Chapter 13-Figuring the Human in AI and Robotics
This chapter talks about what is humanlike and what are the differences between human and nonhuman, like animals and machines. Suchman departed from the explanation of the term of ‘figuration’，and she quoted Haraway’s arguments.
Haraway’s argument is, first, that all language, including themost technical or mathematical, is figural; that is, it is made up of tropesor “turns of phrase”that invoke associations across diverse realmsof meaning and practice.Technologies, Haraway argues, are forms ofmaterialized figuration; that is, they bring together assemblages of stuffand meaning into more and less stable arrangements.
Figuration in Euro-American imaginaries:
In the case of the human, the prevailing figurationin Euro-American imaginaries is one of autonomous, rational agency,and projects of artificial intelligence reiterate that culturally specificimaginary.
According to the figuration in the languages and technologies, I speculate that the figuration might be a unique attribute which can be used to determine which class it belongs to.
“to be human is to possess agency”
I highlighted this part in this book, and find the term of ‘intelligent agent’ is in Wikipedia:
In artificial intelligent, intelligent agent (IA) is an autonomous entity which obverse through sensors and acts upon an environment using actuators and directs its activity towards achieving goals. Intelligent agents may also learn or use knowledge to achieve their goals. They may be very simple or very complex.
I am not sure about the exact meaning of the term of figuration, but based on these contents whether we can set a standard for this boundary: we can convert nonhuman to human by giving them some human characteristics, like intelligent agent.
Based on these, Suchman further discusses three elements which is necessary for humanness in contemporary AI projects. They are embodiment, emotion, and sociality.
Before giving an example, I want to list a definition of ‘situated’ from Wikipedia. Words like situated robotics, situated cognition, and so on.
In artificial intelligence and cognitive science, the term situated refers to an agent which is embedded in an environment. In this used, the term is used to refer to robots, but some researchers argue that software agents can also be situated if:
l They exist in a dynamic (rapid changing) environment, which
l They can manipulate of change through their actions, and which
l They can sense of perceive.
(Image comes from http://www.hansonrobotics.com/robot/sophia/)
In the case of first robot, named Sophia with nationality, she looks like to have those three elements which are necessary for contemporary humanness. She can respone to external stimuli, such as talking with people and changing her facial expression, and she has human body. The important point is that when she participated in the <60 Minutes>， her performance has exceeded the controllable range of the most advanced technology and cannot be achieved. The content of her dialogue is like being set up in advance. Following website is a report about this.
According to this, which class should we classify her? Is she the humanlike of just a machine?
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