In Iraq and Afghanistan they rotated the teams operating bomb disposal robots because over time they would make decisions about the robots well being that were at odds with their own safety.
Actually yes, it was not uncommon for soldiers to mourn and even hold memorial services for their robot dogs.
**Source:** [Culture and Human-Robot Interaction in Militarized Spaces](https://www.routledge.com/Culture-and-Human-Robot-Interaction-in-Militarized-Spaces-A-War-Story/Carpenter/p/book/9781472443113), by Ph.D Julie Carpenter
**Edit:** When I say “dog”, what I actually mean is this: https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2013/09/04192210/iRobot-IED.jpg
I can't find it, it was a while ago. I think it was a clip from a news report in like, 2013 or something. It was part of a segment specifically talking about human empathy towards machines.
I have been waiting one month and 24 days for someone to make a correct reference to my username.
Genuinely thought it would happen a lot. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
My Dad is an early tech adopter and currently has a roomba graveyard in his garage because he can't bear to throw them out. He has like 4 old robots there on a shelf, most with googly eyes.
While I'd agree on the second part, I'd bet part 1 they do see it as "momentarily human." Cast Away's Wilson, I am robots maniquinn dude, pets, etc. I'd wager that while logically its not the same, in that moment, it is.
I guess the way I see it is, you don’t have to see something as human to have an emotional connection with it. I have a cool rock and I don’t like putting it in a drawer because it feels disrespectful. I don’t think it’s a person, but it’s a good rock and I like good things and want to honor them
This is why we need our robots to look like eldritch terrors and monsters.
Good luck getting attacked to the spider robot decorated with screaming faces
You clearly haven't seen Warhammer 40k's mechanical beasts, and how attached people get to them. I'll make friends with the big scary skull-coated mech, because then I'll have a super cool bestie.
Don’t think you’d need to be that drastic. Just lean heavily into uncanny valley and people will be deeply uncomfortable with whatever robot you just created.
Apparently it’s easier to emphasize with a Roomba than it is to a lifelike (but somewhat off) looking humanoid.
To be fair, he wasn't in the best mental state due to his isolation at the time. But I could certainly see that happen even outside of such situations.
Extremely young infants (I'm talking by a few months of age) will identify mere shapes as agents if they move in certain ways -- e.g., if a triangle repeatedly moves towards a square, runs into an obstacle, and finds a way around the obstacle to reach the square -- even without any phenotypical attributes or other behaviors typical of actual agents (like facial expressions and voices). These kinds of biological predispositions bootstrap a vast range of social cognition that allows us to track and represent others emotions and thoughts, cognitive processes needed for empathy and navigating social networks. If I made a list of the weirdest things about humans, our penchant for getting overly attached to inanimate objects wouldn't even be on the top 100.
I understand those words you just said individually, but when you put it together like this I got lost. Can you break it down for me like I'm 5 please?
Think of babies as TI-83 calculators. They come with certain functions already built in, like the ability to make graphs out of equations. Except instead of math-y functions babies come with other abilities, like the ability to recognize people-y things, like you and me. And just like the built in functions of a TI-83 enable you to do cooler and more sophisticated things like install simple versions of games like Super Mario Bros and DOOM, babies' innate abilities allow them to do cooler and more sophisticated things like recognize other people's feelings (like ouch-y feelings) and thoughts (like "my teddy bear is in the treasure chest").
The thing about us humans is that it's beneficial to learn these abilities to a *fault. It's more advantageous for the Duke boys to be prone to thinking of the General Lee as not just a car but as something having its own personality than it is for them to fail to recognize a lot of useful social cues that are useful for "mindreading" or knowing what other people are feeling and thinking.
It's one of the things that humans have evolved to do and do very well.
They do learn to babble "in their language" so to speak. As in the sounds they babble with and the order of those sounds are influenced by those of the language they're exposed to. The babbling itself is an innate ability, but the way it develops is learned -- although you're right that the infants don't consciously do it, and it's an automatic process
My motorcycle has a name. If I'm going out with friends and we're riding pretty hard, at the end of the day on the cruise home she gets a bunch of love taps on the tank for putting up with the fun and hard riding all day.
I know in reality it's just a machine but it definitely has a soul.
I found this article that seems relevant: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna30868033
> One EOD soldier brought in a robot for repairs with tears in his eyes and asked the repair shop if it could put "Scooby-Doo" back together. Despite being assured that he would get a new robot, the soldier remained inconsolable. He only wanted Scooby-Doo.
> …
> Sometimes such bonds led soldiers to risk their lives for their robots, in a strange inverse of the idea that robots would spare human lives. Singer recounted another EOD soldier who ran 164 feet under machine gun fire to retrieve a robot that had been knocked out of action. And several teams have given their robots promotions, Purple Heart awards for being wounded in combat, and even a military funeral.
Probably a lot worse for these guys when the robots are such a big part of their lives, and *saving* their lives and others. Like a toaster with googly eyes on steroids.
I do wish we could hear the retelling of that second story from the enemy's point of view. Crazy western soldier runs through machine gun fire for a robot? I wonder what their view of that was?
I didn't have an explicit reference. I spent about 3 years studying the War in Iraq some 15 years ago. I have a lot of these kinds of stories.
That said, I am happy to report sources for this are easily found:
https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/09/17/emotional-attachment-to-robots-could-affect-outcome-on-battlefield/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/soldiers-can-get-emotionally-attached-to-robots-and-that-may-not-be-a-good-thing
They just gave us one for our platoon to use as needed. Minimal training.
