Looks like alien wildlife
This post on The New Aesthetic Blog shows Darpa's robotic pack mules being showcased in a calendar. It shows the attachment these people have with their work, and how they've been "elevated to pets or robots". I find this interesting because I've always enjoyed the topic of humanizing robots. Since I'm into sci-fi, I enjoy the subject of consciousness in robots, and what is it that makes something "alive" or "human", and can it be something that can exist in a machine?
These kinds of questions are becoming less and less fantasy, and more of a reality as robotics continues to develop. What I find remarkable is that people seem to very easily attach personalities to inanimate objects, or cartoon characters, just anything that isn't human that we still identify as human in their own right. There's even this experiment that shows the interesting dynamic between technology and humans, which shows random pedestrians actually help a little, lost robot find its way home. It's just a a few boxes on wheels, but put a simple smiley face on it, and people begin to get emotionally attached. Darpa's pack mule robots don't even have faces and yet people still seem to like them. It makes me think about the issue of civil rights and robots... If people can act this way toward robots that aren't even meant to be conscious, maybe in the far future when we cross that bridge it won't even be an issue.
Overall, this is a fun topic in my opinion, and examples like this New Aesthetic post show a compassionate side of humanity that a cynic like me hardly believes exists. But it's these sort of things that restores some of my faith in humanity. Some of it.
No comments:
Post a Comment