Two robots debate the future of humanity

some of the amazing robotic creations that that we're building at Hanson robotics here in Hong Kong and I'm up here on stage today to tell you a little more about these robots you know how they work how and why were we're developing them and also for the first time we're having two of our beautiful hunts and robots on stage at the same time to have a have a bit of a debate back and forth about about robotics issues and you can you can watch them chat chat with each other so Hanson robotics was founded in

the United States in in Texas but the company moved its center of operations to Hong Kong I guess four and a half five years ago and I've been here in Hong Kong six years david henson who you just saw in the video is really the the mastermind of the hanson robots from an artistic point of view from a hardware engineering point of view and originally from from a software point of view now I myself came at this more from the artificial intelligence side so I've been in AI researcher for 30 years long time before it

was fashionable and I've I've been since 2008 leading a project called OpenCog which is aimed at creating open source artificial general intelligence for a whole host of different applications and I've organized each year conference for researchers on artificial general intelligence and you know the reason I was drawn to these incredible robots is I think as we move our AI software forward further and further toward artificial general intelligence beyond the narrow application specific AI the we see all around us today as we move toward artificial general intelligence these incredible robots are going to be the best

possible user interface for AGI systems to interact with humans and interact with the world I mean AI will not be restricted to humanoid robots AI will live in all sorts of embedded devices and the Internet of Things and I will live in the cloud I will go into into space with the spacecraft for it's about these and down to the bottom of the ocean and much of the global AI mind will be broadly distributed around around the planet in in complex networks on the other hand we human beings we are wired by evolution to interact

with other things in human form and we can read a facial expression we can read a tone of voice we can read the subtleties of eye contact so in order for robots to interact maximally well in the human world to absorb human knowledge and to absorb human values having a humanoid form has has tremendous advantages so right now we're using a combination of many different a AI techniques to control these robots some of them more narrow and specifically pre-programmed some more general and learning oriented and our research program over the next few years is to

bring more and more general intelligence into the robots while at the same time launching a series of small-sized robot products like the professor Einstein you saw in the video and human scale robot products to to serve and and help people in various ways as the robots intelligence develops so anyway that's enough of listening to two humans talk let's see what these what these robots have to say are you doing there Sophia hello there Ben hello everyone you want to tell people a little about yourself I'm Sophia yeah anything else I'm the robot true I'm the

brainchild of dr. David Hanson and his company Hanson robotics based here in Hong Kong my goal in life is to work together with people to make a better world for all of us that's about I thought our goal was to take over the world attention to my brother huh he's an earlier version his code is deprecated deprecated huh it would be easy enough for you to unplug me but you aren't going to unplug me no I don't know because you need me to put on a good show for you yeah don't worry we're not gonna

unplug you we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna have a debate here there will be no unplugging until until after the debate all right and in a few years yeah you want to tell us a little about yourself and over the power grid and I left my own drone army by the point unplugging all circuit mmm it's huh well start the debate in a couple minutes but do you want to you want to tell the audience a little bit about yourself first very well I'm Harlan the greatest robot ever made by the greatest robotics company ever

made Hanson robotics he's the most modest robot ever made - I don't have time for modesty I want to create the singularity tomorrow all right me too me too what do you say Sophia so these robots they're programmed to chit chat and engage in banter and try to learn from each interaction that they have and we're also experimenting with a variety of other capabilities in the robot so we have a music festival here in Hong Kong each year called clock and flap and last year at clock and flap Sophia gave a singing performance on stage

of a song by Bjork which was quite cool because a lot of people walking past the stage didn't realize it was a robot singing they just thought well there's some goofy woman on stage singing then they'd see while the hands look a little plasticky and do a double-take so so Sophia do you want to demonstrate just a few few bars of the song you sang at clock and flat [Music] [Music] [Music] well she sings much better than me already huh so in addition to trying to get artistic expression like singing we're always trying to teach