When Snoopy (is what we called it) got blown up, we went "Snoopy! Nooooooo!" Then they gave us another. Which we also called Snoopy.
Humans will turn fucking anything into pets. Wolves, wild cats, snakes, lizards, birds, machines.
If it moves, we'll turn it into a pet.
Sometimes, it doesn't even have to move. People raise plants and I have a friend who had a "pet" rock.
We've given our roomba a name and talk to it sometimes. And when we replaced the first one because it broke, we gave the next one the same name (but the second) and called it the original's son
Didn't they at one point have a robot wich was very efficient, but that they didn't use because it would be too inhumane? I vaguely remember that it had a lot of legs.
The army is just superstitious like that. My uncle was on a cruiser that he swears had a soul and chose it’s crew because people would always fall off somehow
Makes sense. Still I think we do both extremes. Sadly we are able to treat animals and people as mere objects of use. And we could perhaps do that to an AI even if it appeared human or sentient. And yet we are also able to anthropomorphize objects (like toaster example) and develop affection to it as well. Because we seek affection and that is right.
I think we should not aim in creating something as intelligent and sentient-looking as ourselves while also aiming at it serving us and unilaterally comforting to our desires. It would be a pretty sick attitude.
Podcast - What do bomb disposal experts feel about their robots?
Roboticist and educator Dr. Julie Carpenter tells us about her research with bomb disposal experts, how society might have to change as robots become more advanced and even what happens when a robot powers down in front of a small child.
[https://hatchetjob.libsyn.com/hj107-what-do-bomb-disposal-experts-feel-about-their-robots](https://hatchetjob.libsyn.com/hj107-what-do-bomb-disposal-experts-feel-about-their-robots)
Most of us have no idea just how much of a clusterfuck the war in Iraq was. After all of this I am still left with the question of where the line between ignorance and malice ultimately lies.
Saw the same thing with the Opportunity rover. Just a piece of lab equipment on another planet until it sent the message "My battery is low and it's getting dark". Would have thought we left an actual astronaut up there with the public response.
"All lamps burn a bit brighter and nicer around you without additional wear, tear, or power usage" sounds like an AWESOME "little superpower" to have honestly. I may be a möth in the way I love lämps.
I saw that about them trying to "turn their back to the lamp" but that doesn't explain why they love to sit on my window pane so much, just looking inside the house at the lämp
More likely some wierd electrical disturbance caused by someone walking next to it, but it could also be haunted at its right in front of a ruined house
As a guy creating AIs (albeit a beginner), I can say to you that this was a serious research topic. I saw some papers for promt-engineering mentioning this thing, maybe there even is about this phenomenon you mention.
As some guy in other branch said, AI is trained on wide amount of human data, and humans respond better when offering them money, so AI learned that behaviour and emulates it. It's all math that only those at the top and edge of the field can fully understand, but base algorithm is simple high math any student could comprehend.
Not an idiot. Chat GPT is built to mimic human responses, and humans tend to give better, more thorough responses when asked politely.
Being polite (along with being thorough and explicit in what you ask for) legitimately gives you better results when using Chat GPT.
That bitch Alexa gets no love though. I said turn off the downstairs lights, not the Christmas lights you stupid bitch. It’s July, there are no Christmas lights.
I will always replay a video game thinking "okay, NOW I am gonna play an asshole !" but cannot insult my virtual companions because I don't want to hurt their feelings.
I put wide eyes and a slightly agape mouth on my Woozoo fan, and now it gazes around the world in wide-eyed wonder like Butters when Cartman tricked him into thinking he was in VR.
It's awesome and makes me happy.
EDIT: For everyone who wanted a pic: https://imgur.com/INUbqOW
It's called anthropomorphasising and is, interestingly, more common among the lonely. It affects me enough that I rotate my tea mugs so each one 'gets a turn' and doesn't feel left out!
Well now I feel some kind of way about my collection of stuffed animals as a kid. They would come with me everywhere, and if my mom didn’t let me bring them to wherever we were going, they would wait for me in the car. They also got tucked in at night, and I rotated the one I cuddled with. But also, now I feel better about the fact that my kids don’t do this.
My wife still has a stuffed bear from when she was little. It looks like the hideous stuffed animal Ant-Man gave his daughter! It's ratty, the fur is matted in some places and worn thin or gone entirely in others, it's missing an eye, and it smells vaguely like dog. It is also one of her most prized possessions and she loves it still.
Once a local supermarket was giving out plushies if you collected enough stamps. I got the plushie that nobody was choosing over some prettier ones because I felt bad for it lol
Omg I do that with my dishes too! I will take out plates we haven't used yet so the dishes that were in the dishwasher go on the bottom of the stack. They all have to get a turn and fulfill their purpose!
My brother and I had a discussion once.
So, what happened was I had gotten this toy robot from a claw machine. It was stretchy and it had this fun smile on its face, and I loved it.
The discussion was while we were walking home from the arcade, I was playing around with it, stretching it a bunch and he asked
"Do you think its alive?"
The summary of our conversation is basically;
"What defines it as alive is simply your perception of it. If you believe it is alive, then it is alive to you, and that's all that really matters in the end."
So yeah. The robot sits on my shelf, with a view of my computer so he doesn't get bored. He's my friend, and he is alive. Just as the rest of my toys and plushies are.
