Saga Are Droids slaves?

Perhaps you misunderstood. I wasn't talking of making toasters or washing machines. The whole point of alot of AI development is to rpoduce a facsimile of personality, to make computers/droids whatever more....acceptable, easier to work with. In making a facsimile, how would you know when you had gone further? How alike consciosuness would it need to be in order for you to accept it's consciousness? Especially as we have a) no definition of consciousness and b) on even a vague agreed set of parameters no idea of how that (consciousness) actually comes about.

 

They are researching how to simulate the way brains work with computers, but that doesn't mean that you have to duplicate emotions in order to make a computer behave intelligently. There isn't an singular way intelligence can develope, that's anthropocentrism. Intelligence could be built in ways very different than our own, without need to be a perfect copy.

Programmers have already created computers that can made calculations faster and better that we could ever dream, robots that can build cars, perform surgery, understand verbal instructions, walk in uneven terrain or learn to cook a recipe watching a video. Emotion wasn't required for the robots to be able to do that.
In a few decades they will be able to build robots able to understand verbal instructions, move around so well as us, do domestic chores like cleaning and cooking and carring weight and helping disabled people clean and dress and move...etc., an emotions won't be required for that.

An imitation of human emotion will be useful for robots to interact with humans, but you don't need to integrate emotions into the programming controlling the robot's decision-making and perception of the enviroment, it will be just a language; an algorithm will read the face, voice tone and expressions of humans and alter the way the robot express its answers to suit them. No need for the robot to actually feel anything.

 

But we are, by nature, anthropocentric...

...all of these concepts are designed for us humans, to expand our realms...science is essentially anthropocentric,,,how could it be any other way?

As you said at the beginning "They are researching how to simulate the way brains work with computers" and in fact one of the reasons this is being done is to try and comprehend the human mind and how it works. That reveals two things. Firstly, we don't understand what creates emotions, personality, the sense of awareness of being aware. Secondly, we are attempting to understand that by creating AIs that are as close an approximation to the human mind as we can, to try and discover how that comes about. If we don't know what it is that creates that, how can we avoid it...especially in the process of trying to revealing what does? There is no point at which we understand enough to say 'no, best not do that because that will create consciousness' because we don't understand what does...and that is one of the very reasons we are researching how to simulate the way brains work...

 

What I meant when I said "that's anthropocentric" is that we tend to imagine that any intelligent creature will have a mind just like us, but that's wrong. Our mind is a product of evolution, and our intelligence is kludge made from instincts that started developing since our ancestors were worms.

Think of a guy who builds a calculator but then starts tweaking it, adding stuff, cutting stuff away, but always using the same pieces, building from the same basic design instead of throwning it away when it becomes to ungainly. That's evolution.

An AI designer doesn't need to do it, it would be unpractical and clumsy. If an AI designer wants to build a chaffeur/maid/cook he designs a chaffeur/maid/cook, not a worm that became a fish that became an anfibian that became a reptile that became a mammalian that became an insectivore that became a lemurid that became a monkey that became an ape that became a human that was taught to be a chaffeur/maid/cook. An AI designer would cut steps and go for the chaffeur/maid/cook from the beginning.

It's a thing to research how to make a simulation of a human mind. It's a very different thing to sell it in the open market. As I said, you don't need your robotic chaffeur/cook/janitor to feel love, anger, joy and sadness. You don't need it to have a duplicate of a human mind. A human mind would be complicated, unreliable, unpractical and even dangerous.

And again, you still speak as if having emotions were a necessary requirement to have intelligence. It is not. Maybe you can't make working duplicate of a human mind without emotions, but a robot doesn't need a perfect duplicate of a human mind; as a matter of fact it would be the most complicated, unreliable way to create it. The stuff we want robots to do only requires a series of algorithms that are being developed now independently from each other (some scientist focus on teach the robots how to walk, others on how to manipulate stuff with their hands, others on how to recognize people and stuff on sight, others on how to make them able to carry a conversation...etc.) once they perfect all that and put it together you will have a machine that works for you, but it won't suddenly develope emotions.

 

The question is do the droids have a consciousness like ours meaning they are 'people'. Of course there is a debate where the 'person' part starts, with most agreeing that the person part arrives around the intelligence of a 'chimp'. Certainly a droid appears to be a person at face value, however we don't have any idea what the droids can and can't comprehend. So while we may think the droids experience the world the same way we do this all may be a simulation with the droid never truly understanding the emotions it is programmed to 'experience'. Of course in the real world it may be possible that 'consciousness' is able to be achieved by an AI, at which point surely this should be considered a 'person' and thus not able to be 'enslaved'. But of course we should assume that droids like R2 and 3PO are something akin to a 'simulated person' not able to actually experience the world we do like, say, a 'replicant' could, and thus not a person.

 

But then..if they are only simulated persons why are we asked to buy into the idea of two them being characters?

 

Because they are characters... I don't quite understand what you are saying?

 

The idea is that, if they're completely "unconscious" and just giving the illusion of personhood, then all their interactions - Threepio's fear, petulance, and so on, Artoo's offensive language, etc, make very little sense.

 

George himself said that Threepio can't understand emotions, etc...

 

Threepio says "Sometimes I just don't understand human behaviour" at least.

That doesn't mean he lacks understanding of all emotions - just of certain nuances.

 

I don't have the exact quote from George but he mentions that 3PO doesn't truly understand fear, etc. He mentions that he has no soul...

 

The first thing I could find on the subject:

For instance, in the DVD commentary to TESB at the point when Leia turns C3PO off using the neck switch, Lucas says "Threepio has no soul," or something to that effect.

 

Yes that's it.

 

I was going to say that maybe some droids are programmed with a convincing appearance of a personality to make droid-humanoid interface go more smoothly. However, this post above me is simply brilliant. Sometimes, the droids (especially R2) had some of the most life in the series.