Monday, March 14, 2005
EMAIL FROM LEE PENN
First, this. from the Telegraph in the UK:
Telegraph News Scientists to make 'Stuart Little' mouse with the brain of a human
Quote:
"It will look like any ordinary mouse, but for America's scientists a tiny animal threatens to ignite a profound ethical dilemma.
In one of the most controversial scientific projects ever conceived, a group of university researchers in California's Silicon Valley is preparing to create a mouse whose brain will be composed entirely of human cells.
Researchers at Stanford University have already succeeded in breeding mice with brains that are one per cent human cells.
In the next stage they plan to use stem cells from aborted foetuses to create an animal whose brain cells are 100 per cent human.
Prof Irving Weissman, who heads the university's Institute of Cancer/Stem Cell Biology, believes that the mice could produce a breakthrough in understanding how stem cells might lead to a cure for diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease."
But don't worry; if the mad scientists find that the mouse is "too human," they will kill it:
"At hearings in Washington last October, Prof Weissman argued strongly against a ban on "chimera mice". He believes that the mice would behave like any others, but said that he would monitor the experiment closely and destroy them at the slightest suggestion of human-like brain patterns."
There is a lot more. Go read it all.
and there is this, just in today:
Humanoids With Attitude (washingtonpost.com)
Quote:
"Ms. Saya, a perky receptionist in a smart canary-yellow suit, beamed a smile from behind the "May I Help You?" sign on her desk, offering greetings and answering questions posed by visitors at a local university. But when she failed to welcome a workman who had just walked by, a professor stormed up to Saya and dished out a harsh reprimand.
"You're so stupid!" said the professor, Hiroshi Kobayashi, towering over her desk.
Eh?" she responded, her face wrinkling into a scowl. "I tell you, I am not stupid!"
Truth is, Saya isn't even human. But in a country where robots are changing the way people live, work, play and even love, that doesn't stop Saya the cyber-receptionist from defending herself from men who are out of line. With voice recognition technology allowing 700 verbal responses and an almost infinite number of facial expressions from joy to despair, surprise to rage, Saya may not be biological -- but she is nobody's fool.
"I almost feel like she's a real person," said Kobayashi, an associate professor at the Tokyo University of Science and Saya's inventor. Having worked at the university for almost two years now, she's an old hand at her job. "She has a temper . . . and she sometimes makes mistakes, especially when she has low energy," the professor said.
Saya's wrath is the latest sign of the rise of the robot. Analysts say Japan is leading the world in rolling out a new generation of consumer robots. Some scientists are calling the wave a technological force poised to change human lifestyles more radically than the advent of the computer or the cell phone."
and
"But the robotic rush in Japan is also being driven by unique societal needs. Confronting a major depopulation problem due to a record low birthrate and its status as the nation with the longest lifespan on Earth, Japanese are fretting about who will staff the factory floors of the world's second-largest economy in the years ahead. Toyota, Japan's biggest automaker, has come up with one answer in moving to create a line of worker robots with human-like hands able to perform multiple sophisticated tasks."
and a reminder of the impact of religion on science:
"In Western countries, humanoid robots are still not very accepted, but they are in Japan," said Norihiro Hagita, director of the ATR Intelligent Robotics and Communication Laboratories in Keihanna Science City near Kyoto. "One reason is religion. In Japanese [Shinto] religion, we believe that all things have gods within them. But in Western countries, most people believe in only one God. For us, however, a robot can have an energy all its own."
and this pathetic end to the story:
"A case in point is the Paro -- a robotic baby harp seal, developed with $10 million in government grants, that went on sale commercially this month for $3,500 each. All 200 units sold out in less than 50 hours.
The seal is meant to provide therapy for the elderly who are filling Japanese nursing homes at an alarming rate while often falling prey to depression and loneliness.
With 30 sensors, the seal begins over time to recognize its master's voice and hand gestures. It coos and flaps its furry white down in delight at gentle nuzzles, but squeals in anger when handled roughly.
Researchers have been testing the robot's effect on the elderly at a nursing home in Tsukuba, about 40 miles northeast of Tokyo. During a recent visit by a reporter, the sad eyes of elderly residents lit up as the two resident robot seals were brought out. Tests have shown that the cute newcomers indeed reduce stress and depression among the elderly. Just ask Sumi Kasuya, 89, who cradled a seal robot while singing it a lullaby on a recent afternoon.
