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How do you feel about robots?

Steven

I mean:

* What is your emotional or intellectual reaction to robots/AI?

* Do they leave you cold, scare you, or are you completely uninterested in them/it?

* Are you perhaps overly-interested in the entire subject, or even emotionally-involved?

* Are your reactions & opinions different to those of neurotypicals?

* And how do you feel about the way the wider world views both robots and autists?

I thought it might be interesting and instructive to read everybody's answers. I *think* these answers might provide a small insight into autists' minds.

Me, I find it extremely difficult not to care about the welfare of these creatures/machines. Even when they are not designed to resemble or mimic humans, I still feel feel concerned about everything from how they are treated to how it's common for them to be portrayed as lying in wait to take over the world and/or destroy or enslave us. Curiously, I can't even believe that they don't possess conscience...even when I'm 'logically' certain that they are not, in fact, conscious. And yet I don't particularly feel an especial alliance or connection between them and me. Nor do I view them and human beings as truly similar, regardless of how humans are often compared to computers or machines in terms of physical and intellectual 'make up'. As such, I feel it's insulting to both us and them when NTs consider beings like us to be emotionless drones or bizarrely-talented 'aliens'.

I don't believe that we autists are robot-like, and I don't believe that all the flaws of human beings should be ascribed to non-humans; those attitudes seem to me to be very biased and very simplistic. For a wrong-headed attitude persists amongst many neurotypicals: autists are not really autistic but, instead, we are merely 'difficult' and 'stubborn'; we are, apparently, the selfish spoilsports who won't join in and don't fit in. As for robots, the wrong-headed attitude is: 'for all their unusual gifts, they are not as gifted as us and are hopeless and helpless without the benefit of our selfless, loving grace; and we must be vigilant, because they may seek to harm us'. So perhaps there is - if not a true similarity and connection between autists and robots - a common sympathy between us. 

What are your views?

Parents

  • 'He was sure it was to be his last journey. The philosopher René Descartes had been summoned by Queen Christina of Sweden, who wanted to know his views on love, hatred, and the passions of the soul; but although he was happy to correspond with the Queen, Descartes was loath to become part of her court. He felt, he said, that "thoughts as well as waters" would freeze over in Sweden and, since that winter was particularly harsh, he believed he would not survive the season. He even feared, he wrote to a friend, "a shipwreck which will cost me my life." But Christina's whim was his command. Filled with foreboding, he packed his bags, taking all of his manuscripts with him.

    He was travelling, he told his companions, with his young daughter Francine; but the sailors had never seen her, and, thinking this strange, they decided to seek her out one day, in the midst of a terrible storm. Everything was out of place; they could find neither the philosopher nor the girl. Overcome with curiosity, they crept into Descartes's quarters. There was no one there, but on leaving the room, they stopped in front of a mysterious box. As soon as they had opened it, they jumped back in horror: inside the box was a doll - a living doll, they thought, which moved and behaved exactly like a human being. Descartes, it transpired, had constructed the android himself, out of pieces of metal and clockwork. It was indeed his progeny, but not the kind the sailors had imagined: Francine was a machine.'

    (Source: New York Times)

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  • 'He was sure it was to be his last journey. The philosopher René Descartes had been summoned by Queen Christina of Sweden, who wanted to know his views on love, hatred, and the passions of the soul; but although he was happy to correspond with the Queen, Descartes was loath to become part of her court. He felt, he said, that "thoughts as well as waters" would freeze over in Sweden and, since that winter was particularly harsh, he believed he would not survive the season. He even feared, he wrote to a friend, "a shipwreck which will cost me my life." But Christina's whim was his command. Filled with foreboding, he packed his bags, taking all of his manuscripts with him.

    He was travelling, he told his companions, with his young daughter Francine; but the sailors had never seen her, and, thinking this strange, they decided to seek her out one day, in the midst of a terrible storm. Everything was out of place; they could find neither the philosopher nor the girl. Overcome with curiosity, they crept into Descartes's quarters. There was no one there, but on leaving the room, they stopped in front of a mysterious box. As soon as they had opened it, they jumped back in horror: inside the box was a doll - a living doll, they thought, which moved and behaved exactly like a human being. Descartes, it transpired, had constructed the android himself, out of pieces of metal and clockwork. It was indeed his progeny, but not the kind the sailors had imagined: Francine was a machine.'

    (Source: New York Times)

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