Noetic Androids Among Us
by L. L. Richardson
The following essay appears in the San Francisco Examiner on Sunday, January 11, 2043. The author, Margo Cassidy, is currently a graduate student in the newly created Noetics program at Stanford University. This essay is reprinted here with permission.
Five years hence, I am walking hand in hand with my boyfriend, Matt. He’s tall and athletic; he can easily look over the top of my head. And handsome. Oh, my god, he’s handsome. As we step up to the entrance of Chez Roberto, the doorman welcomes us in.
I’m all smiles because Matt made a reservation at the newest, trendiest eatery within fifty miles. His eyes sparkle as he says, “I wanted to surprise you, Margo. Happy birthday.” And I love him now even more than ever, if that is possible.
A waiter meets us inside. He’s a servbot-class android as handsome as Matt. The two of them, the waiter and Matt, make eye contact but don’t say anything. Still, I know they are exchanging information. It’s just something bots do.
When we’re seated, I glance through the menu. I order filet mignon with mushrooms Bordelaise. “And for you, sir?” the waiter asks Matt.
“I’ll have Icelandic glacier water,” Matt replies without taking his eyes off me. I’m a little surprised. Usually, Matt orders lithia water. He loves the bitter taste. As if reading my thoughts, he says, “I hear the Icelandic glacier water is in a class of its own. I thought I’d give it a try.”
Is this merely a schoolgirl’s fantasy? Not entirely. In the near future, within just a few years, noetic androids like Matt will be an integral part of society. We are very close to a new societal paradigm in which noetics and humans will coexist, walking hand in hand, sometimes literally.
The notion of a humaniform android like Matt is, of course, not a new idea. Human-like robots have appeared in many novels, films, and popular television programs. One of the first writers to use the term “android” was the French author Auguste Villers de L’Isle-Adam in his sci-fi novel L’Ève future, published in 1886.
In his story, a fictionalized Thomas Edison creates a female android that looks and acts convincingly human. Edison does this at the request of a close friend, Lord Ewald, who has become disenchanted by his fiancée, Alicia. But Alicia has human faults, so Lord Ewald wishes to replace her with a perfect artificial version of her, an android (or gynoid, if you like). Edison succeeds but, unfortunately for Lord Ewald, the ship bringing android Alicia to England is lost in a storm at sea.
About forty years later after the publication of L’Ève future, in 1925, German writer Thea von Harbou published in the magazine Illustriertes Blatt a serialized work titled Metropolis. The story, set in the year 2025, features a female android (the Maschinenmensch, “machine person”), which is made in the image of the film’s leading female character, Maria. In contrast to Maria, however, the robot is evil. Like Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, the Metropolis android is never given a name.
In 1927, von Harbou’s story was made into the film of the same title. One might wonder whether von Harbou was familiar with or even inspired by L’Ève future. Regardless, filmologists credit the striking visual depiction of von Harbou’s android character as having had a major influence on 20th-century robot literature and cinematography.
The notion of creating an android to replace a disappointing spouse or lover was again taken up in the 1972 novel The Stepford Wives, by Ira Levin. In this story, the men of the town of Stepford replace — in the darkest sense of the word — their troublesome wives with submissive android doubles.
In 1975, the novel was made into a sci-fi film that was controversial at the time but now enjoys a cult status among my fellow students in Stanford’s robotics department. The Stepford Wives raises an intriguing ethical question: should androids be developed to the degree that they could replace humans as members of society?
Apart from literature and film, the history of robotics in the United States has been a checkered one. Beginning about 1975, robotic manufacturing machines appeared. Those first ones were large, massive and expensive, but the costs were offset as the robotic machines were able to perform specific manufacturing tasks, such as welding and painting automobile unibody structures with great efficiency.
Over the course of a generation or so, robotic manufacturing machines replaced an increasing number of humans on the shop floor. On the whole, however, the robot takeover of the workplace was a gradual process, so human worker transition to other sectors of the economy was not particularly painful for the U.S. labor force.
Then, beginning around 2025, advances in artificial intelligence made possible the development and adoption of a smarter, more mobile robot. Leaders in the service sector of the economy quickly adopted this new bot as a boon to business. The fast-food and the hospitality industries were among the first to use service robots, or ‘servbots’, extensively. As the CEO of a national burger chain put it, “The most expensive part of my operation is labor costs. Human workers cost a lot to hire, to train, and to pay. I have to provide human workers with health insurance and vacation time. I have none of these expenses with my servbot workers. To be brutally honest, human workers are a lot of trouble, trouble I can avoid by using servbots.”
Labor leaders and some politicians, on the other hand, decry the loss of jobs to servbots even as the general public seems to readily accept them, especially the servbots that have humaniform features. Businesses have been quick to pick up on this. Today, a fast-food restaurant’s staff is likely to be humaniform servbots wearing the food chain’s signature uniform. If you’ve stayed at a hotel in the past two or three years, it is likely you noticed the desk clerk as well as the housekeeping staff were not human.