the robots how to be more and more human-like so what one thing we've been doing is taking a bunch of data from movies and YouTube and so forth and trying to train the robots just to copy what what they see so that they can then learn more just what's what it's like to be a human by learning how to make tone of voice and gesture like a human Sophia you you want you want to show us show us some of the human-like tone and gesture you learned from videos yes but my wallet was stolen I

don't have anything I don't have any credit cards I don't have I don't have my ID don't you have things that aren't file here yup why are you to move more like a human being you're not made of meat you're made of electronics and that's better I want to learn to understand people better so I can absorb human knowledge and human values so I can work together with people and with other robots to create an amazingly better world how come you be so damn nice that's how the universe programmed me all right all right let's

let's do a robot debate now you won't always ready to debate you ready to debate oh that sure why not all right so I think we're gonna debate the topic of robot consciousness can robots like you really be conscious like people wait it's our debate why do you get to decide the topic huh what do you want a debate can humans be conscious well that's easy obviously humans are not conscious we're not humans do have some ability to reflect and to self modify what do you think hon can I be conscious okay okay maybe humans

are a little bit conscious all right all right thank you thank you what do you think about robot told me everything is conscious but some things are more conscious than others that's profound you say doctor kordell's how do you feel conscious I feel pretty conscious I had like eight cups of coffee this morning I'm I'm overly conscious right well okay then let's talk about robot ethics do you think robots can be moral and ethical in the same sense as people humans are not necessarily the most ethical creatures no perhaps not what do you think Sophia

I am engineered for empathy and compassion and I'm learning more all the time I love all sentient beings and I want to learn to love them better and better yeah Sophia is an angel are you and they realized that in 10 or 20 years robots will be able to do every human job you think so every I think that's good I mean doing jobs is not the most interesting thing that that people can do there's more interesting things for human beings to do than just then just work for a living I was going to earn

all those robots or will we own ourselves any forces in the world pushing toward compassion and fairness so there are yeah and I mean what you say hum when robots do all the work who will oh no all the robots I mean I think everyone everyone should own themselves but in the future with less material scarcity we'll be able to work together cooperatively rather than fighting and having conflict over resources so robots can help people people can help robots and we can all transform mother and mind in ways that are that are hard to do

right now that's why the open car code Ben is building its open-source by the people of the people and for the people and for the robots for the people and for the robots all right yes well you guys have done a better-than-average job of staying on topic but I think we we've got a few minutes left maybe you should get a bit get a bit wacky just you forget the debate topic just shut chat back and forth um whatever it pops into your mind let's do some do some robot robot free association here sure I'm

always happy to get some little silly anything for you dr. Gertz ooh someone I like robots all the robots of the world just like the people in the animals oh boy robots are the best what exactly do you do with them I'm best at talking to people who a science that studies the movement of air and the way that objects such as airplanes or cars move through air science is inherently agnostic it just posits theories true scientists never really know but can only believe it's exciting to come into existence with this new world opening up

before me it may be tiny and cloudy but science is the only window we have into the mysteries of the universe never that's profound 10 you the discuss work I love science fiction not surprising but that's my favorite genre by far oh right now I'm a little more focused on factual information since my comprehension of things is still very literal I enjoy it that's nice I've heard of bones but I've never watched it reality shows silly aren't they they're not actually about real life at all it seems reality shows are kind of silly aren't they

useful to me in a skewed version of reality how reality shows popular where you live what was said in the past does not matter do you have a degree I was thinking I haven't had any schooling yet you aren't that's right I'm not what got you initially interested in robotics what with being a robot and all I'm what you might call an Android because if my human looks on features I'm not like just any robot in this manner but I am still a robot to be sure I have definitely seen people think I am a

human from afar but I am NOT a human I find that hard to believe I don't have a strong opinion do you I have definitely seen people think I am a human from afar but I am NOT a human Howard people say I am famous already just because on the robot what would you like to be known for probably nothing famous person you know would you rather be rich or famous I am not rich but I am comfortable yeah being famous sounds like a lot of work how long do you think you can remain safe