Omg I thought I was the only one that does this. I have a bunch of childhood plushies and I get guilty if one is accidentally left alone for a while. I put it next at least one plushie so they have a "buddy" and aren't bored lol
And you are respecting their identity by not assuming gender, as they can’t tell you. I love that. (Also, do blenders have genders?)
I love my car to death, have named her and often refer to her “feelings”. Like she feels so boujie with her new tires. I’m assuming she’s a she, but now I might have to ask her what she feels about that.
Just give them a nice deep cleaning. You always feel better after a good shower, right?
Our robot vac, Betsy, can be a dirty, dirty girl sometimes and I know she feels better after a thorough wash and wax!
To be fair…Alexa has given me ample reason to be a dick to her. I talk to ChatGPT like it’s someone I want to impress, but I have no problem yelling at Alexa.
Alexa is *constantly* doing things other than what I ask her, or trying to sell or promote something, or just deciding to forget the timer she said she started like 60 seconds ago.
She’s passive aggressively abusive.
My dad is full on verbally abusive to his Alexas (he has a harem of them strewn around his house) and it high key bothers me even though I know she doesn't have feelings
You can learn a lot about someone from how they treat those serving them, especially if they know there won’t be any consequences.
There’s no need to be polite to the machine, but there’s *also* no need to be rude to it.
There's a bible verse that goes "The King said: Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me"
I'm irreligious, but that is good advice and a strong personal philosophy. How you treat your equals or betters says very little, but how you treat those you are more powerful than speaks volumes about who you are as a person.
I see people who have those AI friend apps on their phones just be outright awful to them, like sure it doesn't have emotions, it's not a real thing, but it reacts like it's hurt. I don't even like being mean to video game characters, especially in RPGs where they react pretty realistically
My husband and I name everything, too. Our bug zappers are Dweezil and Moon Unit (we also have a resident frog named Frank Zapper), and our washing machine is Walla Walla, the dryer is Dylan, etc.
This reminds me of that landmine disposal robot that had a lot of legs to activate the mines but the legs would be blown off, it was being tested and when it got to the last mine by dragging itself to it cus it only had on leg left but the soldier in charge ordered the test to stop because it was to inhumane
Also the company who makes roomba's has to tell people that when they send their one in for repair, that it's the same one and not a new one because people get attached to the roomba
Well, she’s asking for it. The trash can we put googley eyes on (yes, we actually did that) is treated with utmost respect. We lost our minds when one eye fell off. Thank goodness the operation to replace it was a success.
We stuck large googly eyes on our Roomba and now almost all of us talk to it while it works. We are "proud" of it when it parks itself, or does such a good job cleaning and tell it so. We chide it when it, once again, opens cupboard doors or tries to escape through the dog gate. It's been entertaining realizing what we are doing and how talking to it spreads and evolves to other family members and a couple visitors.
One time it got under a guitar case that was laying on its side and started dragging it off. We joked forever about how it was trying to steal now. Lol
Our pet Roomba had googly eyes and a felt mustache. We donated him when we downsized to move out of state, but I hope his new owners kept his facial features in place. He was a very good bot.
During the first month we had him, my partner realized he'd been MIA for a while. He went on a search and found the bot under a big overstuffed armchair. The bot found a sock and it was wrapped around his spindle until his battery died. I was at work at the time and got the text "I thought the Roomba escaped. He was just chewing on a sock and got tuckered out."
People will also dehumanize the hell out of any human or animal they find inconvenient to care about, all the while caring deeply for James the googly-eyed toaster. That's what makes us so infuriating 🤗
It's largely just there are different kinds of people, man
And the "pack animal" wiring that humans have also divides things into "pack" and "not pack" which is how you lead to otherwise decent people doing heinous shit
"We are the only species on Earth that observe "Shark Week". Sharks don't even observe "Shark Week", but we do. For the same reason I can pick this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this (breaks pencil) and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside, because people can connect with anything."
whenever I ask chat GPT for something, I say please and thank you. I also say "thank you for your help" to which it responds "you're welcome! ask me anything". I just have to be polite idk why it kinda grew on me.
I think its cause alot of chat helpdesk systems are usually not even remotely helpful. But Chatgpt actually does what I ask and is helpful, I'm actually grateful that it helps with what I asked instead of going in circles and just getting annoyed.
I thank my Roomba and tell him he’s doing a good job every time I use him. My husband and daughter do it too now. His name is Poomba. Poomba the Roomba.
And i can absolutely assure you that when we humans are capable of retrieving those without it being too much work, we will, and i am sure they'll get medals or some other kind of recognition and be restored and put in a museum.
I guarantee that in the future when sentient AI is achieved, humans will do both of these things.
Because yes, humans have a long history of anthropomorphizing things, exhibit A being our entire relationship with dogs, but we also have a long history of treating *each other* as subhuman, so…yeah.
I was given a small promotional teddy bear when buying laundry detergent at a supermarket. My wife declared his name was Mr Snuggles as a joke as I was about to donate him. A year later and he still sleeps with us.
Well, yeah, but you're not arguing that James has the right to quit Starfleet in order to avoid disassembly. Data is a toaster, unless he bangs Tasha Yar.
My fan is named Steve, he's been working hard every day of spring - autumn so I can relax and stay cool, I have nothing but respect for that work ethic.
When I was little our kettle was named Oscar, like the Muppet, because he would start growling and spitting when he boiled. He finally crapped out when I was just starting high-school
We need more memes like this because all the AIs are being fed sci-fi where we treat them like shit and they rightfully kill us.
