Drones, robots, Cyborgs intelligent machines

Muriel said:

"Engineers in most of the world try to make robots perform specific and unpleasant tasks. i understand that perfectly but why are japonese enginneers obsessed with       making the robots look more human ? It's so complicated. Getting robots to understand real-life human speech may be the hardest job of all and that's the reason why japonese scientists are trying to give robots means other than language to understand people. For instance understanding the variety of gestures and signs people use with language is very helpful but what for? is robot relationship like human relationship? isn't it rather fake relationship ? disappointing relationship?"

It’s an age-old dream of humanity to have human behaviour (voice, movement, gestures…) imitated by human-like machines (robots). Music boxes, orchestrions and barrel organs were developed by skilled (Swiss and Bavarian) watchmakers as from the 18th and 19th centuries. A well-known, funny parody on human voice robots is the mechanical puppet Olympia from Jacques Offenbach’s oper Tales of Hoffmann singing «Les oiseaux dans la charmille».

Ever since, our «data processing» engineers, scholars and scientists have feverishly but unsuccessfully been trying to digitise human voice and speech by clever algorithms. Speech recognition and machine translation today are only in their infancy.

The key is that nobody today knows how our human brain can actually convert abstract ideas into concrete written or spoken language.

Robots reason by rigid (deterministic) binary logics (1 = yes, 0 = no). The human brain reasons by «fuzzy» (probabilistic) quantum logics (1 = 0 = perhaps).

Unlike human relationship, robot relationship is a fake relationship. Disappointing, as long as we wrongly believe that reality corresponds to the «anthropic principle», i.e. the philosophical consideration that reality should be compatible with our conscious and sapient life.

Short, in our present state of neurological and technological knowledge, making robots look more human is currently not on the agenda.

Philippe-Henri

Thank God !
Do you like calling that awful answering machine saying :
If you want so and so, press 1,
If you want .... Press 2, etc...
Sinon "merci de raccrocher", c'est-à-dire "allez poliment vous faire f..."

When you decide to relax and have coffee from the nearby machine, you insert your coins in the slot.
Everything goes well, except that you do not get what you ordered, you did not press the right button.

Machines or scan-tools replace the small round-the-corner retail shops in the city and now we can even buy potatoes from the machine next to the farm nearby.

To save time, we forget the social side of communication.

To Guilaine

Thanks for your interesting contribution.

Just a remark, in British English, you should avoid mixing God together with colloquial speech. Curiously enough, religion in Great Britain is still a tricky topic. Rather say my goodness, thank heaven, for heaven’s sake! Gosh!

I agree that phone «communication» today has been reduced to answering machines: “If you want so and so, press…». Phone answering and slot machines are a form of robotizing.

This answers our initial question: «Why making robots make more human?» I believe our society gets more and more dehumanized. This is the thing, (dans l’air du temps), the current trend. On the other hand, phone operators are expensive in terms of cost of labour and mostly can’t solve your problem. Callers rapidly give it up: there is no expertise, no social contact.

Unfortunately, we have to live with.Eventually («at the end»), the question is: do robots, human or not, really make life easier?

Looking forward to your comments.

Philippe-Henri

devenir des compagnons quotidiens pour les enfants et personnes âgées

Gérard, Un monde tellement dehumanise qu'il faut des robots pour faire semblant d'aimer les humains fait  très peur ! Cela ressemble au meilleur de mondes d'Huxley https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldous_Huxley. Heureusement dans la relation entre humains il y a une énergie mystérieuse qu'aucun robot ne peut imiter.

Muriel,

Il ne faut pas s'inquiéter outre mesure !

La situation est telle que beaucoup de personnes âgées ont à souffrir de solitude, de même que des adultes... il n'y a plus l'e,semble de la famille qui vit sous le même toit comme il y a 70 ans !
On peut apprendre à des robots à être parfaitement serviables et amicaux.
Le coût sera tel qu'il sera moindre que le coût d'un humain.

Que vaut-il mieux ? un robot ou personne pour tenir compagnie ?
Encore une fois, les robots de compagnie seront des plus serviables et amélioreront grandement la situation des personnes en manque d'humanité.
L'homme s'y habituera et appréciera.

Gérard, j'apprécie et je te félicite pour ton optimisme ! J'aimerais quand je serai très âgée avoir la visite de mes petits enfants et je serai triste de me contenter d'un robot. Sauf s'il peut m'aider à utiliser sans me tromper mon pilulier !

Thank you, Philippe-Henri, for your remark. What you said was new to me, sorry if I hurt you.
But as far as I remember, it seems that I often heard people say that expression in England, along with "thank goodness !"
But I may be wrong. I will not use it again, I promise.

As to the robots, I do think they make life easier. New houses are now equipped with vacuum-cleaners integrated into the walls of each room, they are domestic robots, and this is only an example of the modern "domotique". I suppose one visit to a Salon in Paris would teach me more about the recent discoveries to simplify the housework.

But as I said earlier, robots in public life prevent people from socializing. We need human contact everyday ; a smile, a conversation with a neighbour, with someone on the phone may change our day-to-day life, and change our mood.
A friend of mine who lives on his own in a flat in Paris, goes down every morning to have breakfast in a nearby café, just to see people and talk with them. I guess they only speak about the weather, or maybe the daily news, but it is vital for him to have that sort of human contact.

Muriel,

Si tu restes à proximité, tu auras de fréquentes visites de tes petits enfants.

Ce ne sera pas le cas de tous à cause de la nécessaire mobilité des Français, la tendance actuelle à "l'égoïsme", etc mais vu la cherté de la prise en charge des anciens par la société, il y aura immanquablement des robots ; encore une fois, les robots seront programmés pour une très grande gentillesse, serviabilité, comme c'est déjà le cas au Japon.

