{"id":22910,"date":"2023-01-13T18:18:50","date_gmt":"2023-01-13T17:18:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=134863"},"modified":"2023-01-13T18:35:14","modified_gmt":"2023-01-13T17:35:14","slug":"m3gan-the-strange-reasons-a-real-child-ai-robot-could-never-be-built","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/m3gan-the-strange-reasons-a-real-child-ai-robot-could-never-be-built\/","title":{"rendered":"M3GAN: The strange reasons a real child AI robot could never be built"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Stephen Kelly\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 13 January 2023 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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New horror movie M3GAN<\/em> is essentially Chucky meets the Terminator. Its titular star is posited as the future of mass-market robots<\/a>: a lifelike doll that has been programmed to be a child\u2019s best friend.<\/p>\n

It can listen, it can learn, it can dance (trust me, watch the trailer<\/a>, it can dance) and it can also, in what is surely a big design flaw, kill. Not ideal. Deadly robots are nothing new, of course, but how feasible is the idea that a non-homicidal version of M3GAN<\/em> could appear on shop shelves anytime soon?<\/p>\n

To answer that question, we must first examine what M3GAN<\/em> is; an apparent marvel of artificial intelligence<\/a> (AI). \u201cAn autonomous robot does think for itself, but the scope of its actions are very limited,\u201d says Prof Peter Bentley<\/a>, a computer scientist based at University College London and a regular contributor to BBC Science Focus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore often than not, even the most advanced AIs are just big encyclopedias of our nonsense. They\u2019re amazing at what they can do, but there\u2019s no consciousness there. There\u2019s no understanding. There\u2019s certainly no emotion. We\u2019re very far away from anything remotely close to M3GAN<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

And that, according to Bentley, also includes the idea of an AI capable of autonomous violence. \u201cHow do you tell an AI never to kill, except when we\u2019re at war?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat if a man is holding a gun to a child\u2019s head? Should the AI shoot? What if it\u2019s a toy gun and the man is the child\u2019s father and the robot blows his head off? Building in morality and experience of the world is not something we\u2019ve got the hang of.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, the biggest danger to us is not \u2018evil\u2019 AI, he says, \u201cbut that we believe AI is better than it actually is. Just look at self-driving cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why we\u2019ll never have a robot that dances like M3GAN<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n

M3GAN<\/em> is not only a fantastical vision of artificial intelligence, she is also a genius feat of robotics. \u201cWith current humanoid robots, you\u2019re lucky if they don\u2019t fall over most of the time,\u201d says Bentley.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t make a robot as complex as the human body. And even if we could, we don\u2019t have a power source that would work. There are a lot of actuators to think about: all the different joints, movements and muscles we\u2019ve got.\u201d<\/p>\n

In reality, says Bentley, the robot would either require an \u201cenormous battery backpack\u201d or would have to be plugged into a wall permanently.<\/p>\n

As for M3GAN<\/em>\u2019s souped-up TikTok dance moves, Bentley doubts that robots could ever achieve such sass. \u201cIn robotics, we talk about degrees of freedom [joints] and a robot arm might not have that many,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might just have an elbow, a wrist, some at the hands. Maybe four or six degrees of freedom. But that dance requires a level of precision that is currently not possible.\u201d This is why robots are famous for their jerky dancing. \u201cRobots don\u2019t have sufficient degrees of freedom to achieve that fluidity of movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yet Bentley\u2019s main argument against a doll like M3GAN<\/em> has more to do with business than technology. He points out that recent advances in the field of AI have been driven by companies such as Google and Meta (Facebook), because there is a \u201cclear business case\u201d for an AI that can recognise cars or faces or fingerprints.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut to develop a robot as sophisticated as M3GAN<\/em> would cost billions, maybe trillions, of dollars,\u201d he says. \u201cIs there a good business case for a freaky little humanoid robot that might kill us? It would be way more complex than your autonomous family car and therefore the price tag is going to be equal, if not more [than a self-driving car]. Ultimately, the best example of a humanoid child-shaped intelligent friend for your child is another child.\u201d<\/p>\n

Thank goodness, creepy AI robot dolls will not be appearing in any toy shops. For now\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Read more about AI:<\/strong><\/p>\n