Metropolis - Fritz Lang, 1927
The phrase "ghost in the machine" was coined by the philosopher Gilbert Rye in his book, “The Concept of the Mind”. Rye criticised Descartes' mind-body dualism, arguing that the terms "mind" and "body" should not be considered as belonging to the same category, and that mental and physical states are inseparable. In the film “I, Robot”, the phrase is used to refer to inexplicable actions by robots that possibly hint at the existence of a soul or mind that works beyond their mechanical bodies.
As a group, we examined our own beliefs about the soul, or more generally, what it is that for us separates man from machine. Of those that we examined, we selected the ability to love and make ethical decisions as the most “human” of human aspects, or those that a machine would find hardest to imitate. As our presentation will demonstrate, however, the increasing sophistication of Artificial Intelligence problematizes this assumption.
We have placed the examination of these issues within the context of the "Bionic Age", which we define as an age in which machines and mechanical parts are used by humans to carry out tasks that are difficult, intricate, or dangerous. The question of where and how we locate the soul as man and machine become ever more closely linked continues to be explored in science fiction film and literature, and across the fields of science, philosophy and psychology.
R.U.R
Karel Capek coined the term 'robot' in his 1920 play "R.U.R." in defining his artificially created creatures, the word 'robota' in Czech literally meaning "work", or "labour". Traditionally, "robota" was the term used for the work period of a serf, an unpaid member of the lower classes required to work for their superiors. Serfdom was banned in Bohemia in 1848, but this obsolete term would have carried its meaning across to Capek's early 20 century audience. This immediately colours the way in which the artificial beings of R.U.R. are viewed, reduced by the concept of slavery. They are introduced as "goods"(p3), and are a highly demanded product: willing slaves in attaining the ultimate human ideal of an elevation to a god-like status where "Man will do only what he loves doing, free and sovereign, with no other task than to better himself"(p23), unfettered with the need to labour. From Domin's point of view, this is ethically sound. The robots' intended purpose is to work; they are "without will, passion, history or soul"(p20).
However, young Helen arrives, adamant to dispute this. She is determined to see their usage as exploitation, her "League of Humanity"(p17) extending to the "liberation of the Robots" (p20). Immediately the audience is posed with a contradiction. The robots seen are apparently soul-less, unable to comprehend human emotion, yet their complete assimilation of outwardly human manifestations staggers her. "Can't tell the difference, eh? Feel this hair we gave her! Soft and blonde! M-mm, lovely!" (p11). JD Humphries, in his introduction to "The Robots are Coming", draws attention to the problematic nature of " 'other minds' ". Humans "cannot be directly aware of any other consciousness in other human beings […] One has, therefore, to assume, in terms of similarity of appearance and overt behaviour, that other people are in fact much the same as oneself." (p18)
Helen is unable to come to terms with the fact that "they're not bothered what you feed 'em […] And no-one's seen them laugh yet!"(p20), when they appear so absolutely human. By her understanding it must be unethical to treat those who appear so similar to ourselves with such flippant disregard for their welfare. Yet apes are similar to humans, and we treat them also as soul-less. Humphries continues his introduction by stating that "Theologians argue that though man's thinking processes may be similar to those of an ape, the man possesses something extra - his 'soul'. In “R.U.R” it seems unethical to treat the robots as if they have no consciousness, or personality, or however our sentient conscious "soul" is defined, yet unless the existence of such a soul can be empirically proved, their status as slaves cannot be contested.
Play – intro. One possible way that we could attempt to measure and quantify the soul in articulate beings is via the “Turing Test”, an idea introduced by Alan Turing in 1950. Designed to discern intelligence, a human judge engages in conversation with one human and one machine, programmed to appear human. If the judge cannot correctly guess which is the machine, it is assumed to be an “intelligent” entity. The concept of the test has inspired the short play that follows, in which we attempt to distinguish human from robot by posing a series of ethical questions.
*****DRAMA*****
Class questioned.