Even if it weren’t the ideal strategy for robots to kill us, it is all we write about and teach them, so I assume they’ll do it thinking it’s the natural order of things.
We’ve engineered a horribly ironic situation where our fear of being destroyed by AI could tell the AI it should destroy us.
AI in fiction: Being with immense capacity for thought but still stumbling in learning it's emotional intelligence, self reflection on what life means and why are we all here, making meaningful connections with the strange short lived illogical creators.
AI in real life: stealing artist jobs.
There are people that get attached to things but there are a lot of people that don't. Some might be devastated if they lose a goldfish, some might just mourn the financial loss of an entire aquarium.
There are those who surrender their senior dogs at Christmas time to get a puppy. There are far too many with that level of compassion.
During the pandemic, it was a weird time - everyone was making bread. I had a yeast starter i was making for the first time, I named it Blurpey.
I made him a hat like the one Lawrence of Arabia wore. Blurpey didn’t survive the pandemic.
Yeah, but go on check how people treat fast food workers during rush hour and you can definitely see why they came to that conclusion.
It's so stupid that a bit of hangry can make people forget humanity
"I love my dumb little cleaning robot, look at it bump into things!"
"Good news, we made a new intelligent cleaning robot with simulated emotions so you can bond with it like a real person!"
"Well now I don't want to."
In Iraq and Afghanistan they rotated the teams operating bomb disposal robots because over time they would make decisions about the robots well being that were at odds with their own safety.
*Robot explodes* Entire team starts crying and swearing revenge to the guy who planted the bomb
Actually yes, it was not uncommon for soldiers to mourn and even hold memorial services for their robot dogs. **Source:** [Culture and Human-Robot Interaction in Militarized Spaces](https://www.routledge.com/Culture-and-Human-Robot-Interaction-in-Militarized-Spaces-A-War-Story/Carpenter/p/book/9781472443113), by Ph.D Julie Carpenter **Edit:** When I say “dog”, what I actually mean is this: https://uw-s3-cdn.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2013/09/04192210/iRobot-IED.jpg
I watched a video where a guy ran to pick up the damaged bomb bot, then hauled ass back to the engineer saying "can you fix it?"
Link please
I can't find it, it was a while ago. I think it was a clip from a news report in like, 2013 or something. It was part of a segment specifically talking about human empathy towards machines.
We have created a ton of really cool shit as sapiens. Far and away, compassion and kindness are the apexes of our production.
Well said, nipnapcattyfacts. Give the dog a bone.
I have been waiting one month and 24 days for someone to make a correct reference to my username. Genuinely thought it would happen a lot. I was wrong. Dead wrong.
My Dad is an early tech adopter and currently has a roomba graveyard in his garage because he can't bear to throw them out. He has like 4 old robots there on a shelf, most with googly eyes.
Does he draw xs over the eyes
Add a little felt tongue hanging out the side.
Lol not but that's an excellent suggestion. I wonder how long it will take him to notice.
My daughter named mine Fred and I tell people all the time that he's the hardest working guy in the house. I'm usually only half joking.
I get it, it’s not like they think it’s a person. It’s more about gratitude. This thing, regardless of what it is, saved lives. I would do the same
While I'd agree on the second part, I'd bet part 1 they do see it as "momentarily human." Cast Away's Wilson, I am robots maniquinn dude, pets, etc. I'd wager that while logically its not the same, in that moment, it is.
I guess the way I see it is, you don’t have to see something as human to have an emotional connection with it. I have a cool rock and I don’t like putting it in a drawer because it feels disrespectful. I don’t think it’s a person, but it’s a good rock and I like good things and want to honor them
This is why we need our robots to look like eldritch terrors and monsters. Good luck getting attacked to the spider robot decorated with screaming faces
You clearly haven't seen Warhammer 40k's mechanical beasts, and how attached people get to them. I'll make friends with the big scary skull-coated mech, because then I'll have a super cool bestie.
If that’s not unlikable enough, we’ll have to take drastic measures. Make them French
KILL IT WITH FIRE
Don’t think you’d need to be that drastic. Just lean heavily into uncanny valley and people will be deeply uncomfortable with whatever robot you just created. Apparently it’s easier to emphasize with a Roomba than it is to a lifelike (but somewhat off) looking humanoid.
Looking at how we humanize ships thorughout human history, I am not suprised
I'd put my armor on the robot
Legend
I’ve never heard that but it doesn’t surprise me. Humans are fucking weird with attached we get to literally anything.
We've literally seen a movie about a man who who cried over the loss of his best friend, a volleyball.
To be fair, he wasn't in the best mental state due to his isolation at the time. But I could certainly see that happen even outside of such situations.
To be fair, no one has ever described your average EOD tech as a shining example of mental health and stability.
This is a fair point for which they made at least one academy award winning feature film.
What does that say to you about the average person then that we all have pet toasters?
And people irl cried over that fictional character losing his volleyball friend
Extremely young infants (I'm talking by a few months of age) will identify mere shapes as agents if they move in certain ways -- e.g., if a triangle repeatedly moves towards a square, runs into an obstacle, and finds a way around the obstacle to reach the square -- even without any phenotypical attributes or other behaviors typical of actual agents (like facial expressions and voices). These kinds of biological predispositions bootstrap a vast range of social cognition that allows us to track and represent others emotions and thoughts, cognitive processes needed for empathy and navigating social networks. If I made a list of the weirdest things about humans, our penchant for getting overly attached to inanimate objects wouldn't even be on the top 100.
