Yale Creates First Self-Aware Robot?

JQuinton

Apparently a PhD candidate at the Social Robotics Lab at Yale created a self-aware robot:

In the mirror test, developed by Gordon Gallup in 1970, a mirror is placed in an animal’s enclosure, allowing the animal to acclimatize to it. At first, the animal will behave socially with the mirror, assuming its reflection to be another animal, but eventually most animals recognize the image to be their own reflections. After this, researchers remove the mirror, sedate the animal and place an ink dot on its frontal region, and then replace the mirror. If the animal inspects the ink dot on itself, it is said to have self-awareness, because it recognized the change in its physical appearance.

[...]

To adapt the traditional mirror test to a robot subject, computer science Ph.D. candidate Justin Hart said he would run a program that would have Nico, a robot that looks less like R2D2 and more like a jumble of wires with eyes and a smile, learn a three-dimensional model of its body and coloring. He would then change an aspect of the robot’s physical appearance and have Nico, by looking at a reflective surface, “identify where [his body] is different.”

What do Less Wrongians think? Is this "cheating" traditional concepts of self-awareness, or is self-awareness "self-awareness" regardless of the path taken to get there?

Apparently a PhD candidate at the Social Robotics Lab at Yale created a self-aware robot:

In the mirror test, developed by Gordon Gallup in 1970, a mirror is placed in an animal’s enclosure, allowing the animal to acclimatize to it. At first, the animal will behave socially with the mirror, assuming its reflection to be another animal, but eventually most animals recognize the image to be their own reflections. After this, researchers remove the mirror, sedate the animal and place an ink dot on its frontal region, and then replace the mirror. If the animal inspects the ink dot on itself, it is said to have self-awareness, because it recognized the change in its physical appearance.

[...]

To adapt the traditional mirror test to a robot subject, computer science Ph.D. candidate Justin Hart said he would run a program that would have Nico, a robot that looks less like R2D2 and more like a jumble of wires with eyes and a smile, learn a three-dimensional model of its body and coloring. He would then change an aspect of the robot’s physical appearance and have Nico, by looking at a reflective surface, “identify where [his body] is different.”

What do Less Wrongians think? Is this "cheating" traditional concepts of self-awareness, or is self-awareness "self-awareness" regardless of the path taken to get there?

It occurs to me, one of the best possible things that can happen here is if the first self-aware AI is in a robot, and not too too smart. Why?

We would expect that such a robot be social, in ways that we wouldn't demand of a server rack. This would more readily expose any unfriendly elements of its programming (and unless the problem is a whole lot easier than it seems, there will be some).

So far, robots have been given the benefit of the doubt because they're obviously complicated appliances. Once that no longer applies - once it's past 'Wow, you're really good at imitating a person' and into 'Do I like you' territory - then we will naturally begin applying different standards to them.

On the other hand, it could be that friendliness sufficient for such limited AIs does nothing for a superintelligence. Even so, I think that this would raise the profile of the problem, give it more mindshare, and generally help.

There is something entertainingly ironic about this sentiment being expressed on an online forum.

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Yale Creates First Self-Aware Robot?

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Yale Creates First Self-Aware Robot?

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