asks Horatio why he feels compelled to go back, etc, all hinting that his actions are governed by more than just logic. Surely this is hinting at romantic feelings. Crispin and the torchlight robot also fall under this vague umbrella of romanticism, but to what ends does a robot have this capability? This is why I think that robots evolving to have more complex emotions is unlikely, as there is no evolutionary imperative to do so. Indeed, it's a needless additional consumption of energy to have this subsystem running in a world so low on power. It would harm chances of survival.
I do, however, think it's very likely that robots were programmed to behave like humans. I mean, we're trying to do this already, aren't we? Humans can't interact very well with computers on their own terms, so AI is geared towards a more human-like interaction. Plus there's that fascination we have with creating physically humanoid automatons...
Dzsono: "Didn't you think it was weird that there was a pseudo-love story between the main character and your avatar (I'm crap with names) in Primordia? I mean, they're robots...."
Starmaker: "There wasn't one. As for why Crispin courted Sidekick Factorbuilt - rule of funny. Robots imitating human social conventions are supposed to be absurdly funny, because these conventions are completely ridiculous when viewed from outside.
Since personalities are programmable, Crispin's character is still more realistic than eg. Frankenstein's monster. Humans in Primordia developed a lot of tech for entertainment, from microbots and submersibles to Arbiter and Steeple; there's one liquid-dispensing robot in Metropol whose internal tag is "beerbot". So it's not inconceivable that AIs were set up or evolved to favor imitating humans."
My response: I disagree about there not being a "love story". Crispin asks Horatio why he feels compelled to go back, etc, all hinting that his actions are governed by more than just logic. Surely this is hinting at romantic feelings. Crispin and the torchlight robot also fall under this vague umbrella of romanticism, but to what ends does a robot have this capability? This is why I think that robots evolving to have more complex emotions is unlikely, as there is no evolutionary imperative to do so. Indeed, it's a needless additional consumption of energy to have this subsystem running in a world so low on power. It would harm chances of survival.
I do, however, think it's very likely that robots were programmed to behave like humans. I mean, we're trying to do this already, aren't we? Humans can't interact very well with computers on their own terms, so AI is geared towards a more human-like interaction. Plus there's that fascination we have with creating physically humanoid automatons...