Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
McCarthy concludes that an intelligent robot performing at the level
of a human being requires the ability to reason about its past, present and
future, and about the choices it has at its disposal. If the robot's decision
making is not deterministic, when its computations include some ran-
dom events so that we cannot be sure which way it will decide, then the
computations in the mind of the robot themselves have random and non-
deterministic interactions, resulting in the robot having free will. And
with free will, robots may not always be constrained to tell the truth—an
intriguing prospect.
The Religious Life of Robots
If robots can have consciousness and beliefs, then the question arises as
to whether robots will have religious beliefs and experiences. There has
not yet been a huge amount of research on this topic, but from 1997 to
1999 MIT ran a God and Computers project,
22
an “attempt to bridge the
gap between scientific and religious understandings of humankind”. [17]
Foerst argues on the basis of
Imago Dei
(the image of God), that
Embodied AI does not contradict the points revealed by the biblical
theory of creation. . .
...Cogisacreature,createdbyus. Thebiblical stories of creation
describe us and all living beings as creatures created by God. In
Cog, therefore, God's creative powers are mirrored. The
Imago Dei
does not distinguish us qualitatively from animals and it, therefore,
cannot distinguish us qualitatively from a machine. [18]
Foerst's somewhat provocative stance on the potential for robots to sub-
scribe to religion has attracted a certain amount of media attention in
the U.S.A., including interviews in the
New York Times
23
and on
Coast-
to-Coast AM.
24
In an earlier interview with Norris Palmer, for his 1997
article “Should I Baptize my Robot?”, Foerst amplifies on her
Imago Dei
argument to support the idea of robot baptisms.
decisions in response to certain stimuli, for example reacting to a certain sound. When the robot is
not compelled to respond to a stimulus, the randomness in its choice of actions corresponds to free
will.
22
Anne Foerst, who was founder and director of that project, is a Lutheran minister and a former
research scientist at MIT's AI laboratory, where she was “Theological advisor for the Cog and Kismet
robot projects”.
23
7 November 2000.
24
21 December 2004.
