With robotics and artificial intelligence developing at such a swift pace, the question of how robots will exist in our society is becoming an increasingly important topic. Some fear their arrival. Will they take our jobs? Will they outlive us? Will they turn on us? Are we setting up the apocalyptic future of so many fictional stories? And is there a solution?
Scientists from the Italian Institute of Technology may have just one, derived from the solution of another problem. Robots are being made to look synthetic on the outside, but on the inside they’re still made of metals and plastics. But the researchers are developing what they call “smart materials” so that robots can be composed of biodegradable substances that will dissolve when the robots have reached the end of their life span.
This process is being considered for biodegradable robots and more, possibly changing the idea of recycling as a whole. Of the process, Athanassia Athanassiou, who leads the Smart Materials Group at the Italian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Genoa, told Reuters:
We are infusing any material with nano technology. So what we are doing apart from making these new composite materials – smart materials – we’re also using them to change the properties of other materials, other existing materials like paper or cotton or different foams; from synthetic foams like polyurethane or forms of cotton. So like this, in all these existing materials we are giving new properties that these materials don’t have so we can open up their application range.
Nikos Tsagarakis, lead researcher on the Walk-Man humanoid robot at the IIT, said that using biodegradable materials will allow robots to have certain advantages they wouldn’t have with a metal and plastic body:
The main issue is it’s actually difficult to see how you can achieve the properties that you want to have; say matching more the properties of the human body. So going to alternative materials would be this advantage – it will help us to make lighter robots, more efficient and, finally, also recyclable.
This will give robots a lifespan of some sort while also allowing their bodies to age just like ours do. But what else does this mean for robots?
It’s interesting to note that Tsagarakis’s Walk-Man project involves humanoid robots working in a typical human environment and using typical human tools to solve problems in a variety of ways. For movie-going fanatics, the whole idea of robot workers with limited life-spans should bring to mind the premise of the seminal science fiction movie Blade Runner, and the book it was based on, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. In the movie, there exists humanoid robots called Replicants who are genetically similar and superior to humans in every way. They are so indistinguishable from humans that only the most elite and experienced “Blade Runners”–police operatives tasked with hunting down rogue Replicants–can tell them apart by using a specialize “empathy test.” But the real heart of the story is the idea that these criminal Replicants are only rebelling because they want what all of us do: the chance to live. And finding out they only have a finite amount of time to live sets them on a violent quest to survive.
Are we preparing for this kind of future?
Artificial intelligence hasn’t developed enough to give robots or computers the level of sentience it would require to be considered human. We may be years away from such robots. But all kinds of ethical problems arise when we consider how much we want robots to take over most of our workforce and how much we want them to be human. We want them to be similar to us so that we can feel comfortable around them, but in doing so we could be creating a new slave caste whose sole purpose is to live and die for our benefit.
Biodegradable robots sound great: they’re environmentally friendly, and they may live and die as we do. It even brings to mind other movies like Bicentennial Man, where Robin Williams plays an android obsessed with becoming human, to the point that he replaces his body with organic body parts and agrees to go through a process of aging. But we need to think about what we want from our robots. If we want them to work for us and do endless mundane tasks, then we should design them for that. But the more we make them human in every little way–mind, body and arguably soul–the more we’re going to have to realize they’re probably going to want the same human things we all strive for–life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Below is the most beautiful and touching moment of Blade Runner, which really captures the idea of synthetic beings having real human emotions. But be warned: if you haven’t seen the movie, this is one of the final scenes, so MAJOR SPOILER. It should also be noted that Rutger Hauer ad libbed this monologue while shooting this scene, forever cementing Roy Batty into the annals of movie history as one of the most complex and three dimensional “villains” of all time.
Tears in Rain Monologue, Blade Runner
Source: Reuters (article), Chris – LittlePig83 (movie scene)