- Marek Kowalkiewicz (Moderator), Chair in Digital Economy, QUT
- Markey Brown, CEO & Co-Founder, Conpago
- Dr Marianne de Pierres, Sci-fi Author
- Dr Paula Dootson, Senior Research Fellow, QUT Chair in Digital Economy
- Sue Keay, Cyber-physical Systems CSIRO’s Data 61
- Professor Toby Walsh, Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence, UNSW
You can also jump onto the hashtag #SomethingDigital or #NightNomads on Twitter to grab some more meaty insights.
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>> On robot personification
“If you make robots look too much like humans, they can resemble corpses and people start to freak out. This is also impacted by culture.” – Sue Keay
“When does a robot become personable enough to name it? My dishwasher doesn’t have a name … but Alexa, my robotic vacuum cleaner … they have names.” – Marek Kowalkiewicz
Attendee Tweets
>> On the term ‘slaves’ being associated with robots
“Children take a different approach to Pepper than adults. They are wanting to take Pepper to play with them in the park. They see Pepper as an EQUAL.” – Marley Brown
Attendee Tweets
“Are robots slaves or servants? Are we simply anthropomorphising machines? Why do we name our robotics and not our dishwashers?” – Louise Howard
“Can you really call them robot servants? If a servant does what you want, and your servants are only successful 30% of the time, then I think they fail the definition of servant.” – Tim Dwyer
“Sophia the Robot – sophisticated electronic robot puppet, says @TobyWalsh. Hear hear! Having seen it in action, I agree!!” – Cat Matson
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>> On emotional intelligence to robots by humans
After a moment of hesitation a few hands did go up – those who had either worked with a robot or created a robot. It appears that nobody who simply uses a robot raised their hand, which is interesting as it raises the question – is there less attachment when simply using a robot rather than bringing it to ‘life’?
“Should there be a concern about people with dementia becoming confused, or emotionally attached to robots?” – Toby Walsh
“I don’t think that a robot has to be as sophisticatedly designed as pepper for humans to have an emotional response to them.” – Sue Keay
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>> On robots + laws
“Should we be expecting robots to be making decisions or should we be programming robots WITH the rules?” – Marek Kowalkiewicz
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“Just like humans, robots need to have ‘laws’ or boundaries that should govern their behaviour.” – Sue Keay
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“Right now, no one is being held accountable … and as we move forward I think we will really see the gaps in those laws.” – Dr Paula Dootson
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“We can be held accountable and we have empathy and emotional intelligence – that’s what makes robots different to humans … So robots can’t be programmed to have their own ethics.” – Toby Walsh
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Attendee Tweets
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“Given we haven’t even managed to get governance and ethics right in the social media space, how do we think we manage the ethics of robot servants?” – Louise Howard
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>> On our future with robots
While Marek tried his best to direct the panel to a ‘positive’ answer for this one … we received a mixed response of both good and bad!
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“Job of the future – robot chaperone?” – Marek Kowalkiewicz
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“I don’t think that it is a case of human vs other anymore … I think we are on a continuum … we are post-human … we are cyborg already!!” – Dr Marianne de Pierres
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“I think the most optimistic thing to look forward to is that people are wanting to come together to solve these big problems.” – Dr Paula Dootson
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“Philosophy is going to have to help us answer these problems – it will be necessary in the future. We have to have very precise answers. Every company is going to have a Chief Philosophical Office (CPO).” – Toby Walsh
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Attendee Tweets
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“Two worlds collied IM/AI – robots could support record keeping at a scale! Robots contributing to a trusted and transparent democracy – who would have thunk it!” – Louise Howard
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“It’s not all just defiance at scale, robots allow us to do good at scale too – says @suekeay. @QUT at the forefront of this movement. There is hope and #opportunity!” – Chair in Digital Economy
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“@DrPaulaDootson’s optimism for this arena is that as robotics are the common enemy (paraphrased by @TobyWalsh) of humans, we give good thought about conversations on the ethics and governance of robots.” – Cat Matson
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