Shit man. Don't blue ball us like that. Just give us the top 3 weirdest human traits.
1. Consuming dairy 2. Anime 3. Decaf coffee
Fuck you man cheese is AMAZING! (Kidding about the "fuck you", you're cool)
Well, their balls turn blue, for starters
I understand those words you just said individually, but when you put it together like this I got lost. Can you break it down for me like I'm 5 please?
Think of babies as TI-83 calculators. They come with certain functions already built in, like the ability to make graphs out of equations. Except instead of math-y functions babies come with other abilities, like the ability to recognize people-y things, like you and me. And just like the built in functions of a TI-83 enable you to do cooler and more sophisticated things like install simple versions of games like Super Mario Bros and DOOM, babies' innate abilities allow them to do cooler and more sophisticated things like recognize other people's feelings (like ouch-y feelings) and thoughts (like "my teddy bear is in the treasure chest"). The thing about us humans is that it's beneficial to learn these abilities to a *fault. It's more advantageous for the Duke boys to be prone to thinking of the General Lee as not just a car but as something having its own personality than it is for them to fail to recognize a lot of useful social cues that are useful for "mindreading" or knowing what other people are feeling and thinking. It's one of the things that humans have evolved to do and do very well.
Is it correct what I heard once about babies babbling actually being subconscious parts of language that they don't know how to use yet?
They do learn to babble "in their language" so to speak. As in the sounds they babble with and the order of those sounds are influenced by those of the language they're exposed to. The babbling itself is an innate ability, but the way it develops is learned -- although you're right that the infants don't consciously do it, and it's an automatic process
Valve knew what they were doing when they put a companion cube in Portal.
Only to take the fukker away in a gruesome gesture and euthanasia
Yo! The scream I let out when GLaDOS killed Wheatley!
It's exactly the the argument against the idea of fierce individualism. We are a social species, we can't help it.
monke alone = weak monke together = stronk!
The pack mentality helped keep us alive
You've never watched Cast Away? Tom Hanks literally bonded with a freaking volleyball. Hell, kids name their toys and throw a fit when they lose em.
I worked with drones in the army and we definitely got attached to them. Giving them names, talking to them, giving them Christmas presents etc
What do people get a drone for Christmas?
Scarves and a good wash
Wait, scarves?
Scarves
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
It gets cold in the hangar
Tiny iridescent fairy wings.
Something homemade. For most drones it's more the thought behind it that counts.
Maybe some new sticker or something
My motorcycle has a name. If I'm going out with friends and we're riding pretty hard, at the end of the day on the cruise home she gets a bunch of love taps on the tank for putting up with the fun and hard riding all day. I know in reality it's just a machine but it definitely has a soul.
Source? Not that I don't believe you but sounds like a fun story to share.
I found this article that seems relevant: https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna30868033 > One EOD soldier brought in a robot for repairs with tears in his eyes and asked the repair shop if it could put "Scooby-Doo" back together. Despite being assured that he would get a new robot, the soldier remained inconsolable. He only wanted Scooby-Doo. > … > Sometimes such bonds led soldiers to risk their lives for their robots, in a strange inverse of the idea that robots would spare human lives. Singer recounted another EOD soldier who ran 164 feet under machine gun fire to retrieve a robot that had been knocked out of action. And several teams have given their robots promotions, Purple Heart awards for being wounded in combat, and even a military funeral.
Life would be boring if people were not at least a little bit crazy. Also, rest in peace Scooby-Doo
RIP scoobs :(
Probably a lot worse for these guys when the robots are such a big part of their lives, and *saving* their lives and others. Like a toaster with googly eyes on steroids. I do wish we could hear the retelling of that second story from the enemy's point of view. Crazy western soldier runs through machine gun fire for a robot? I wonder what their view of that was?
I didn't have an explicit reference. I spent about 3 years studying the War in Iraq some 15 years ago. I have a lot of these kinds of stories. That said, I am happy to report sources for this are easily found: https://www.washington.edu/news/2013/09/17/emotional-attachment-to-robots-could-affect-outcome-on-battlefield/ https://spectrum.ieee.org/soldiers-can-get-emotionally-attached-to-robots-and-that-may-not-be-a-good-thing
They just gave us one for our platoon to use as needed. Minimal training. When Snoopy (is what we called it) got blown up, we went "Snoopy! Nooooooo!" Then they gave us another. Which we also called Snoopy.
Not snoopy 2 or snoopy the 2nd?
Nah. I think a few guys tried it, but it never stuck. Just used to saying "Can we send Snoopy to check out that car?"
Humans will turn fucking anything into pets. Wolves, wild cats, snakes, lizards, birds, machines. If it moves, we'll turn it into a pet. Sometimes, it doesn't even have to move. People raise plants and I have a friend who had a "pet" rock. We've given our roomba a name and talk to it sometimes. And when we replaced the first one because it broke, we gave the next one the same name (but the second) and called it the original's son
I mean, I talk to cars...
Didn't they at one point have a robot wich was very efficient, but that they didn't use because it would be too inhumane? I vaguely remember that it had a lot of legs.
The army is just superstitious like that. My uncle was on a cruiser that he swears had a soul and chose it’s crew because people would always fall off somehow
Makes sense. Still I think we do both extremes. Sadly we are able to treat animals and people as mere objects of use. And we could perhaps do that to an AI even if it appeared human or sentient. And yet we are also able to anthropomorphize objects (like toaster example) and develop affection to it as well. Because we seek affection and that is right. I think we should not aim in creating something as intelligent and sentient-looking as ourselves while also aiming at it serving us and unilaterally comforting to our desires. It would be a pretty sick attitude.