"I have no grandchildren and my family does not come to see me very often," said Kasuya, clutching fast to the baby seal robot wiggling in her arms. "So I have her," she said, pointing to the seal. "She is so cute, and is always happy to see me."
My reply to these stories is this:
-- Fundamental distinctions are being lost here: between man and beast, and between man and machine.
-- We've sunk to the point that we'll create "human" mice to cure our diseases, and kill the mice if their human brain cells make them too ... human. And we'll give the neglected elderly fancy toys, rather than human companionship and the knowledge and love of God.
-- These are not Islamic fanatics, nor ghetto gangsters, nor gay bathhouse denizens nor androgynous cartoon characters nor liberal activists who are advancing these anti-human technologies. They are the "best and the brightest" that the developed nations have ... the scientific and technical elites.
I end with this quote from CS Lewis:
"Although the 'right to happiness' is chiefly claimed for the sexual impulse, it seems to me impossible that the matter should stay there. The fatal principle, once allowed in that department, must sooner or later seep through our whole lives. We thus advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but each impulse in each man claims carte blanche. And then, though our technological skill may help us survive a little longer, our civilization will have died at heart and will -- one dare not even add 'unfortunately' - be swept away." (CS Lewis, "We Have No 'Right to Happiness'," in God in the Dock, p. 322.)
Kyrie eleison.
Lee
=======================================
I think I understand what Lee is saying, but I'm not convinced this is a new phenomena and also perhaps my perspective is different.
We have been interacting with a sort of artificial intelligence for quite a while already. I remember vaguely when my parents got their first television in the early 50s. My grandmother was living with us and was in her 80s. She did not understand that the announcer giving the news was not physically present. When he posed a question, she answered him. When she didn't like what he said, she argued with him. My parents were amused but didn't correct her.
One of the reasons older people lose touch with others has to do with a natural deterioration in the ability to think and reason that many people experience with increasing age. Alzheimers is the ultimate expression of it, of course, but to a lesser degree many older people experience it. They simply don't fully understand what the younger person's world is really like, and so it becomes more difficult to communicate.
My own mother died of Alzheimers. Her last few years were spent in a nursing home not far from my house, so I was able to visit. One year on her birthday, my daughter and I took a McDonalds lunch, a birthday cake, and presents to the nursing home to be with her during her main meal of the day--her good time. It wasn't clear whether she cared one way or the other about the fact that we were there or what we had brought. That was until she opened her birthday present--a Furby. The Furby she understood. The Furby said funny things that made her laugh. It acted silly. Sometimes it didn't respond until we gave it a smack.
We must have played with that Furby for an hour. Suddenly the birthday celebration was a success thanks to artificial intelligence. It was not the only one that she was attached to. There was Big Bird. There was another small bird that talked. There was a vulture that said a few phrases when she squeezed it. The vulture was attached to her bulletin board so that she could squeeze it every time she left or entered her room. There was the talking pumpkin, the talking turkey and the talking rabbit. The staff at the nursing home had something to talk with her about when they came into her room. Something on her level that she could understand and relate to. Something that didn't confuse her.
If she were alive still, I would have been in line for one of those seals, knowing that it would have been the light of her life. As the Furby was. To see her able to relate to something--to see her eyes light up in recognition--would have been worth $3,500.
There are moments in my life when the last thing I want to see is another human being. Give me the neighbor's cat, or let me watch the squirrels run around the backyard for a while. These creature are predictable. We can easily figure out what is motivating them. They are not complicated. They never lie. They don't make demands. They don't bring us nasty surprises we must struggle to deal with. There is a place for the beast in our life. God put the beasts here for a reason. Maybe He is putting the artificial intelligence here for a reason as well. As we advance in intelligence and technology, there are those we will inevitably leave behind. If a by-product of advances can brighten up their life, who are we with more sophisticated thought patterns to say they should be denied?
During my visits to the nursing home I saw a lot of older people with dolls and stuffed animals in their rooms. Some of them carried their dolls around. The innocence that gives life to these inanimate objects comes to us twice. When we are children, it is considered charming to love them. Perhaps we must also find the compassion to see the charm in our older relatives and friends finding similar comfort in them as well.
