I, robot; you, human
I n this era of generative AIs, human lifestyles are becoming increasingly integrated with AIs. But AIs aren’t flawless. The world was surprised recently when Saudi robotics company QSS introduced “Muhammad the Humanoid Robot,” a “male” humanoid robot that debuted at DeepFest in Riyadh and appeared to improperly touch a female reporter soon after it was unveiled. In terms of QSS, the robot was “fully autonomous” and functioning “independently without direct human control.” However, this is not a singular event of an AI robot exhibiting undesirable behaviour.
A chess-playing robot, apparently unsettled by the quick responses of a seven-year-old boy, unceremoniously grabbed and broke his finger during a match at the Moscow Open in 2022. Such incidents might happen more regularly in the future as AIs become more and more integrated into our daily lives. For example, can an AI news anchors use offensive language or cast provocative news some day? One question is how to prevent these events. However, there is a further relevant question: who will bear legal responsibility for such incidents? AI-powered robots? The manufacturing company or the concerned software engineers? Maybe some precise guidelines need to be established.
In the 2004 American sci-fi action film I, Robot, directed by Alex Proyas and based on Isaac Asimov’s 1950 storybook, a technophobic police officer looks into a possible robot-perpetrated crime in 2035 that could pose a greater threat to humanity. Eventually, Sonny, the robot, admits that he had killed Dr. Alfred Lanning, co-founder of US Robotics, at his direction. Numerous other films, like the iconic 1984 film The Terminator, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the 2014 film Ex Machina, directed by Alex Garland, demonstrated how AIs are capable of committing major crimes, either on their own or while being programmed (chipped) by a human.
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What about real life, though? An AI artist known as “Random Darknet Shopper” (RDS) bought MDMA (Ecstasy) tablets and a Hungarian passport in 2015. In October 2014, the Swiss art........
© The Statesman
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