IBM Watson Wants Robots To Have Social Skills--Here's Why That's A Bad Idea.

We know that artificial intelligence could be a bad idea. 

We've read about, at least in this blog, the artilect wars, and Hawking and Musk signing a treaty to ban AI weaponry and warfare. 

We see a number of people warning against the development of artificial intelligence out of fear of unintended consequences. 

We have watched shows like Humans that deal with the broader issues of AI beings infiltrating our homes, becoming our nannies, friends, and even lovers. 

And yet, in spite of all the signals, in spite of all the warnings, in spite of all the knowledge we have about them, those who are building them, equipping them with consciousness and social skills and faces that are a verisimilitude of the human face, are lauded as geniuses and even creators. 

Case in point: Robert High, Chief Technology Officer of IBM's Watson Project, recently claimed at the Robobusiness show the importance of teaching robots social skills, according to MIT Tech Review. According to the article, 

"The robot, a Nao model from the company Aldebaran, spoke with realistic intonation and made appropriate hand gestures during a conversation with High. It even exhibited a little impatience and sarcasm, miming looking at its watch, for example, when asking High to hurry up with his talk." 

According to High and others it is important that robots have social skills as they are being integrated into places alongside humans, such as offices, stores, and homes. 

While since the first Star Wars movie hit theatres 35 years ago it has been every person's dream to have an R2D2 in the home, the reality of this is not so 'cute'. We have already seen how autonomous vehicles will destroy the courier and transport industries--thus wiping out jobs--; and now we are seeing technology moving deeper into human managed environments. Oh it might start off rather harmless, even sweet, with AI serving coffee and running errands; but the problem is that they're intelligence has limitless growth capability while human intelligence--even with enhancements--offers very little. 

Once these cute little robots cross the threshold of surging exponential growth, their emergence as superior beings would be incredibly fast, and would terribly disrupt human life as we know it. 

People like Robert High, Ray Kurzweil, and others know this, yet they continue to work on AI, perfect the algorithms, advance its capabilities, and gleefully anticipate its emergence as a conscious race of beings. 

If this sounds crazy to you, I suggest you take a look around at some of the blog posts here, as well as at videos like Bill Joy's TED Talk, Ray Kurzweil's Transcendent Man, Hugo de Garis, Peter Diamandis, and James Barrat's book Our Final Invention--to name only a few sources. 

This is our future. The human race as we know it, our jobs, our careers, our financial and professional security, are being undermined by technologists whose penchant for pride exceeds the necessary predilection for prudence.