Recently, an article in Neuroscience News made some confusing claims, especially the claim that robots can have experiences in the same sense as living entities can. Lets look at some of them:

In an article from HSE University in Russia about about developing robotic intelligence based on the human brain, we read:

Today, neuroscience and robotics are developing hand in hand. Mikhail Lebedev, Academic Supervisor at HSE Universitys Centre for Bioelectric Interfaces, spoke about how studying the brain inspires the development of robots.

One identified goal is to merge biological organisms with machines, to create cybernetic organisms (cyborgs). Given that the human brain does not really behave like a computer and that many functions of human thought are non-computational, there may be limits to how far that can go. But we shall see.

We then read,

In addition, a robot can experience the sense of touch just like a human a robot can have skin, it can feel touched. And then it doesnt just move randomly in space: if it touches an obstacle, it senses it and reacts to it just like a human does. It can also use this artificial tactile information to grip objects.

Robots can even simulate sensations of pain: some forms of physical contact feel normal and some cause pain, which drastically changes the robots behaviour. It starts to avoid pain and develop new behaviour patterns, i.e. it learns like a child who has been burned by something hot for the first time.

Note how the text slides effortlessly from can experience the sense of touch down to simulate sensations of pain.

Lets be clear about this: The robot feels no actual pain. A dog feels pain if you inadvertently step on his tail. That is because he is a living creature and pain is something his self experiences.

Granted, his is a minimal self, in the sense that he lacks reason and moral choice. But it is a self. He experiences life as a dog and he has feelings and opinions generated by that experience. A robot is not alive and does not have a self of any kind. There is no known way to cause a robot to have a subjective consciousness, which the dog naturally does. So roboticists resort to fudging between simulations of feeling and actual feeling.

Further from the same article:

In addition, robots can learn from humans. A robot can perform actions in an infinite number of ways, but if it wants to mimic a human, it must observe the human and try to repeat their movements. When it makes mistakes, it compares itself with how a human performs the same action.

Yes, provided that that is what the robot was programmed to do. There is no self in there. Not in the sense that, when a puppy is trained to heel or fetch, or avoid jumping up on guests, we are communicating with his self, to instill proper social behavior. We dont program the puppy. We teach him, the way his mother would except that we teach him different things.

A robot can interact with the nervous system through a bi-directional interface: the nervous system can send a command signal to the robot, and the robot from its sensors can return sensory information to the human, causing real sensations by stimulating nerves, nerve endings in the skin, or the sensory cortex itself. Such feedback mechanisms make it possible to restore the sensation of a limb if it has been lost. They are also necessary for more precise movements of the robotic limb, since it is on the basis of sensory information received from the arms and legs that we correct our movements.

Absolutely, and the discover that the human brain can manipulate electronic signals quite efficiently if the interface is delicate enough is the most promising development in prosthetics in many decades. But, to be clear, it is the human who is experiencing the sensation; the robotics is merely obeying commands from the central nervous system.

The paper requires a subscription.

Recently, a Japanese research team created a child robot called Affetto, for which claims are made that it can feel pain. The theory is that it could help robots understand and empathize with their human companions:

Scientists from Osaka University have developed a synthetic skin that contains sensors to subtly detect changes in pressure, whether its a light touch or a hard punch. This artificial pain nervous system was then hooked up to a life-like android robot child that was able to react to the sensations using a variety of facial expressions.

At least the report put feel in quotation marks.

At Science News, we learn more: If robots can experience pain themselves, they might understand human pain better, too:

Sensors embedded in soft, artificial skin that can detect both a gentle touch and a painful thump have been hooked up to a robot that can then signal emotions, Minoru Asada reported February 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. This artificial pain nervous system, as Asada calls it, may be a small building block for a machine that could ultimately experience pain (in a robotic sort of way). Such a feeling might also allow a robot to empathize with a human companions suffering.

Agan, empathize is in quotation marks. Because, the reality, unwilling as the roboticists are to admit it, is that only life forms can empathize because only life forms can actually suffer. A robot can be programmed cleverly to appear to empathize or suffer. But there is nothing in there but programming.

The most recent project with Affetto is a body, complete with artificial skin covered-skeleton covered in the new tactile sensor.

Why do this?

Japan has already rolled out robots in nursing homes, offices, and schools as a way to deal with its aging population and shrinking workforce The theory goes that these robots will able to communicate with humans more authentically and effectively if they give the impression they are capable of feeling like us.

Life forms human, animal, plant, fungus communicate in various ways, usually with others of their kind. They are alive and they have needs. The robots will not communicate at all. They only carry out their programming. Its unfortunate if seniors living in institutions are stuck with robots for company but lets not delude ourselves about what is happening.

One person who senses this is prominent University of Southern California neuroscientist Antonio Damasio:

A robot with tactile sensors that can detect touch and pain is along the lines of having a robot, for example, that smiles when you talk to it, Damasio says. Its a device for communication of the machine to a human. While thats an interesting development, its not the same thing as a robot designed to compute some sort of internal experience, he says.

Damasio believes that it might be possible to program a robot to actually have feelings, through homeostasis. But there is no known way to give something that isnt alive the actual experiences of liveness, only ever more clever simulations.

Expect, however, to see a good deal of carefully articulated confusion on that point.

You may also enjoy: How far have we come in giving robots feelings? Pretty far in our own imagination.

and

Consumers were not buying robots as friends this year. (2018) But robotic pets are helpful for patients with dementia in long-term care. A live animal might not be safe or well-looked after in that situation.

Read the original post:
Can Robots Be Engineered To Actually Feel Pain? - Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence