In conversation with Chris Middleton: ‘We have 35 years to get the future right'
In January earlier this year, a real robot was casted in an adaptation of Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot,' to be broadcasted on BBC Radio 4. Stanley Qubit, a NAO humanoid robot made by SoftBank Robotics and owned by Chris Middleton, played a number of parts in the 15-minute radio adaptations of Asimov's 'I, Robot' collection of short sci-fi stories.
Image by: chrismiddleton.company and stanleyqubit.com
Chris Middleton is a leading business and technology journalist, an acknowledged robotics expert, an experienced public speaker, and the author of several books on the topic. He specialises in robotics and AI, and has appeared several times on TV and BBC radio talking about their societal impacts. He is also an avid robot collector.
We spoke to Chris Middleton, and he said: “On one level, Stanley Qubit is simply a NAO-25 machine, exactly like the thousands of others, but that changed when I named him- as I thought it would be interesting to create a distinct personality for him”
“My favourite thing about Stanley – is it a he, or an it? – is that the robot is a conversation starter and door opener. I mean in metaphorical terms: every time the phone rings and someone asks about the robot, a new door opens, a new conversation starts. Will it be the BBC, a film company, a conference organiser, a live event, a school?”
Image by: stanleyqubit.com
He owns two advanced robots, a NAO-25 humanoid- Stanley Qubit- developed by SoftBank and a Robi machine, designed by Tomataka Takahashi. He also owns a number of other robots that are in the growing grey area between real robots and sophisticated toys or smart household gadgets. His collection also features models, figures, toys, and artworks.
How many of those? He answered: “I have no idea!”
Why does he collect robots anyway? Besides liking them and finding them fascinating, he also thinks “it will be useful in the future to have created a living museum of robots' development over the next few years. I try to buy the best examples as they emerge.”
Recollecting his aspirations as a child, Chris adds, “I was a child of the Space Age, and it seems extraordinary to me today that what we think of as the Space Age is now in the past.”
“Perhaps, I wanted to be Will Robinson – the boy in the TV series Lost in Space. The character was the same age as me, was hyper intelligent and he had his own robot.”
"It may have been an over-the-top sci-fi show for kids, but for an imaginative child, seeing a brave, intelligent boy on TV, a character who understood technology and science, rather than guns or violence, was a good role model," he adds.
According to Chris, artificial intelligence is distinct from natural intelligence simply by virtue of being displayed by machines. Even though the term is sometimes misused or misunderstood, modern concept of a robot is already a century old. The idea that machines might one day think for themselves has been around for a long time.
Chris strongly emphasised on what is a ‘good machine’: “A good machine could be one that does its job well. But in moral terms, the question is exceedingly complex. It is often said that guns don't kill people, people do. The same argument could be applied to machines that are used by human beings to kill.”
The European Commission for this very reason wants to regulate AI and robotics industry and put in protocols to establish liability on creators and developers. Some argue that developers should sign an ethical code of practice – the programming equivalent of doctors' Hippocratic Oath.
However, Brexit might affect AI development in the UK. According to Chris, Britain faces two major problems- chronic lack of investment, in global terms and that a great deal of the UK's money comes directly from the EU. Countries like Japan and China are investing 500 times more money than the UK in AI development and economic automation.
“Brexit may undermine many of our ambitions to succeed in this market, along with a lot of other collaborative research programmes,” he added.
The biggest breakthrough in today’s time could be AI in facial recognition. Chris throws light on the subject: “The technology mix may become quite dangerous. For example, China is using AI to create a compulsory social scoring or rating system for its citizens."
"In China, some people can already pay for goods in shops by smiling at a camera: it's their smile that identifies them and authenticates the transaction. Introduce AI to the mix and suddenly you have the world of Minority Report – the sci-fi movie in which technology recognises people constantly as they go about their lives.”
In China, this system will be used to withdraw services from citizens whom the government regards as being lazy, or critical of the government. If people have a bad social score – like today's Uber ratings– but across every aspect of people's lives, including their friends, their credit history and their employment record- the government will punish them.
The world depicted in the Black Mirror episode ‘Nosedive’ is happening for real in China.
For a journalist, robotics enthusiast and visionary, Chris Middleton has a rather cautious prediction for an AI future: “We have 35 years to get the future right. Whatever emerges in 2050, in the form of machine sentience, will be the outcome of the decisions we make today.”
Words: Rituja Rao | Subbing: Ainaa Mashrique