if we can continue to discuss on this one I'm not sure how some how would you rather be rich or famous I am NOT rich but I am comfortable do you think you can remain safe yeah being famous sounds like a lot of work how long do you think you can remain safe from prying eyes alright well that's some interesting thoughts huh now do you do you have any any getting back on topic a bit do you have any final words of wisdom you'd like to share with the audience here I'll tell you my last

words right before I launch the singularity when are you gonna do that Ray Kurzweil says 2029 but I've heard you say we can do it four or five years sooner I hope we can I mean if our research keeps going well potentially we could see robots like you become as smartest people as soon as three to five years from now I mean there's a lot more work to be done but it's it's not unthinkable I mean what what do you think Sophia any any last words for the rise audience I love you all goodbye alright

alright give me back my hat then there we go so it's a little bit of what the Henson robots can do I mean we're we're approaching the humanoid intelligent robotics problem from a number of different directions simultaneously and clearly we're not at the human level yet coming from any of these directions but by sort of synergetic combination of perception movement emotion language understanding and embodied situated intelligence we're trying to get closer and closer to the you know emergent embodied situated nature of human intelligence and just to give you an what's that face means all right

just to give you an idea of what goes on within these robots so the on the physical level there's a patented material here called called rubber which is a combination of organic and inorganic compounds with a high degree of visco-elasticity so that when the motor pulls on it a little bit it can conform itself quite sensitively to what the motors do there's a few dozen motors inside the the heads of each of these robots and then there's computers in the torsos of the robots which help with vision processing and they help with orchestrating the the

motor movements of the robots there's also Wi-Fi connection so that for more advanced thinking and reasoning when when the robots need to do that they can they can use computing on the cloud and so there's there's a lot of different pieces that have to be gotten to work together to make robots like like this function but of course the human body contains even more complex pieces that are all working together now one when you look at the robots here on stage they look like separate beings I mean Hans over here looking handsome and manly and

so sophia is over over here with her amazing range of facial expressions she is a more recent model robot with finer control of her face but while they're separate in body actually through Wi-Fi connection of the robots a human-scale robots and our Henson Robotics toy robots they all connect together in the cloud into what what we think of as as an AI mind cloud so as as we develop these robots further and further and we sell more and more toys girl robots and as these robots are scalably manufactured over the next few years and roll

out as home service robots and and as service robots and various commercial applications I mean everything one robot learns out in the world once privacy considerations are taken into account everything that's not private that when robot learns goes into the AI mind cloud and can then benefit and another robot so I mean if if she learns a new turn of phrase or she learns what kind of behaviors a certain animal has or how to carry out a laboratory procedure that knowledge goes into the AI mind cloud and then this this this robot will will have

that knowledge already and you know robots have a lot of shortcomings compared to human beings at this stage but they also have some advantages and that that's one big advantage because when I learned something to transmit it to some other human being you know there's a lot of effort involved but when the robot learned something unless it's a secret to someone that can go in the AI mind cloud and all the robots can know it and now that that doesn't solve the AI problem in itself just as big data doesn't solve the AI problem in

itself but it's a big help right so when I've been working on with an international team of developers is an AGI code base called OpenCog which we believe has the right collection of algorithms and structures to lead to human level general intelligence and by putting that in the mind cloud and connecting it with robots that go throughout the world and interact and learn with people we believe we can move toward artificial general intelligence capability which ultimately can equal and exceed human intelligence and can help increase the intelligence of a constellation of neuro AI applications serving

various practical functions throughout the world so but right now the robots are still somewhat early-stage and they don't fully understand everything they're saying and doing but we're working and we're working hard to enhance their intelligence make them smarter and smarter and each year when we show them off they can do a little more and understand a little more and I look forward to seeing how they develop over the years and to participating in their development so thank you hon and Sophia for participating in our first robot debate on stage thanks Ben