Play – conclusion
As our scenarios illustrate, finding a universal definition of what it means to be human is exceedingly difficult. It is not possible to say that being able to adapt to new situations, communicate and interact with others, feel love and empathy, and respond appropriately to ethical questions are characteristics shared by all humans. If it were possible to create an organic, intelligent robotic being, would we be able to differentiate it confidently from one of ourselves?
LOVE.
As we have tried to do with ethics, could we design a Turing Test for love? If a machine behaves in a way that suggests loving emotion, should we assume that it is capable of loving, whether it is itself, other robots or even human beings?
In understanding how our attitudes towards robots who love are shaped, it may be helpful to examine the ways that love is conceptualised in Western philosophical tradition.
Rousseau’s second Discourse, in which he discusses the views of Thomas Hobbes, proposes three different kinds of love: amour- propre (base self-love), amour de soi (gentle or at least benign self-love), and charite (love of God and things public).
In stating that charité is a "natural repugnance at seeing any sentient being, and particularly those similar to us, suffer pain or death", Rousseau placed the capacity to suffer above the ability to reason in describing what makes creatures worthy of compassion.
This view is one that is widely held today, but love in the philosophical tradition has not always been held to emanate from compassion. In the thirteen century, Thomas Aquinas picked up on the Aristotelian theories of friendship and love to proclaim God as the most rational being and hence the most deserving of one’s love, respect, and considerations. Accordingly, in the Summa Theologica, he states: “Each human being has a share of the eternal reason, whereby it has a natural inclination to its proper act and end: and this participation of the eternal law in the rational creature is called natural law” ( Summa Theologica, 1a2ae, 90.2)
Could YOU Share a bed with your Robot?
Perhaps the real question is not whether robots, possibly the most rational creatures of all, are able to love, but whether we, as humans, have an appetite for robots to have this capability.
Extolling the virtues of sexbot cyborgs trained to help humans improve their sex lives, David Levy hypothesises that marriage with robots will be legalised in some countries by 1950.
Even if this rather outlandish prediction is fulfilled, however, our creation of beings that are allowed access to our deepest needs and desires has profound implications for how we understand ourselves as human beings.
As Sherry Turkle says, in her book “The Second Self”,
"We ask [of the computer] not just about where we stand in the world of nature, but about where we stand in the world of artefact. We search for a link between who we are and what we have made, between who we are and what we might create, between who we are and what, through our intimacy with our own creations, we might become".
The darker side of robotic, soma enhanced and psyche reduced love is explored in Aldous Huxley’s 1931 novel, “Brave New World”, where soulless, impersonal love is a form of social control. Unlike R.U.R, the protagonists of Huxley’s novel are all ostensibly human, and yet in Brave New World it is only in the past that “there was a thing called the soul and a thing called immortality”. The tragic irony at the heart of the novel is that the marginalised “savages” appear more human than those that inhabit the civilised, sanitised world where physical pleasure is maximised and love forbidden. The novel warns of the danger of a creator becoming engulfed by his creations – where love is deemed redundant and unnecessary, there is no place for a soul – it is literally destroyed by the machine of society.
In recent years, attempts have been made to tackle our anxiety and distrust about machines that too closely approximate humans. In Pixar’s Wall-E, the love between two robots (Wall-E and Eva) is redemptive, and leads to the recolonisation of Earth. The film does not attempt to deny the robots’ mechanical nature, incorporating it instead into the way they communicate their love for each other. Despite this, it must be acknowledged that the degree of anthropomorphic animation of the robot characters that the film-makers indulge in does not really challenge popular, human-centric notions of what it is to love.
Conclusion
Whilst our terror of hypothetical “ghosts in the machine” must be balanced against the growing needs and demands we have for artificial intelligence and the ways it can serve humanity, it is important to remember that the problem does not end here. It is not simply a question of whether ethical and loving robots could live alongside their human counterparts. As we make the transition from the post-modern to the bionic age, we must use the privilege that human status grants us wisely to negotiate the ethical and moral dilemmas we will face in the coming century. We must accept that as we adapt and change the world around us, our conception of ourselves will inevitably change too. Some of us, none of us or all of us may have souls in the bionic age –but if we are to retain them, they must be guarded fiercely.
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