This post is inspired by an event on topics in Cognitive Psychology I participated at the Somaiya College Mumbai Campus. Many thanks to Dr Saheli Chattaraj who invited me, and Dr Ganesh Devy who presided and moderated the discussion. The comments here are the author’s own opinions on the questions raised at the event.
How are humans different from the most advanced robots?
1. Humans possess consciousness and self-awareness, including subjective experiences and emotions, which are currently lacking in robots.
2. While robots follow programmed instructions, they lack the creativity and imagination inherent in humans who can innovate and create art, music, and literature.
3. Humans exhibit sophisticated emotional intelligence, involving empathy and social skills, which is challenging for robots to authentically replicate.
4. Human learning is highly adaptive, allowing the application of knowledge in various situations and adapting to unstructured or novel scenarios, surpassing current robot adaptability.
5. Human bodies have remarkable versatility, enabling a wide range of movements and interactions, whereas advanced robots may lack the agility, flexibility, and sensory feedback of the human body.
6. Humans possess subjective experiences and consciousness, providing a unique perspective, a quality absent in robots that can process information but lack subjective experience.
7. Ethical and moral reasoning in humans involves nuanced considerations such as empathy and cultural context, a complexity not yet achieved by current robots.
8. Humans have inherent motivations, desires, and aspirations driving actions beyond programmed tasks, a quality not replicated in robots, which lack intrinsic motivations.
Which of these do humans learn by mimicry and which ones are innate?
Learned by Mimicry:
1. Social Skills and Norms: Humans often learn social behaviors, interactions, and cultural norms by observing and mimicking those around them.
2. Language and Communication: While there may be an innate capacity for language acquisition, specific languages and communication styles are predominantly learned through mimicry and social interaction.
3. Behaviors and Manners: Many behaviors, manners, and etiquettes are learned by observing others, especially during early childhood when individuals model the behaviors of their caregivers.
Combination of Mimicry and Innate:
1. Emotional Expression and Understanding: While there may be an innate basis for emotions, humans often learn to express and understand emotions through social cues, observing others' emotional responses.
2. Ethical and Moral Values: While there may be some innate moral intuitions, ethical values are often shaped by cultural and societal norms, which individuals learn through observation and socialization.
Innate Abilities:
1. Consciousness and Self-awareness: The development of consciousness and self-awareness is considered to be an inherent aspect of human cognition, emerging as a natural part of individual development.
2. Creativity and Imagination: While humans can be inspired by others, creativity and imagination are often considered intrinsic qualities that individuals possess.
3. Adaptability and Learning: The capacity to learn and adapt is a combination of innate cognitive abilities and environmental stimuli. Humans have an innate ability to learn, but the specifics depend on experiences.
4. Ethical and Moral Reasoning (to some extent): While cultural and societal norms shape ethical values, some researchers argue that humans may have an innate moral sense that guides ethical reasoning.
The development of human characteristics is influenced by both genetic and environmental factors (the classic “Nature vs Nurture debate.)” However, individual differences and cultural variations play a significant role in shaping human behaviors and traits.
What about humanity can we introduce into the Large Language Models and future AI?
Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, though from fiction, they’re a good starting point.
A variation of the Turing Test that tries to determine if the actions taken in a situation cannot be distinguished from that of a human. A human and a robot in separate rooms are given the same set of problems to solve in an hour, many tasks requiring them to perform some action within their rooms. Each room has a separate camera that records their speech and actions that are copied onto an animated character and shown to a human audience in a third location. The animated characters (e.g. Tintin and Captain Haddock) mask the true identity of the robot and the human. The test is passed if the human audience cannot guess which character is human and which is the robot no better than 50:50.
A storage media capsule of selected works of the best minds discussing the human condition that is still relevant today.