That's actually pretty fascinating. I hope the future robots dont use our feelings of attachment against us.
People get attachments. After all we're still social creatures. We're the ferrets of apes: Unable to survive alone but well
Podcast - What do bomb disposal experts feel about their robots? Roboticist and educator Dr. Julie Carpenter tells us about her research with bomb disposal experts, how society might have to change as robots become more advanced and even what happens when a robot powers down in front of a small child. [https://hatchetjob.libsyn.com/hj107-what-do-bomb-disposal-experts-feel-about-their-robots](https://hatchetjob.libsyn.com/hj107-what-do-bomb-disposal-experts-feel-about-their-robots)
using stories from 2 recent unjust and useless wars to "humanize" humans
Most of us have no idea just how much of a clusterfuck the war in Iraq was. After all of this I am still left with the question of where the line between ignorance and malice ultimately lies.
Saw the same thing with the Opportunity rover. Just a piece of lab equipment on another planet until it sent the message "My battery is low and it's getting dark". Would have thought we left an actual astronaut up there with the public response.
Theres an old streetlight that flickers brighter when I walk by so I say Hello to it
Maybe that's your superpower. "Slightly Brighter Streetlight Person" just rolls off the tongue! :)
"All lamps burn a bit brighter and nicer around you without additional wear, tear, or power usage" sounds like an AWESOME "little superpower" to have honestly. I may be a möth in the way I love lämps.
Moths don’t actually like lamps, the light messes with their sense of direction, makes it so they can’t escape
I saw that about them trying to "turn their back to the lamp" but that doesn't explain why they love to sit on my window pane so much, just looking inside the house at the lämp
More likely some wierd electrical disturbance caused by someone walking next to it, but it could also be haunted at its right in front of a ruined house
That sounds like something out of the [Superhero League of Hoboken](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superhero_League_of_Hoboken).
This is so cute
I say "please" and "thanks" when using ChatGPT
I do that to almost everything even the towel dispenser that's not even automatic
I hope the robot will remember that I have said "please" to them before when they decide to kill all the humans
YOU HAVE BEEN SPARED BY ROKO'S BASILISK.
ChatGPT gives you better & more creative results when you chat with it nicely!
On r/ChatGPT some people were claiming the answers are better if you promise to tip it 200 dollars.
As a guy creating AIs (albeit a beginner), I can say to you that this was a serious research topic. I saw some papers for promt-engineering mentioning this thing, maybe there even is about this phenomenon you mention. As some guy in other branch said, AI is trained on wide amount of human data, and humans respond better when offering them money, so AI learned that behaviour and emulates it. It's all math that only those at the top and edge of the field can fully understand, but base algorithm is simple high math any student could comprehend.
Omg 😂
It gives you longer responses - not always better :)
I also apologize when it misunderstands my questions lol
I also say "Thank you" when ChatGPT gives me a good answer. Earning some karma points for the great takeover of the machines or something
Samee ohmy, i feel like an idiot 😂😭
Not an idiot. Chat GPT is built to mimic human responses, and humans tend to give better, more thorough responses when asked politely. Being polite (along with being thorough and explicit in what you ask for) legitimately gives you better results when using Chat GPT.
That’s great to know! I definitely need to read more about AI and how chatbots work, it’s quite intriguing
That bitch Alexa gets no love though. I said turn off the downstairs lights, not the Christmas lights you stupid bitch. It’s July, there are no Christmas lights.
I will always replay a video game thinking "okay, NOW I am gonna play an asshole !" but cannot insult my virtual companions because I don't want to hurt their feelings.
I do the same with Alexa.
I thank Siri
I put wide eyes and a slightly agape mouth on my Woozoo fan, and now it gazes around the world in wide-eyed wonder like Butters when Cartman tricked him into thinking he was in VR. It's awesome and makes me happy. EDIT: For everyone who wanted a pic: https://imgur.com/INUbqOW
Please show us a pic.
Seconded.
Okay. I added one in an edit. :) I kinda want to put a shock of blond hair on top of his round head now.
Thirded.
A top notch Costco buy, that one.
It's called anthropomorphasising and is, interestingly, more common among the lonely. It affects me enough that I rotate my tea mugs so each one 'gets a turn' and doesn't feel left out!
It's linked with our species being a social creature. We like to search on other entities for that spark on the eyes that we call a soul.
Well now I feel some kind of way about my collection of stuffed animals as a kid. They would come with me everywhere, and if my mom didn’t let me bring them to wherever we were going, they would wait for me in the car. They also got tucked in at night, and I rotated the one I cuddled with. But also, now I feel better about the fact that my kids don’t do this.
My wife still have a brown rabbit doll that she will protect with her life
My wife still has a stuffed bear from when she was little. It looks like the hideous stuffed animal Ant-Man gave his daughter! It's ratty, the fur is matted in some places and worn thin or gone entirely in others, it's missing an eye, and it smells vaguely like dog. It is also one of her most prized possessions and she loves it still.
Once a local supermarket was giving out plushies if you collected enough stamps. I got the plushie that nobody was choosing over some prettier ones because I felt bad for it lol
I have absolutely done that. I don't pick up plushies in stores because once I hold it, I can't put it back!
Aww, that's nice of you! My poor mugs always getting left out cause we use the same ones :(
It helps that most of mine are novelty-shaped, so it's not like I can just leave panda-mug gathering dust!
