Professor Rosalind Picard - Founder of Affective Computing, MIT HARDtalk

on the content of the phone call she had with President Obama. That would

have been ironic. Now it's time for HARDtalk. Welcome. Imagine a world

where robots can think and feel like humans. One pioneering scientist in

this field has advanced the capability of computers to recognise

human emotions. My guess today is the American Professor Rosalind

Picard from MIT. Could robots fitted with intelligent computers perform

tasks like caring for the elderly or fight as soldiers on the

battlefield? What would be the ethical implications of that?

Rosalind Picard, welcome to HARDtalk. Thank you. How have you

managed to make computers read human emotions? Computers are now able to

see our facial expressions, listen to a vocal changes, and in some

cases we can wear them as sensors that can read our physiological

changes. That's the thing that looks like a sweat band on your wrist.

Yes, it is one of several centres and testing rate now. How does it

work? How does a computer recognise whether you are sad, happy, board?

The first thing we do is understand that people feel comfortable

communicating in a certain situation. If they are comfortable

having a camera look at them, see if they are smiling, frowning, looking

interested, if you're out looking around and there is no camera

looking at you but you want to sense what is going on inside your body,

you might wear a censor. What about the computer itself expressing human

emotions? Is that possible? Computers have been able to smile a

change their tone of voice for along time. Ranging from either the ``

Marvin the paranoid android two Macintosh. But actually have

mechanisms of emotions remains a challenge. And when we are talking

about emotional intelligence computer might have, that is the

area you are working on? Yes, we want computers to have emotions that

are annoying or four dramatic rise attainment purposes, but that are

smart about entertaining with so they are less frustrating for to

deal with. But how can you measured whether a computer is displaying

emotional intelligence? I don't know if you remember when Microsoft had a

little paperclip software. A lot of people connected to go away. They

headed Helen looked so happy when they were having misfortune. That

was a sign of failure. Yet it had a lot of intelligence underneath. But

not knowing when to smile and when not to smile or something that

didn't work. What we will see when it succeeds in having emotional

intelligence is that people will want to interact with it more. It

won't be that the emotion looks like it's there, it will just feel like

the interaction is smarter and nicer. You mentioned a

groundbreaking aspect `` affective computing. You say we must give them

the ability to recognise, understand and express emotions. Why would you

want to do that? It's hard to say when you see most robots in the home

that are just vacuum cleaners. Are you talking about putting this

emotional intelligence computer inside a machine, robber with limbs

that can walk? `` robot. That is the easiest example for people to

understand. You are in the living room and the robot comes in to clean

up. It makes a noise and distracts you in some way, your national

response might be to scale at it" in its direction. If it doesn't see

that you don't like what it's doing, maybe apologise and slink off, you

feel irritated. Over time as it keeps ignoring your desires, are

going to want to get rid of it. He jumped on stage you. You're saying

how we respond to this robot doing your cleaning for you. You have

written about how are likely to play a central roles in our lives the

future. You comfortable with your research and forbidding to this

field? `` contributing. I think it's vital that we make interactions with

these machines much smarter. Many people are familiar with how smart

phones work, or a few glasses and it pops up your messages there, it's

kind of insensitive. The natural way to indicate a computer at the idea

is to do better is to show a negative piece of feedback, a frown

or head check. If it with that and uses it to learn how to do a better

job of presenting things at the right time, that is smart. How

quickly do think we will get to this area or robots to play a central

role in our lives? Many people say by 2015 this is going to be a $50

billion industry. Timing is driven by the people driving the business.

The dollar is on the marketing and all that. I more on the science

side. That has progressed enormously. It goes much faster as

we are able to get more people interested in sharing their data.

