Dirty, Rotten, Lying, Robot

The Georgia Institute of Technology released news recently that they have successfully taught robots how to lie . "We have developed algorithms that allow a robot to determine whether it should deceive a human or other intelligent machine" Georgia Tech Professor Ronald Arkin admitted.

"Most social robots will probably rarely use deception, but it's still an important tool in the robot's interactive arsenal because robots that recognize the need for deception have advantages in terms of outcome compared to robots that do not recognize the need for deception," said the study's co-author, Alan Wagner.

In the study, robots played a game of hide and seek. The robot that was tasked with hiding would use deception to trick the other robot into thinking it was in a different location. I expect the conversation when they decided to pursue this went something like this:

Professor: Let's make it so robots can lie?
Co author: Why?
Professor: Jut to see if we can.
Co author: It shouldn't be hard. robots are inherently evil.
Professor True, but seriously can you think of anything negative coming about because of this.
Co author: Just that robots can lie about their intentions to take over the world. But why would they want to lie to us?
Professor: Good point. Do you want to go watch The Sound of Music?
Co author: Anything but science fiction. I loathe science fiction movies. What could you ever learn from them?

The quote from the article that really gets me is when Arkin claims "We have been concerned from the very beginning with the ethical implications related to the creation of robots capable of deception and we understand that there are beneficial and deleterious aspects, we strongly encourage discussion about the appropriateness of deceptive robots to determine what, if any, regulations or guidelines should constrain the development of these systems." "

Isn't that like saying " We know the salmonella in our eggs can cause sickness but we are going to continue selling them, however we strongly encourage discussion on whether or not this is wise.

The end is sooner than you think,

Deckard