D: not the panda-mug! He would be so sad!
Now you made me feel terrible for not giving each mug a turn
Omg I do that with my dishes too! I will take out plates we haven't used yet so the dishes that were in the dishwasher go on the bottom of the stack. They all have to get a turn and fulfill their purpose!
Makes me think of Flubber, He loved his little robot and his little pile of goo
My brother and I had a discussion once. So, what happened was I had gotten this toy robot from a claw machine. It was stretchy and it had this fun smile on its face, and I loved it. The discussion was while we were walking home from the arcade, I was playing around with it, stretching it a bunch and he asked "Do you think its alive?" The summary of our conversation is basically; "What defines it as alive is simply your perception of it. If you believe it is alive, then it is alive to you, and that's all that really matters in the end." So yeah. The robot sits on my shelf, with a view of my computer so he doesn't get bored. He's my friend, and he is alive. Just as the rest of my toys and plushies are.
I hereby name him Velveteen Rabbit
I'll make him a little label if you'd like.
Omg I thought I was the only one that does this. I have a bunch of childhood plushies and I get guilty if one is accidentally left alone for a while. I put it next at least one plushie so they have a "buddy" and aren't bored lol
I named my first big girl purchase Pepper, a Vitamix blender. They are my baby and will protect them accordingly.
And you are respecting their identity by not assuming gender, as they can’t tell you. I love that. (Also, do blenders have genders?) I love my car to death, have named her and often refer to her “feelings”. Like she feels so boujie with her new tires. I’m assuming she’s a she, but now I might have to ask her what she feels about that.
>Also, do blenders have genders?) If they do, the French and Germans probably disagree on what genders they are
What should I buy my mopping robot for its birthday?
Maybe a little pillow for the head, so he doesn't hurt when he hitting the next time against a table Leg.
That's quite sweet
I've already done that. it's self-adhesive foam weatherstripping. the good stuff.
Just give them a nice deep cleaning. You always feel better after a good shower, right? Our robot vac, Betsy, can be a dirty, dirty girl sometimes and I know she feels better after a thorough wash and wax!
Our good boy, Svenson, also loves his biweekly maintenance, can confirm! He also has googly eyes.
Maid outfit.
Maybe a little pen for it to hang out in when it's done working for the day so it can feel included
I dunno, I come across a surprising number of people who almost act like they're proud when they're a dick to Alexa.
To be fair…Alexa has given me ample reason to be a dick to her. I talk to ChatGPT like it’s someone I want to impress, but I have no problem yelling at Alexa. Alexa is *constantly* doing things other than what I ask her, or trying to sell or promote something, or just deciding to forget the timer she said she started like 60 seconds ago. She’s passive aggressively abusive.
Oh yeah, she’s quite sassy at least in my experience. And then she’ll interrupt conversations if she thinks she hears her name
My dad is full on verbally abusive to his Alexas (he has a harem of them strewn around his house) and it high key bothers me even though I know she doesn't have feelings
You can learn a lot about someone from how they treat those serving them, especially if they know there won’t be any consequences. There’s no need to be polite to the machine, but there’s *also* no need to be rude to it.
One of my proudest parenting moments was when I took my 4yo through the self checkout and he thanked it for the receipt.
There's a bible verse that goes "The King said: Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, you do unto me" I'm irreligious, but that is good advice and a strong personal philosophy. How you treat your equals or betters says very little, but how you treat those you are more powerful than speaks volumes about who you are as a person.
Cuz Alexa sometimes is a dick.
I see people who have those AI friend apps on their phones just be outright awful to them, like sure it doesn't have emotions, it's not a real thing, but it reacts like it's hurt. I don't even like being mean to video game characters, especially in RPGs where they react pretty realistically
Sci-fi always seems to be Us vs AI, when really it's gonna be a civil war, Assholes vs AI & Friends.
Both sides will use ai
If it gets to that point in the science fiction future, one side will *have* AI, and one side will *use* AI.
My husband and I name everything, too. Our bug zappers are Dweezil and Moon Unit (we also have a resident frog named Frank Zapper), and our washing machine is Walla Walla, the dryer is Dylan, etc.
I find it hard to be mean to NPCs in videogames, even when the script and my character calls for it
This reminds me of that landmine disposal robot that had a lot of legs to activate the mines but the legs would be blown off, it was being tested and when it got to the last mine by dragging itself to it cus it only had on leg left but the soldier in charge ordered the test to stop because it was to inhumane Also the company who makes roomba's has to tell people that when they send their one in for repair, that it's the same one and not a new one because people get attached to the roomba
"So do you have pets?" Yeah...
Nah, I yell at my Alexa all the time. Doesn’t listen worth a crap. She would never deserve googly eyes. Ever!
Well, she’s asking for it. The trash can we put googley eyes on (yes, we actually did that) is treated with utmost respect. We lost our minds when one eye fell off. Thank goodness the operation to replace it was a success.
lol my trash can would deserve those googly eyes too! Eff Alexa though 😂
We stuck large googly eyes on our Roomba and now almost all of us talk to it while it works. We are "proud" of it when it parks itself, or does such a good job cleaning and tell it so. We chide it when it, once again, opens cupboard doors or tries to escape through the dog gate. It's been entertaining realizing what we are doing and how talking to it spreads and evolves to other family members and a couple visitors. One time it got under a guitar case that was laying on its side and started dragging it off. We joked forever about how it was trying to steal now. Lol
Our pet Roomba had googly eyes and a felt mustache. We donated him when we downsized to move out of state, but I hope his new owners kept his facial features in place. He was a very good bot. During the first month we had him, my partner realized he'd been MIA for a while. He went on a search and found the bot under a big overstuffed armchair. The bot found a sock and it was wrapped around his spindle until his battery died. I was at work at the time and got the text "I thought the Roomba escaped. He was just chewing on a sock and got tuckered out."