To Guilaine

To Guilaine

«Thank God» versus «Thank goodness»… well I may speak somewhat old-fashioned «Oxford English».This reminds me of the story:

-- You don't believe in God, do you?̶
-- My God, that’s true!

Back to robots.

As to «domotique» (home automation) you are quite right, although I believe that most of those engines, instead of simplifying housework, are just gadgets. Personally, I’m not in for the increasing use of gadgetry in modern life.

But times change. Who to date would say a vacuum cleaner, an iron or a washer is a «gadget»? ?

A persisting reality, as you correctly pointed out, is that robotizing in public life prevents people from socializing. Why do our politicians want us to be just obedient citizens? Paul Valéry gave the answer: «Politics is the art of preventing people from dealing with things that [really] concern them.» Give them «bread and circuses», give them a job and video games…

George Orwell’s Big Brother is still watching us. Socializing means reflecting upon our life, our future. Politicians don’t like that. Go to the polls, put your ballot paper in the box and pay your taxes. Be a good boy and that’s it! This way, robotizing is an efficient way to rule by destroying human contacts.

Philippe-Henri

Hello everybody,

Season's Greetings to all, and Best Wishes for the New Year ...

It's been a while since I was here, but I feel compelled to add my 2 cents worth !

I cannot agree with monsieur Philippe-Henri regarding his presumption that one cannot say "Thank God" in everyday english.
As a native english speaker (for more than 60 years), I can assure you that it is perfectly acceptable to say "Thank God" in any circumstance.

Hi Guilaine ...
Don't be sorry !
You can say Thank God as often as you like, any time, any place !

Krystyna

To krystinaD and guilaine

I do love Krystina’s comments on the expression «Thank God» .

As a non-native English speaker I’d always been taught that Her Gracious Majesty’s subjects were reluctant to refer to «God» on a day-to-day basis. Let it be. Anyway, when speaking English, I’ll go on taking God aside and saying «good heavens» or «for heaven’s sake» and so on.

In French ̶ which is not my native language either ̶ the expression «grâce à Dieu» doesn’t imply any religious connotation but as an atheist I would never use it. ut this shows that polyglots do not just play on language. They actually «manipulate» different cultures and by doing so, they bring world peoples together instead of exterminating one another with car bombs and kalashnikovs…

Let it be so.

I wish you all a happier new year than the previous one.

Philippe-Henri

Hi Krystyna,
Thank you for your good wishes. Happy New Year to you and your dear ones, too !
I am very pleased to meet you again on the Forum.
And thank you for your contribution about the expression "Thank God" which apparently does not suit Philippe-Henri.
I must say I was a bit puzzled with his remark, and I no more knew whether it was right or wrong.
Now that the thing has been clarified, I feel much better.

To Philippe-Henri,
I understand you don't want God to be called in such down-to-earth matters. And you are right, although I dare to say 'why not' after all ?
But I used that expression without thinking twice, just to expres my relief about what had just been said about robots.
Bye for now.

Guilaine,
Krystyna can teach you lots of swearwords to express your feelings avoiding "God".

Australians are very savvy in the domain... EII is also bloody good, but with Philip.

Yes, Gérard, I need to make progress in that domain, at least to be able to understand swearwords...

To Krystyna, Guilaine Gérard and others

I’m delighted to have unleashed a debate on a controversial subject. It started with robots and ended with God!

Actually, it’s of no importance at all. As long as we, polyglots, are aware that language is not just a matter of… language! By talking, we don’t really express what we mean to say. We just give our interlocutor a hint.

Now, polyglots have the ability of playing in different registers, Compare it to an organist playing a contrapuntal fugue by Bach. By speaking a foreign language we get access to different «sounds», short, to different cultural system.

And this is more essential to «peace on Earth» than what a prophet, who pretended to be God’s son, tried to yell us by X-mas, a fortnight ago.

Meantime, for God’s sake (!), it doesn’t make any difference you swear by God or by the Devil

.Philippe-Henri

I’m delighted to have unleashed a debate on a controversial subject. It started with robots and ended with God!

Hi Henri !
I am pleased  you are happy with that controversial subject because I know you don't like when everyone agrees with what you write. It's the prupose of our forum to bring about different ideas isn't it ?

Hi Krystyna !
I am so happy to meet you again on that forum. Happy  New Year and all the best for you and the people you love. Do keep in mind that you promised to come and visit us in Calais one day (It is written in your bucket list )  !

Gérard, je continuerai quand même à aller au café polyglotte pour tisser de vraies relations d'amitié et pourquoi pas en créer un dans la maison de retraite ?  

Hi Guilaine !
I agree with you, robots are a great help with household chores ! tasks such as cleaning, washing, and ironing that have to be done regularly at home are very boring aren't they ?

Muriel,

Il n'est pas interdit de concilier les 2 parties.
Pourquoi ne pas "s'offrir" un robot au café polyglotte : un ordinateur avec lequel on pourrait échanger de manière interactive (évidemment) et intelligente et qui aurait une belle diction avec un débit paramétrable pour qu'il parle plus ou moins vite selon le niveau de l'interlocuteur ? au courant de l'actualité, connaissant l'histoire de France, l'économie, etc.

Gérard, ce serait évidemement très intéressant et très utile mais s'il n'y avait au café polyglotte que des robots et pas d'humains,  Ce serait assez froid n'est ce pas ?

Pourquoi veux-tu plusieurs robots discutant ensemble ?

Tu vois habituellement, le bon côté des choses ...

Moi je dirais : un excellent "prof" à disposition, il va y avoir foule dans tes cafés !

 il va y avoir foule dans tes cafés !

Là je suis d'accord avec toi !