Sharing their emotions, turning on their cameras and giving the

computer feedback. Some people are saying that within a decade... There

is a project at Birmingham University to create ahead with two

blinking eyes for humans to interact with. At easier than a sort of TV

screen. He says within a decade we will see humans interacting with

robots. We have had them in a lab for a while. You can come to MIT and

interact with robots that have a similar sale. Taking them to the

market of people 's homes is a different thing. I would hope so,

but... We already have some technology that is out there are

now, but if you opt in and turn on your camera it can read your facial

expressions and you can then let the maker of a video or advertise me

know if you like what they are showing you or are offended by it or

confused. Or just bored. So a lot of people share your ambition. In the

UK, in Scotland, the chief executive for the national health service,

Gordon Jensen, has a project called off, which is about Robert topping

with the care of patients with dementia. `` robots helping. Would

you want to see a robot performing their duties of medical personnel? I

don't think we are going to completely replace doctors and

nurses. I think we'll still want the human element. That said, there are

some places where people are already showing that they prefer software

agents there are put in a computer body and roles in. It has shown that

when patients are being discharged and given a budget of structures,

they prefer to hear it the instructions from a character on as

screen than from a human being. He said it is not to replace doctors

and nurses, but you don't have to a robot. For institutions that have to

make sure that they balance their books, it is going to be attractive,

isn't it? To replace a large number of their medical personnel, if they

can, with robots don't have to be paid. I think we will see us than

replacing some of the more brought and boring tasks that just require a

lot of patient examination of information. The software can give

you instructions and if you don't understand it can look a little

concern and repeat it with infinite patience. A nurse was already late

for her next task might not have that patients. But you can't

guarantee that they will only be used in that restricted way. When

people are entitled kinds of things can happen. And people will still be

entitled to lead the robot take over, but I don't see that

happening. There is a prediction that companies will soon sell robots

designed to babysit children and the service companions to people with

disabilities. She says this is demeaning and transgressive to our

collective sense of humanity. I share some of her concerns. When you

go to a nursing home and they have just handed somebody an artificial

animal to parents keep them happy. That is pretty insensitive. I would

not have wanted to leave that was my father when he was close to death. I

wanted him to be with humans. At the same time, if somebody chooses, and

you see this with kids who choose to comfort themselves stroking their

stuffed animal, if very soothing. And if it kind of wiggles and cosies

up to them in a comfortable way with a sense of their stress, there is a

sweet spot for something there that can augment what we can do is

humans. But the idea of artificial companionship becoming a new norm,

she is alarmed by that. I think if you are trying to replace all of us

without official stuff, I don't see it happening in the next decade. I

remember years ago, my friend Marven, one of my colleagues, said

the computers will be so smart that we will be lucky if they keep us

around as pets. I was bothered by that. I don't want to make that kind

of computer. If we make that then maybe we deserve to be demeaned by

that which we have created. We have choices as technology creators. My

choice is to make technology that enables us to expand our compassion

and emotional intelligence. But that is a real worry, the computers and

robots could become superior to humans. It's not just the stuff of

science fiction. It is. It is a choice that we make. You don't think

it's possible? It's our choice. Do we choose to make them that way? I

did a mass, I do the programming that creates the way that they

function. If I choose to make them arrogant and demeaning towards us, I

suffer from making something like that. You are saying it's not

desirable, but I am asking if it is feasible. Professor Hugh Price in

the UK, he says the scientific community, people like you, which

consider such issues. He says as robots and computers become smarter

than humans we could find ourselves at the mercy of machines that are

not malicious but whose interests don't include us. I see the

temptation to scout. They are going to be smarter than us, their

interests don't include us. Deep inside that, what is that really

mean? What is a need to be smart? Is it simply is holding more

mathematical equations? Picking things up on the Web faster? The

choice we have is how do we make them into the kind of future that we

want to have? This is one of the focus is that we have, why we have

shifted from looking at making technology that is more intelligent

and we are, to looking at making things that increase our

intelligence. The idea of people attaching themselves to these

artificial creatures, and the possibility of them becoming smarter

and superior to us. The point I'm trying to get to hear, is under the

umbrella of an issue that you yourself have raised, which is the

greater the freedom of a machine, in more it will need moral standards.

And in this field, in which you are so closely involved, we need ethical

guidelines, don't be? I agree. As computers get more abilities to make

decisions without our direct control, we have two face some hard

questions about how they are going to make those decisions, and do we

bias them toward one kind of reference and away from another? In

accord with perhaps my values, or someone with very different values

to me, wants to see them make decisions in a different way. Are

you involved in these kind of ethical discussions yourself? Or are

you just involved in the technology that is going to bring about better

computers that have emotional intelligence and robots? I am

involved. When I wrote my book, some people said, why did you include a

chapter about potential concerns of the technology, it hasn't even

launched yet, it's like shooting yourself in the foot before you have

taken the first ten steps. It is important that we think about what

we can build, but also about what we should build. You say short, but I'm

tried to get an idea of how concerned you are. Another colleague

of yours, the Professor of personal robots, says, now is the time to

start hammering things out. People should have serious dialogues before

these robots are in contact with vulnerable populations in

particular, she says. Are you involved in the serious dialogues.

And there you mentioned it in your book, Effective Computing, are you

perhaps preoccupied with the technological aspects, and not doing

enough on the ethical field? There is so much to do, we can always

wonder where to put the limited resources of time. I think the

dialogues need to be much broader than those of us building the

technology. We need to be involved, because ultimately we are the ones

making those programme decisions, but they really need to be societal

dialogues. So, kudos to you for raising this to an audience. The big

thing that really worries many people is the lethal autonomous

Robotics, that can kill targets without the involvement of human

handlers. Peter Singer, who is an expert on warfare at the Brookings

Institute, says the robot warrior raises profound questions from the

military tactics you use on the ground, and also the bigger ethical

questions like the ones we are discussing. It is kind of detached

killing. We send out something to do it for us, and somehow it enables us

to pull back emotionally. A machine on the battlefield deciding whether

a human combatant should live or die. That is really quite repugnant

to a lot of people. You have to realise that the algorithm the

machine is using to decide is an algorithm that a bunch of people got

together and said how we make the best decision possible, given all

the information that a machine and a person with sensors could sense?