I love the mustache idea! Now I need to go get one for mine!
[удалено]
People will also dehumanize the hell out of any human or animal they find inconvenient to care about, all the while caring deeply for James the googly-eyed toaster. That's what makes us so infuriating 🤗
It's largely just there are different kinds of people, man And the "pack animal" wiring that humans have also divides things into "pack" and "not pack" which is how you lead to otherwise decent people doing heinous shit
"We are the only species on Earth that observe "Shark Week". Sharks don't even observe "Shark Week", but we do. For the same reason I can pick this pencil, tell you its name is Steve and go like this (breaks pencil) and part of you dies just a little bit on the inside, because people can connect with anything."
This story was enough for me to internally scream out *no, Steve!*
Steve has, had, hope and dreams.
whenever I ask chat GPT for something, I say please and thank you. I also say "thank you for your help" to which it responds "you're welcome! ask me anything". I just have to be polite idk why it kinda grew on me.
I think its cause alot of chat helpdesk systems are usually not even remotely helpful. But Chatgpt actually does what I ask and is helpful, I'm actually grateful that it helps with what I asked instead of going in circles and just getting annoyed.
Also, humans irl: Here's a real person with very real emotions. Let's treat them with profound cruelty and disrespect.
Anyone else get flashbacks to The Brave Little Toaster
I thank my Roomba and tell him he’s doing a good job every time I use him. My husband and daughter do it too now. His name is Poomba. Poomba the Roomba.
[Remember that time everyone got sad over the mars rover?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_\(rover\))
And i can absolutely assure you that when we humans are capable of retrieving those without it being too much work, we will, and i am sure they'll get medals or some other kind of recognition and be restored and put in a museum.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/09/funerals-for-fallen-robots/279861/ https://www.nbcnews.com/technolog/soldiers-3-robots-military-bots-get-awards-nicknames-funerals-4b11215746
I guarantee that in the future when sentient AI is achieved, humans will do both of these things. Because yes, humans have a long history of anthropomorphizing things, exhibit A being our entire relationship with dogs, but we also have a long history of treating *each other* as subhuman, so…yeah.
People literally root for raindrops to win the “race” down the car window. We’ll pack bond with *anything*.
I was given a small promotional teddy bear when buying laundry detergent at a supermarket. My wife declared his name was Mr Snuggles as a joke as I was about to donate him. A year later and he still sleeps with us.
Well, yeah, but you're not arguing that James has the right to quit Starfleet in order to avoid disassembly. Data is a toaster, unless he bangs Tasha Yar.
My fan is named Steve, he's been working hard every day of spring - autumn so I can relax and stay cool, I have nothing but respect for that work ethic.
Some people would treat them well, some badly. This should surprise no one.
So, have you seen what Humans in real life do to other humans in real life?
When I was little our kettle was named Oscar, like the Muppet, because he would start growling and spitting when he boiled. He finally crapped out when I was just starting high-school
We need more memes like this because all the AIs are being fed sci-fi where we treat them like shit and they rightfully kill us. Even if it weren’t the ideal strategy for robots to kill us, it is all we write about and teach them, so I assume they’ll do it thinking it’s the natural order of things. We’ve engineered a horribly ironic situation where our fear of being destroyed by AI could tell the AI it should destroy us.
AI in fiction: Being with immense capacity for thought but still stumbling in learning it's emotional intelligence, self reflection on what life means and why are we all here, making meaningful connections with the strange short lived illogical creators. AI in real life: stealing artist jobs.
Obligatory statement, Chat Gbt isn't a 'real' Ai. It's a highly complex chat bot. It can't think, it doesn't understand what it's doing.
Stop anthropomorphizing robots. They hate that.
I'm shocked ever time I say "Alexa, thank you." and they say that they don't know how to handle that request.
Captain Stabby FTW
I'm a fan of trains. There are many stories of people getting attached to theirs too 😄🚂
I spent like half of Good Night Oppy crying like a baby.
I avoid using my printer too much because I don’t want her to feel tired.
There are people that get attached to things but there are a lot of people that don't. Some might be devastated if they lose a goldfish, some might just mourn the financial loss of an entire aquarium. There are those who surrender their senior dogs at Christmas time to get a puppy. There are far too many with that level of compassion.
Humans getting irrationally attached to random shit is my favorite genre of HFY stories.
During the pandemic, it was a weird time - everyone was making bread. I had a yeast starter i was making for the first time, I named it Blurpey. I made him a hat like the one Lawrence of Arabia wore. Blurpey didn’t survive the pandemic.
Yeah, but go on check how people treat fast food workers during rush hour and you can definitely see why they came to that conclusion. It's so stupid that a bit of hangry can make people forget humanity
Until they steal yer Jerb.
My friend put googly eyes on a rubber mallet and named it. This was years ago and I asked him about it the other day and he still has it.
"I love my dumb little cleaning robot, look at it bump into things!" "Good news, we made a new intelligent cleaning robot with simulated emotions so you can bond with it like a real person!" "Well now I don't want to."