How Human Is Human?: The View from Robotics Research (JAPAN LIBRARY Book 52) PDF
Preview How Human Is Human?: The View from Robotics Research (JAPAN LIBRARY Book 52)
Note: Japanese names appearing in this book are given in Japanese order, with the family name first. How Human Is Human?: The View from Robotics Research Ishiguro Hiroshi. Translated by Tony Gonzalez. Published by Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture (JPIC) 2-2-30 Kanda-Jinbocho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-0051, Japan First English edition: March 2020 © 2011, 2014 Ishiguro Hiroshi English translation © 2020 Japan Publishing Industry Foundation for Culture All rights reserved This book is a translation of Dōsureba hito o tsukureruka: Andoroido ni natta watashi (Shinchosha Publishing Co., Ltd.). The hardcover edition was published in April 2011, and the paperback edition, with the addition of chapters 10 and 12, in 2014. English publishing rights arranged with the author. Translation of “Über den Bergen” © Jakob Kellner. Used with permission. Cover design: Miki Kazuhiko, Ampersand Works ISBN 978-4-86658-137-8 https://japanlibrary.jpic.or.jp/ Prologue Imagine an android that looks exactly like you. I suspect just about everyone has thought of something like that at least once in their life. I certainly have. I’ve even built one. So what did I learn by creating an android that looked exactly like myself? What did it feel like? In a word, it was a far richer experience than I expected. I found that my android was not simply a recreation of my physical self, but a channel through which to consider the very essence of humanity. My android was a mirror held up to my soul, reflecting my inner self rather than my outer self. This book recounts and reflects on that experience and other encounters with androids. I am a robotics researcher. In Japanese we use a more rigid term to describe my field, “robot engineering,” but to my ears that implies a focus on simply building robots. My research aims at something broader: discovering how robots can help us to better understand humanity. For that reason, I prefer the term “robotics researcher.” Androids in particular have much to teach us about being human. Some of the experiences described in this book have already been addressed through research. Others, however, need to be more deeply investigated in the future. I wrote this book bit by bit as I performed my research, so that it became a record of my how my thinking evolved and the key issues I wanted to investigate. The chapters that follow do not simply relate previous research results; in many places they also describe in real time what I was thinking as I carried out particular experiments, along with notes about topics I will need to address in the future. When conducting android research, questions constantly arise and fade away in my mind. The book’s contents reflect that cycle. This is not a straightforward story with a clear conclusion. Some of what I have written may even sound absurd. For this, I beg your forbearance. I believe this book will show my android research to be unlike anything done in the past—unlike what could have been done in the past, even. I have discovered a world like no other, one that remains unknown even to most engineers. Some people consider me to be something of a “mad scientist,” yet when I present my research at academic conferences, I receive relatively few questions about the engineering aspects of my work. Rather, my audiences tend to ask abstract questions about its human aspects, such as what I learned through creating my androids. I suspect this is because people are more interested in the broader possibilities that androids present than in the equations behind carefully constructed experiments. By describing my own experiences researching androids, I hope to provide some guidance to other researchers in this field. I also hope to show that the possibilities inherent in androids are not limited to robotics. Androids are closely linked to other fields including cognitive science, neuroscience, and philosophy, and this can prompt deeper questions about the nature of humanity and our own identities. Even if you are not an academic, I hope this book will spark an interest in the potential of androids and provide an opportunity for us to consider our nature together. CONTENTS Prologue 1 CHAPTER FROM DAILY-LIFE ROBOTS TO ANDROIDS Research on “daily-life” robots A semiautonomous greeter robot Areas of ambiguity The human form is the ultimate form Women and children first 2 CHAPTER REMOTELY CONTROLLED ANDROIDS Creating a new self Creating another female android Choosing models 3 CHAPTER A WORLD OF SURROGATES The post-Geminoid world Life with surrogates Androids are becoming a reality in the US “You look a lot like your synth”
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