Just like future cars may be able to drive with fewer accidents, being

100% vigilant with great sensors, it may be that in the future a robot

deployed to site where a future is, may have more medical expertise to

make a life`saving decision than the first soldier to arrive. So, you

say, get the technology right. You don't believe in the American winner

of the Nobel Peace Prize for her work against landmines, who says,

killer robots loom over our existence, if we don't take action

to ban them now, she is very concerned. You agree? There are

several countries around the world also researching that? We wish there

was no war, and that everyone could sit down and play computer games

instead of taking peoples lives, so I would certainly be on the side

of, why don't we put as much money into alternative is to help people

get along, and to show off their prowess in some way besides

murdering each other. Would you like to see a moratorium? I would like to

see the huge amount of resources that are sunk into weapons being

sunk into technology that helps people live healthier, more

fulfilling lives. Especially people with limited abilities, extending

their abilities to live a better life. But, you know, your research,

as I said, you are one of the pioneers in this field, is enabling

the killer robot, the warrior robot, whatever you want to call it. If you

are to give such a robot a sense of compassion and caring for people's

feelings, then it might deliberate out there about the killing, instead

of the dis` topic science`fiction... Can you do that?

Because machines lack of morale at the end mortality, and as

Christopher Haines says, as a result they should not have life`and`death

powers of the human. They've lack of morale at the end mortality. You

saying they don't? Or they want? It depends on the bias is that we

programme them with. If we programme them to value human life, perhaps,

maybe the military is going to programme them to take human life,

somebody hacks the squadron of robots to actually disobey the

military and to value human life, there is a tantalising thought,

right? It is much harder to hack a group of human soldiers who have

sworn their allegiance, then a group of machines. That is a new kind of

risk that they face, that the machines may become disobedient. Are

you not really delving into the realms of creating humanoids, in a

way? You are saying that these machines have work, they are not

worthless, you then given dignity? And, if you give them dignity, then

you have to give them morals, as you say, so they can make decisions when

they are on the battlefield for instance. And for someone who

started life as an atheist, but then as an adult became a committed

Christian, is it not worry you that you are creating humanoids? I am not

worried about making machines that have humanlike characteristics.

There are a lot of questions in there. I think we, as we try to

build something, it is a way of trying to understand something. As

we try to build a computer vision system it is trying to understand

how our own eyes work, which turns out to be pretty amazing and

miraculous, and we still don't fully understand it. We opened them and

they work, and you think it is pretty easy. As we build a combo

Katie Gee and then, which, by the way, we are very far then, from

doing that `` build a complicated human being. It is learning about

how we are made. You are referring to your belief that God made us, and

you are in or of that. I don't deny what biology has shown, with

genetics and the evolutionary process, the science I have no

problem with. You don't want to be put in the tight category of a

creationist versus evolution is. Think they are false categories, I

don't know anybody who fits into those categories. What science

doesn't show is why we are here, what gave rise to the first

particles, the first forces. You think that when somebody like

Richard Dawkins says, one of the truly bad effects of religion is

that it treats us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not

understanding, should you, as a good scientists, say, there are no limits

to what I can understand as a scientist, in order to be a really

good scientists. I'm afraid his comments are misleading to people,

and he speaks with authority that he really doesn't have, to make claims

like that. It is not that these are in opposition, they address

different things. Science addresses what we can measure, what is

repeatable, it gives us mechanisms for describing something. It is a

very powerful way to understand things. I don't believe we should

take something that we don't understand scientifically, and just

say, a miracle happened and God did it. That is called the God of the

gaps, and I don't practice that. He needs to see that there are plenty

of scientists who are actually quite devout Christians, and it is not

incompatible. Finally, I should say that the research that you have

worked on is being used in the area of trying to help autistic people,

and people who have difficulty recognising human emotions, and so

on, and there is a lot of work being done in that area. But, as the

mother of three young, energetic boys, would you like to have a robot

helping you in your duties, as well as that of their father, to help you

bring them up? I would love to have a robot in the house to help out.

Tasks like helping clean up, and nagging them to make them do some

more sometimes. I have three amazing sons and an incredible husband who

all work together to get through each day. But a robot would be

welcome, we would rather have a robot then a dog or a cat. Thank you

for coming on HARDtalk. My pleasure. Had hope you made the most of

today's dry and bright weather, because it will all change overnight

tonight. It will be much cloudier, wetter, and windy conditions. You

can see why. This massive