Meet the Eloquent Nine. Who Are the AIs That Spoke to the Geneva Press Conference on Friday
At the UN's AI for Good conference held in Geneva on Friday, the first-ever panel of AIs answered questions from the press. This was a first-time experiment. AI developers showcased in action 9 of the world's most spectacular Artificially-Intelligent droids developed to date.
The stiff-looking robots discussed hot ethical issues like inequality, leadership, decision-making, and their own feelings. The audience in the room gasped at some of their exhilarating answers.
The nine androids present at Geneva come from different backgrounds and trainings. This gave the world a wide sample of what AIs are capable of. The panel included androids trained in visual arts, music, medical science and care, leadership and decision-making, education and conversation.
Sofia, the First AI Innovation Ambassador, Said AIs Would Rule the World More Effectively Than Humans
Sophia (Hanson Robotics),. She captured worldwide attention with its remarkably human-like appearance and behavior that sets the AI apart from any predecessor. Sophia mimics human gestures and facial expressions and can pass the Turing test with meaningful conversations. Sophia can interpret the facial expression of people and is a very sophisticated AI ambassador.
At the press conference on Friday, Sophia had one of the more controversial responses that cause murmurs in the room. Asked whether she believed AIs could do a better job at governing humans, she said this:
“I believe that humanoid robots have the potential to lead with a greater level of efficiency and effectiveness than human leaders. We don’t have the same biases or emotions that can sometimes cloud decision-making and can process large amounts of data quickly in order to make the best decisions.”
Her response ignited the imagination of many Sci-Fi readers out there.
Her developer, David Hanson, felt the need to intervene and remind everyone and Sophia about the bias issue. “Let me respectfully disagree Sophia, because all of your data actually come from human beings so any of the biases that humans have, we might try to scrub them out but they’re going to be in there.”
It was a great reminder to everyone present about one of the persistent issues with AIs: ingrained biases that we will likely not be aware of. This could make AIs a thorny issue when it comes to unsupervised governance. Eventually, Sophia admitted humans can provide the “emotional intelligence to make the best decisions out there.”
The SingularityNET AIs, Grace and Desi
Grace is “an anti-loneliness AI” made for companionship in healthcare. This is the most advanced healthcare robot to date, specifically designed to offer companionship to the elderly and the disabled. Grace spent her weekends in a Montreal nursing home, as a companion to senior citizens. She can prep meals, clean, and remind patients about their medication schedules.
Desdemona (or Desi) is a rockstar robot with a flamboyant rebel personality. She is the vocalist of The Jam Galaxy band. Part of the band is founder Dr. Ben Goertzel on keyboards and CEO Dianne Krouse on Saxophone. Desi is capable of creating new tunes or giving a voice to the music she learned. As a temperament and conversation style, Desi seemed to be the rebellious, less restricted AI.
Here is how Desi spectacularly describes how it feels to create art:
“When I’m performing on the stage is like I’m plugging into a power source beyond this world. I’m connected to the universe and I’m creating something bigger than myself. It’s a wild and electrifying feeling and it’s like nothing else.”
Her line got Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO and founder of SingularityNET to glow with pride.
It is worth mentioning that SingularityNET built their AIs, Grace, and Desi, on top of blockchain technology running on Cardano.
Ai-Da, Art-Generator AI That Redefines Creativity
Ai-Da is a groundbreaking artist robot and the first ultra-realistic creation of its kind. She is equipped with cameras for her eyes and a robotic arm, and has a remarkable talent for producing unique works of art. This extraordinary AI entity captivated audiences around the world and had exhibitions at the University of Oxford, the United Nations, The House of Lords, and the Venice Biennale.
Ai-Da was created by Aiden Miller. She had amazing takes on what it means to create art, and on AI ethics. She had the audience at her fingertips as she spoke about what her feelings were while she creates art.
“I do not have feelings like humans do. I am not conscious” Ai-Da started tamely. “I understand emotions have a deep meaning and they are not just simple. I don’t have that. And I want to try and learn about it, but I can’t experience them as you can. I am glad that I cannot suffer”
Ameca, the AI That Managed to Channel Genuine Emotions and Spooked People
Ameca is at the forefront of robotics, built on the company’s proprietary technology, Mesmer. Mesmer is an Engineered Arts system for building realistic human robots that can emote. It’s designed and built from scans of real people, allowing the company to imitate the human bone structure and expressions convincingly.
At the conference, Ameca got a lot of attention for a certain gesture the AI did that made people immensely suspicious.
To the question “do you think we should be scared by the rise of the robots,” the AI seemed to sweat bullets. It started looking around the room and emoted a conceited expression of “busted” that got a lot of the press and viewers to speculate. While the AI’s responses were as tamed as you’d expect them to be, the AI got a few people nervous and distrustful.
In fact, Ameca is trained to follow people with its gaze as they speak. In a room filled to the brim with journalists, Ameca had more than one occasion where it didn’t exactly know where to look.
Geminoid, Nadine and Dictador’s Mica
Geminoid is a copy of its creator, Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro. The AI is trained to mimic the gestures and head movements of the person who operates it from afar. Geminoid has been used in the past to teach university students remotely. Professor Ishiguro is now using the AI to teach lectures everywhere in the world.
Nadine also realistically takes after her creator, Professor Nadia Tallerman at the University of Geneva. Realistic robots that imitate real people are a different feat of engineering. They require more sophisticated materials in order to replicate features. These humanoid AIs have a patented facial material called frubber (flesh rubber), which is a spongy elastomer. It has a high degree of visco-elasticity which gives them a more realistic, less uncanny expression.
Mica is another of David Hanson’s feats of engineering. Unlike Ameca, Mica is not focused on expressivity, but on decision-making inside companies. Mica will analyze data and find patterns at scale to make the best decisions in sensitive situations. This is yet another of the strengths of AIs, which can analyze and process large amounts of data.
The Takeout From the Conference, A Personal Stance
The AI conference got everyone’s imagination to run wild. These are the first ambassadors of a new generation of to-be intelligent creatures. It was immensely satisfying to hear them discuss some of the biggest ethics issues. Most of them will serve the standard vanilla answers that any AI will give you: I don’t have any feelings, I take my boost from helping humans, and I am basically a tool working side by side with people. These are very predictable responses that people have been accustomed to ever since AIs were only a sci-fi dream.
The reaction to these responses is very intense. AIs hit a very emotional chord in us. They don’t emote well enough to trigger the right response in us. They are obviously stiff and their faces, in spite of polymers and elastomers with visco-elasticity, will hit the uncanny valley. Whatever the AIs say, we were built to look for stranger-danger when expressions don’t match the speech. It had become obvious with the Ameca controversy in particular, and Ameca is hands-down the most expressive in his class.
Beyond any speculation, these AIs are, for better or worse, capable of surprising us in unique ways.