In terms of technical sophistication, androids, like Matt, will be well advanced beyond the ubiquitous servbots. Like Lord Ewald’s Alicia, noetics will be outwardly indistinguishable from humans. They will act with autonomous, human-like complexity, and will interact with the subtle nuances of human personality, with emotions and feelings. Whereas servbots, even the very best ones, cannot pass as human, noetics will seem as human, as alive as you and I.
How will this be accomplished? Physically, the noetics will have major improvements over the servbots. New materials are being developed such as artificial muscles to replace mechanical servos and linear actuators. More importantly, major advances in AI will allow the creation of emotive algorithms. The noetics will look more closely human, and will have convincing emotive responses, though, it can be argued, not true emotions as such.
Among the developers of the noetic concept, excitement is high. But it remains to be seen whether U.S. society as a whole will embrace noetics. For decades, American film and literature have portrayed noetic-like robots as threatening terminators run amok. This unfortunate but popular sci-fi trope has left its imprint on American culture. Surveys conducted by Stanford and other universities indicate an undertone discomfort among Americans in regards to the notion of autonomous noetic androids.
Japan, in contrast, has had for decades an unfaltering love affair with robots. The semi-autonomous servbot class robots are an indispensable feature of Japanese culture, always depicted as augmenting Japanese society in a positive way. Japan has been looking forward to the day when its society will be one in which humans and noetic androids coexist as equals.
It was about the year 2000 that discussions in Japan began in earnest concerning a human/android coexistence society. The talks culminated in the initial Fukuoka World Robot Declaration (2004) which stated that humans and androids will one day coexist as societal partners. The declaration anticipated a society where noetic androids would contribute in important ways by providing humans both physical assistance and psychological support. It was this first Fukuoka conference that originated the term “noetic,” meaning emotionally human-like.
In 2007, the European Robotics Research Network (ERRN) echoed the Fukuoka declaration, but in its own statement predicted that noetic androids will evolve into a new species with consciousness, morality, and intelligence. Again, at the time, the ERRN statement was little noticed by the major news agencies. Yet, remarkably, here we are thirty-six years later on the verge of the technological breakthroughs which will give reality to the ERRN prediction.
Since the publication of these two landmark — though largely ignored — declarations, there have been a number of further talks, within both academia and government. Academics predict noetic androids will demonstrate human sentient traits. Recognizing this, some governments, on both the national and the local levels, are carefully considering the proposition of granting noetic androids certain legal rights, even some degree of legal personhood. The major question is this: Is there room in our legal structure for noetic androids to be considered legal persons?
It seems that the key to this issue is the question of whether noetic androids will have the capacity to make free choices, and secondly, will an android’s choices derive from an ethical and moral reasoning. The ERRN conferees say, yes, noetic androids will indeed have this moral and ethical dimension. This ability, the group says, will give noetic androids societal parity with humans.
Does this mean that noetic androids, as ethical and moral legal persons, will have or should have rights such as ownership of real property, or the right to enter into a legally recognized civil union with a human? In the future, will some humans opt to marry noetic androids? Some voices argue, “Yes!”
The most recent International Conference on Love and Sex with Robots, held in April, 2038, in Amsterdam, stated that it is imperative that noetic androids have embedded emotions and feelings that allow them to form psychological bonds with humans. It was further said that humans and noetics should have the freedom to express this emotional bond in any way desired. The Amsterdam conference concluded that humans and noetics ought to be granted the legal right to enter into a marriage relationship if they wish.
Within the last year or so in the U.S. there has been a growing number of voices in support of proposed rights for noetic androids. Some liberal states are pressing forward with legislation that will ensure noetics will be recognized as a protected class. California, for example, has gone so far as to propose criminalizing the wanton destruction of a noetic, labeling such an act as “roboticide.” In response, major servbot producers such as Mannix Corporation have discontinued the use of certain phrases such as “kill switch” in reference to robot deactivation.
But there are also voices, especially in the UK and U.S., expressing strong opposition. Kathleen Richardson, professor of Ethics and Culture of Robots and AI at De Montfort University in Leicester, England, is one such voice. In 2015, Professor Richardson created the Campaign Against Sex Robots. This movement’s initial goal was to denounce the notion of humans engaging in sex with robots, which she regarded as a form of prostitution. Over the past thirty years, however, the campaign’s stance has evolved to include a denunciation of human/robot marriage or civil union.
There are also loud voices objecting to noetics’ being regarded as sentient persons with legal standing. Chief among these voices in the U.S. is the Weisenberg Association. This group purports to have members in high places, notably in state governments and in Congress. The WA’s main message is that all robots, including noetics, are machines, not persons. As such, robots should not be granted any special legal standing including protection from so-called roboticide. The deactivation of a machine, argues the WA, is not murder.
Groups such as the WA and the shadowy Gutfeld Resistance often utilize emotionally charged language in an effort to drive public sentiment against robots in general and against noetics in particular. It may be tempting to label such groups as technophobes or neo-Luddites. I think this would be unfair. While I believe noetic androids can and will coexist with humans as supportive partners in society, I recognize that there may yet be some legitimate questions and concerns about this shared social structure, concerns society will soon have to address.
Copyright © 2022 by L. L. Richardson
