[SystemSafety] A General Theory of Love

[Les Chambers]

How is it different?
I recently had a conversation with a bank teller that was only slightly above the utility of this:
http://www.manifestation.com/neurotoys/eliza.php3
It was a distinctly non-rogerian exchange though. His answer to my question, "can I deposit these three foreign currency cheques" was, "No!"
Connect Eliza to petabytes of data on banking procedures and the outcome would have been much happier. 
We want to be loved and many of us don't get enough. I solved my problem on the bank's complaint line. I found a compassionate voice. Frankly, I could care less if it was machine or human. 
Watch the movie, "Her". This is we are headed. In fact we are almost there.
Les


> On 10 May 2017, at 9:33 pm, Michael Jackson <maj at jacksonma.myzen.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> Surely Weizenbaum’s assistants felt that Eliza displayed empathy and understanding worthy of a noble and compassionate Rogerian psychotherapist? It sprang only from a smidgen of automated syntactic manipulation. How is this different? 
> 
> Regards, 
> 
> — Michael Jackson 
> 
> 
>> On 4 May 2017, at 23:37, Les Chambers <les at chambers.com.au> wrote:
>> 
>> Hi all
>> It was inevitable that engineers should turn to the theory of love. And here we are. A segment of the Australian Broadcasting Commission's (ABC) radio show, Big Ideas featured engineers and sociologists discussing the concept of robot love. 
>> Refer: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bigideas/will-my-robot-love-me-back/8490996
>> National Taipei University has active research programs.
>> Refer: Lovotics - loving robots
>> https://www.academia.edu/1258396/Lovotics_Loving_robots
>> 
>> In the ABC segment, Associate Professor of mechanical engineering from Melbourne University, Denny Oetomo reflects, "Will my robot love me back."
>> Listening to Denny you'll probably get the impression as I did that we are at the very early stages of investigation. He is followed by a psychologist who insists it will never happen. I disagree – it's essential and inevitable.
>> 
>> So, is it possible for a human being to love a robot? 
>> It's true that we tend to project human traits onto inanimate objects. Denny spoke of bomb disposal experts bringing their destroyed robots back from Iraq in harmony with the principle of leaving no one behind. They loved them. They owed them their lives. But are we stretching this concept too far? We'll see, as the emerging discipline of personality engineering gets on the case.
>> 
>> If we could pull it off the possibilities in safety critical systems engineering are eye watering. 
>> Three case studies off the top of my head:
>> Case 1: The loving annunciator. A voice in your automobile tells you to slow down. Do you take any notice? If the voice is annoying, probably not. If the voice is that of someone or something you trust, maybe. If the voice comes from someone you love, for sure yes!
>> 
>> Case 2: The caring nurse. A bedside robot wakes you up to remind you it's time to take your life-saving medicine. Irrational emotional states are a feature of sickness. In despair our mental function is reduced. Is a loving robot more likely to cut through the angst and convince you to act? 
>> 
>> Case 3: The mentor. From an early age you engage with an artificially intelligent personal digital assistant who knows everything. She is with you for every waking hour, much like Facebook is with millennials - only in a much more productive role. Through constant interaction she senses your interest in and a talent for applied science and mathematics. She prepares you for a life as an engineer from the age of 10, the point at which many career decisions are made; to the point where, when you reach university, you have pretty much covered the maths and science curriculum at some level, and not only that. From an early age you've been educated in the social responsibilities of an engineer from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics to Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning - to Lewis et al's A General Theory of Love. Through storytelling you have worked through the ethical dilemmas of hundreds of scenarios leaving you with an unshakeable belief in the social responsibilities of engineers. So you walk into the engineering workplace - a child fully formed as a professional, totally prepared for what may come - a child who views engineering as a calling not a job and, thus prepared, is physically incapable of an unsafe act.
>> 
>> All of the above is made possible by a transition in thinking from trusted systems to loved systems - systems that harness the non-verbal but incredibly powerful feeling forces of love.
>> 
>> So what is love. Shakespeare addressed it in Twelfth Night:
>> "What is love? 'Tis not hereafter.
>> Present mirth hath present laughter."
>> Denny defined it in a more abstract sense as: "The capability for emotional engagement." 
>> 
>> So what drives engagement:
>> - shared beliefs
>> - shared experiences
>> - shared goals 
>> - empathy - the perception that 'the other' cares about you and feels your pain.
>> 
>> From this drop of water can we imagine an ocean. From this early green shoot of insight can we visualise a massive boon to mankind. Getting there from here will require new science, new models, evolving what is to what can be. What do we now know from psychology that can be reduced and formalised into code? What other sources of knowledge can we apply? One rich vein of thinking that has been evolving for more than 2000 years is story theory. Especially in the area of engagement, storytellers have known for millennia that to love a story we must first engage with its hero. We must know what she wants and want her to have it. 
>> 
>> I will be discussing how story theory can be applied to engagement, persuasion, requirements capture and many other engineering tasks in a two hour tutorial: Storytelling in Engineering: Explaining, persuading, instilling belief and saving lives through Story,  at the aSCSa's Australian System Safety Conference Wed 31 May 2017 in Sydney.  The conference theme is "The evolving understanding and tools of the safety sciences".
>> http://assc2017.org/program.htm
>> 
>> Bring popcorn.
>> 
>> Cheers
>> Les
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> Les Chambers
>> Director
>> Chambers & Associates Pty Ltd
>> www.chambers.com.au
>> Blog: www.systemsengineeringblog.com
>> Twitter: @ChambersLes
>> M: 0412 648 992
>> Intl M: +61 412 648 992
>> Ph: +61 7 3870 4199
>> Fax: +61 7 3870 4220
>> les at chambers.com.au
>> -------------------------------------------------
>> 
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