Can you love a robot?

{Spoiler}
You know, this goes back to the question about robots not being "can we love them?" but "can they love us back?"
Not the complier02/16/2019
You can program a robot to be partial to the well being of particular persons
Macecurb02/16/2019
Yeah, but in that case, does the robot actually care about said people, or does it just respond to certain parameters in a certain way?
NGnius02/16/2019
Which comes back the the question of sentience.
We'll never really know if a robot is just sentient or if the robot is just responding to parameters in the way we set it to react to them. We already have programs that can change how they respond to given parameters given feedback (other parameters). We usually call it AI, but when it comes down to it it's still a program someone wrote to function a certain way
Oriana02/16/2019
Hmm
You know, this brings up another question
Namely, if we will and do love robots now, and if it is unknowable if they love us back... Does it matter whether the answer is yes or no?
joju99702/16/2019
That veers into questions of consent.
Oriana02/16/2019
I mean, it only does if they are capable of love but don't feel it in this specific instance
Like, teddy bears are not capable of love
But it... Doesn't matter and raises no questions of consent
Not the complier02/16/2019
Consent? Of robots? No I don't think it matters. And I don't think sentience matters either in case of robots, behaviorism is good enough.
The only important question I feel is do we have any obligations towards robots. And I feel the current consensus is that we don't have obligations towards robots who don't benefit anyone. Because we do respect other peoples' property when they're alive, but not so if no one owns it. And we do take care of property we own as well. The most extreme example of an ownerless property is a dead body. And we do kinda respect dead bodies.
The Conniving Collectivist Cat02/16/2019
I think consent really does matter. Love is not a prerequisite for consciousness or sentience.
Not the complier02/17/2019
Isn't a robot just inherently consenting to whatever we program them for?
The Conniving Collectivist Cat02/17/2019
No, because consent requires choice. Consent requires an option not to.
Oriana02/17/2019
If you have access to a robot's mind... Consent is kind of a category error
Whether they consent or not is not about them, it's about what you do to them.
joju99702/17/2019
The best of them are objects that can engage in conversation, though. Watson and K, at least, deserve different standards from Alexa or Opportunity.
I guess what I’m getting at is that we can’t monolithically assign “robots” any generalizations.
The Conniving Collectivist Cat02/17/2019
Well, I'd assume in most situations ye wouldnae have the access
Oriana02/17/2019
Who is "you"?
The Conniving Collectivist Cat02/18/2019
As in, average human being with no exceptional programing skills

aka us, sans ngnius (I think he's the only programmer here at least)
Oriana02/18/2019
I don't mean that
They could be designed to need no exceptional programming skills to modify
But "us" here is some sort of user, yes?
Macecurb02/18/2019
(I wonder, would it be possible, at least in theory, to combine a self-modifying program with some kind of natural language interpreter, and have it accept instructions to modify itself?

I imagine that would be, at the very least, extremely difficult.)
NGnius02/18/2019
(On some level that's possible. Whether we can do it now or in the near future is a different [and irrelevant] story.)
To each person, aren't we "users" for everyone else?
14flash02/18/2019
(If you have a natural language interpreter that actually works, why not just have the robot learn socially instead of requiring direct feedback to be changed?)
I'm also having trouble seeing where consent plays into this. Like, I can love a person without them loving me back, right? Me having feelings towards someone or something doesn't necessitate that it has feelings toward me, nor do I need its consent to have those feelings. Consent plays more into physically acting on something.
Not the complier02/18/2019
I agree with Joju that there should be some line though for separating Robots from Things
(I don't see any such line and feel that whatever applies to a robot must also apply to rocks)
14flash02/18/2019
I think that depends. What properties of robots do you want to emphasize that aren't properties of other things?
Macecurb02/18/2019
(I mean, the line is easy enough to draw, at least vaguely. Robots are capable of affecting other things under their own power. Rocks can't.

And, sure, you could get into "well, robots need to be programmed, so does that really count as under their own power". But at the same time that would be unnecessarily pedantic when it comes to coming up with a general seperation.)
(Humans need to be born, do we do anything under our own power? Clearly the only living being that's ever affected anything on this planet was, iunno, some bacteria millions of years ago. /s)
NGnius02/18/2019
(Agreed, you can define robots and humans as some sort of automata - able to affect other things directly [throwing a rock], instead of indirectly )
14flash02/18/2019
And how does the property (being able to affect other things directly) change whether consent is needed to be loved?
joju99702/18/2019
I think those are two separate arguments.

You don’t need consent to love something, but acting on those feelings in a significant way probably requires some level of consent.

Also, within robots, there are classes. To refer to earlier, there are concierge service robots, like Siri or Alexa, then there are explorers, like Opportunity, then there are higher-consciousness robots, like Watson. To lump them together is the same as implying that Opportunity and your phone are the same thing.
NGnius02/18/2019
I agree with flash - I don't think love requires consent. For a less serious proof: "I love lamp, I love stapler" from Anchorman. Inanimate objects can be loved, which obviously can't provide consent.
Perhaps we need to distinguish love of inanimate objects from love of other beings?
Dr. Teemo02/18/2019
:open_mouth: Why would love require consent?
I reckon this might lead into a discussion on what exactly love is ... but yeah ... why do i need consent to love someone remotely?
NGnius02/18/2019
I think the idea came from mutual love - reciprocal love requires some sort of acknowledgement of it's existence to count (the whole "don't use the l-word too early" thing)
joju99702/18/2019
It’s OK to love someone without their consent or even knowledge. Acting on that love in a way that requires reciprocation means that the object of affection definitionally consents to it.
14flash02/18/2019
I'm actually going to take this an entirely different direction.

> acting on those feelings in a significant way probably requires some level of consent
I agree with this in most cases, but I'm going to bring up a case where acting on feelings doesn't require consent. When we erect a statue of, say, George Washington, because we think he's a cool guy, do we need his consent? I would say no, because he's a public figure. By being a public figure, he's kind of forced to give up some consent of people acting on their feelings of him. In the case of Opportunity (which is how this discussion began), I would again say that it's a public figure, and therefore we have some right to act on feelings without consent.
Dr. Teemo02/18/2019
I mean ... mutual love by definition demands reciprocity
But Love in and of itself does not seem to require that.
E.g. A parent might love their child, even though their child may hate them
joju99702/18/2019
But how are we acting on those feelings? Mourning it is very different from me flying to Mars, picking it up, and taking it home.
14flash02/18/2019
Taking it to your home, or just "home" as in Earth?
joju99702/18/2019
To my home.
14flash02/18/2019
Culturally, that's taboo, because Opportunity is a public figure. It's kind of an unwritten rule that we either all need physical access to it, or nobody gets it.
(Barring the feasibility of actually doing it, of course. This would be akin to digging up someone's grave and burying them in your backyard.)
joju99702/18/2019
It’s still legally property of NASA, though. Legally, NASA could go to Mars and retrieve Opportunity, and then stick it into storage.
14flash02/18/2019
Right, and like I was saying originally, we have some right to act on feelings without consent. We obviously don't have free reign to do anything we want.
Dr. Teemo02/18/2019
^
I concur :smiley: