How to Raise a Robot
Given the intelligence and strength of an Artificially Intelligentandroid, raising robots could lead to some very serious consequences if a robot was not “raised” properly. Is robo-rearing something that should this be left to people with specialized training? Perhaps in a future of AI androids, they will be raised in private training facilities, regulated by the law, and dispensed to the public in prepackaged, “ready to open” robot kits.
But if not, then how in fact, do you raise a robot? I suppose our first place we look to is the way we raise our own children. We must teach it right from wrong. We teach it about honesty and integrity. Perhaps we teach it the Three Laws of Robotics. We may even find that these new children androids come with the three laws already built in, like a in BIOS chip of some sort.
Behavior
All this makes for a great ‘Leave it Beaver’ relationship with your new mechanical kid. But what happens when the kid starts to get fussy. An android will not get any bigger or grow any taller, so if it is built with the strength of a child then we could limit the risks to humans. But even a child can land good blow now and then – and you can’t spank a robot, and you can’t really put it on time out ( do i really need to explain this?). So how do you punish or correct it?
Chances are, we will reprogram them as soon as they misbehave. After all, that is what we try to do with real children when they misbehave, We modify our behavior somehow to let them know and to program into their minds that their actions are wrong. With androids, we will be able to simply upload a new program that lets them know that certain behaviors are no longer in its program. But a really smart AI brain may re-learn bad behaviors and need to be reprogrammed, just like with real people.
Perhaps it will have an insatiable appetite for learning , so you can disconnect it from the internet to punish it temporarily. But would use its intellect to hack back in and use it unbeknownst to you?
Play
What kind of games do robots play? Initially, just like toddlers, they may want large colorful toys to stimulate learning. Down the road they may prefer logic games like chess, and probably video games. They may find themselves running low on friends to play with though, if they beat the hell out of all their friends at video games. Perhaps android children will even gravitate towards each other and befriend one another. They may give a whole new meaning to playing ‘doctor’ and actually perform real maintenance on each other, even giving schoolyard upgrades like rowdy teens with a home-made fishing line tattoo rig.
Education
What of education? Do we send them to school? There is no way to predict how they will react with other children or possibly more important, the impact of super intelligent students among normal human students. Will people begin to feel inferior? Will students grow up believing that’s robots are superior to man, especially when they see them excel at everything in class. One can imagine a future where high school is filled with clicks of robots who are smarter than thou, perhaps even victims of other ‘less enhanced’ human students with a grudge. Are they going to come home bruised up one day because it out-shined some big fisted student short on smarts and on patience?
There may also be major changes in grading systems that grade on a curve since the curve will warp significantly. Also, it would also seem that there are going to be some very disappointed parents on Science Fair day when their kids volcano has to go up against a mini nuclear reactor. All the new inventions of the next century may be the result of science projects conjured up by androids.
Sports
This is where some of the human kids will get their redemption – that is until soccer dad decides that his lil’ kicker needs an upgraded leg. Android kids will probably be uncoordinated and gangly at first, much like members of the chess and glee clubs. But future upgrades will certainly render this a moot issue. Now your kids are going to be playing football with a team called ‘The Terminators’. Androids will either end up being banned, or humanity will have to reassess the idea of using steroids to enhance ourselves, just to keep up with the machines.
Adolescence
What happens when its brain becomes a teenager and it wants independence, stuck inside a tiny mechanical body, the mind of an intellect yearning to assert its own identity and soon declare independence. Arguing with teenagers is already exasperating as it is, now imagine how an argument with a artificially intelligent robot would turn out. Unlike real kids though, you could have a remote control to shut it down or mute it when convenient ( I smile as I think to myself the look of indignity that would cross the face of a rabid human teenager that was suddenly muted by remote control to bring closure to a pointless argument).
When you consider the accelerated rate at which computers can learn , we may find that AI minds reach their ‘teenage years’ at 2 years of age or less. Unless there is some kind of limits put into place, supersmart android children may end up outgrowing their human parents only a few years after bringing him home.
All grown up
At at some point in time, he will even ascend beyond that. What?? our little robot is all grown up? but how did this happen, it seems like just yesterday you brought him home and turned him on, watching his big bright eyes look at the world for the first time. And now, though he is physically no bigger, his mind has outgrown the confines of childhood.
You have raised a robot. He will now go out into the world, a squirrel looking for a nut. What kind of jobs will be in store for him? Does he even need a job? well, he needs fuel , and from time to time maintenance. If he has been a good boy, there will be plenty of that on reserve at mom and dads.
But what about the bad kids? the ones who parents will not even open the doors to. These ‘bad eggs’ may have to resort to theft (never mentioned in the three laws) , he may even attack other robots for their supplies and other goods. Basically, you have the same thing human counterparts in the same situation are going through.
If in certain cases a particular AI mind needs to undergo reprogramming multiple times, then it may be scheduled for destruction. This would keep it from hitting the streets as a delinquent. In fact , when an android feels it is ready to go out on its own, then it can take a type of government sponsored psychological exam to be sure that it does not pose a threat to society at large. But would Android Civil Rights protesters step in? Demanding equal rights for androids. Should androids even be allowed to walk the streets? Are they a danger to our women and children? Maybe we will see laws that force android owners to keep them at home, or pay for destruction if they no longer want it at home. Hopefully, they will not become a fugitive in their attempt to evade destruction.
As time passes we will have more and more androids walking around on the streets, not just a product of our invention , but of its environment. The way that they respond to society will be a direct result of what they are taught and how they are trained. Because these are not humans, but rather something altogether new and untested, the results may force us to really ask ourselves the question: How do you raise a robot?
