What is free will?

Free will bundles several things together that could probably be simulated in the B.R.A.I.N.S. software.

• Attitude - An awareness of social settings and example, and the perceptions of these qualities.
  
• Personality - An emotional state that affects attitude (agree-ability).
  
• Desire - Raw factors of what one wants over actual needs (also called an ID).
  
• Drive - Determination of what one should get over what one could get (ego).
  
• Dreams and Fantasies - An imagination that inspires desire and drive (what can be done).
  
• Reason - Determines if actions are morally accepted in society and realistically acted on (super ego).

I think it would be morally/ethically sound (unless abused) if all these qualities could be manipulated (by the owner) with a 50/50 type counter (up to 80/20) but not shut off completely.
Also the robot/fembot/yumecom would have to be able to access this herself on a type of timer, like a sleep mode (I wouldn't max it out).

This would be like a parent controlling or influencing some of her child's actions and thinking until a specified time.

If this could be implemented, do you think it should be?

Uncanny Valley

I'm going back to this subject because I don't think that's the case anymore.
Any comments?

About desires and feelings ... have you heard about Singapore University works about robots that can have feelings?
They call it Lovotics.
It simulates mamal hormones and empathy/ antipathy impulses = something like love for their owners.

Gilda wrote:About desires and feelings ... have you heard about Singapore University works about robots that can have feelings?
They call it Lovotics.
It simulates mamal hormones and empathy/ antipathy impulses = something like love for their owners.

That's not really the same.
The robot is given the appearance of animal like behavior which is familiar enough to the owner that he/she will bond with it.
The robot doesn't really feel anything for it's master.

This is an old story (and videos) that broke in mid - late 2010 when a miniature robot woman was made in Japan, who's soul purpose is to hug and kiss it's master.

to discuss this, you would need to figure out what emotions are. You could go the simple route with chemical process in the brain. Love and lust are emotional responses to biological urges.
You could also go the path of mathematically modelling emotions. For those that read David Levy's book Love + Sex With Robots you would have read the quite good section where they discuss this, and even model one emotion with a simple math formula. So it is likely that that robot could be encountering emotions, in the mathematical sense of reactions based on inputs, just like our emotions are.
Considering that David Levy actually seems like a pretty cool guy, and has dropped in on other robotics forums, I'm not going to copy stuff from his book. It's cheap enough on amazon, and worth reading.

Discoman wrote:to discuss this, you would need to figure out what emotions are. You could go the simple route with chemical process in the brain. Love and lust are emotional responses to biological urges.
You could also go the path of mathematically modelling emotions. For those that read David Levy's book Love + Sex With Robots you would have read the quite good section where they discuss this, and even model one emotion with a simple math formula. So it is likely that that robot could be encountering emotions, in the mathematical sense of reactions based on inputs, just like our emotions are.
Considering that David Levy actually seems like a pretty cool guy, and has dropped in on other robotics forums, I'm not going to copy stuff from his book. It's cheap enough on amazon, and worth reading.

I don't know about love, but I was thinking about robot sex.
Many people say there will be robot prostitution by 2050.
I believe this is correct in a way, but if robots don't fill out the human equation, then I don't see it as anymore than a sex aid store.
If this is the case, would they be seen harmless enough for a sex ed. class in highschool, as if it were a remote control talking sex toy/vibrator?
Would the law say it's better than doing it with humans or that the urge to abuse sexual powers is so great, some sexbot guidelines have to be made?
This would include consensual sex during intimate events, either a child body with adult brain or an adult body with child brain can be made if wanted (depending the venue), but not a child body with a child brain.
Children under 18 may interact romantically or flirtatiously with the robot which may fuel this desire without requesting sex.
Anyone under 18 who initiates sex (definitions vary) with the robot must be stopped immediately!
Sexual encounters that are simulated online may be experienced by all ages if accompanied by parent, guardian, or older sibling.

In addition, robot incest may occur by assigning a ranking system at the store bundled in a cyber package meant just for modem/hard drive incest (hook up modems to each other and your PC, and watch while your hard drive is controlled remotely).
Typing various keys at this point will manipulate the sexual pleasures of the robot family.

Discoman is right:
How to give a "soul" to a robot?
Is it possible?
We simple don't know!
Science is not even able to know what soul really is.
So feelings and personality?
How to give it to a robot?
Simulating human feelings mechanism - wich means mathematical models about biological response to build bounds. Not only love, but friendship and also fisical atraction.
David Levyn's work is excelent, I've read his book and talked to him in a forum once. He is a very accessible researcher.
A nice guy.

Artilect,

For robot wich the purpose is to be a sexual device... costumers don't really need feelings.
Some "yes yes yes, no no no" is enough.
So, if you are talking about robot wich the main function is to make sex, I don't think a robot maker would spend money and time providing feeling to such a machine. Not really necessary or even desireable in some cases.
In some situations a sexual robot that could have feelings about it's owner could be an obstacle for some sexual fantasies and fetiches of it's owner.
And if your robot is only a sexual device, it's not necessary "consensual sex". It will be only a machine. A device like a refrigerator or a washing machine, but for sex. So, no need to so much complicated rules about it.
Only one is really necessary : "This device is forbiden for guys and girls under 18 without parental consentiment". That's all.

BUT ... if we are talking about a robot made to build bounds with it's owner, we are talking about a robot made for special purposes.
A robot made to be a friend, a companion, a caregiver and maybe sex can happen or not as an item of it's programation.

If I'd have a robot, and I want to have one in the future, I want it to be my companion, assistent, and caregiver in my old age, so if sex is possible ok, if not possible ok too. It will be present in my life and will learn from me and my family and grow in klowlege and maybe can, in this way, develop something like a "soul". ( see what say xintoists about the "soul of the objects") - Something like a "ghost in the shelf"...
I'll have a robot if I can feel that the robot is able to form bounds with me and feel, no matter if in a mathematical model, coz maybe our feelings are just mathematical too.

Artilect,

For robot wich the purpose is to be a sexual device... costumers don't really need feelings.
Some "yes yes yes, no no no" is enough.
So, if you are talking about robot wich the main function is to make sex, I don't think a robot maker would spend money and time providing feeling to such a machine. Not really necessary or even desireable in some cases.
In some situations a sexual robot that could have feelings about it's owner could be an obstacle for some sexual fantasies and fetiches of it's owner.
And if your robot is only a sexual device, it's not necessary "consensual sex". It will be only a machine. A device like a refrigerator or a washing machine, but for sex. So, no need to so much complicated rules about it.
Only one is really necessary : "This device is forbiden for guys and girls under 18 without parental consentiment". That's all.

If the fembot doesn't consent or object, this ruins the illusion of good sex, so feelings as well as desire would have to be inserted (or at least simulated) in the program.

A nice article about our current subject:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/16/artificial-intelligence-pioneer-we-can-build-robots-with-morals

Gilda wrote:A nice article about our current subject:
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/03/16/artificial-intelligence-pioneer-we-can-build-robots-with-morals

He's talking about speculating what might be rather than examine what is.
He also talks of what could have happened instead of what did happen.

This kind of thing has already been made in small scale.
Fed historic events, it sees the most likely time and place these events will repeat, in a Nostradamus manner.
Then it calculates the best way to get out of that hypothetical scenario.

He then talks of a robot with morals.
Although morals (if within occupation called "ethics") and speculation are linked, they aren't quite the same.