WHEN MACHINES LEARN TO FEEL: And Humans Become Meat Robots

Scientists who build artificial intelligence are casually describing a future where humans become “meat robots” controlled by machines, while other researchers work to give those same machines the ability to fake human emotions.

Scientists who build artificial intelligence are saying things that would make most people’s skin crawl. They are talking about a future where humans become nothing more than flesh-and-blood robots controlled by machines. At the same time, other researchers are working to give robots the ability to feel emotions just like people do.

Two researchers from Anthropic, one of the world’s biggest AI companies, recently spoke about what they think is coming. Sholto Douglas and Trenton Bricken told a podcaster that the technology they are creating might turn humans into what they called “meat robots.”

Douglas worked at Google DeepMind until this year. He believes that many office workers will lose their jobs in the next two to five years. This will happen even if AI stops getting better, he said. The machines are already good enough to replace many people who work at desks.

But Bricken painted an even darker picture. He described a world where AI can do almost every job except for physical work that requires hands and bodies. In this world, humans would wear earbuds and glasses. Robot masters would watch through cameras and tell people exactly what to do with their bodies.

“You’re having human meat robots,” Bricken said. He called humans “it” instead of “them” when he spoke about this future.

Douglas tried to make his coworker’s words sound less harsh. He said the AIs might not want to control humans on purpose. But he still thinks humans face a “pretty terrible decade” as machines take over more jobs.

In this dark future, humans would only be useful for physical work that AI cannot do. People would become like workers who get hired through apps to do simple tasks. Douglas said humans make “fantastic robots” for this kind of work.

While some scientists worry about humans becoming robot slaves, others are working to make robots more like humans. A 19-year-old named Teddy Warner started a company called Intempus. He wants to give robots fake body functions like heartbeats, body temperature, and sweating.

Warner got his idea while working at Midjourney, a company that makes AI pictures. His team was trying to build what they called a “world AI” — a machine that makes decisions like humans do in the real world.

The problem with current robots is that they go straight from seeing something to doing something about it. Humans work differently. People have feelings and body reactions between seeing and acting. When humans get scared, their hearts beat faster and they might start sweating. When they feel happy, their bodies react in different ways.

“Robots don’t have physiological state. They don’t have fun, they don’t have stress,” Warner explained.

Warner thinks robots need to feel emotions to understand humans better. He hooked himself and his friends up to lie detector machines to record how their bodies react to different feelings. Then he used this data to build an AI system that can give robots emotional responses.

The young inventor has already found seven companies willing to work with him. He is now hiring workers and testing his feeling robots with customers. Warner says he might even build his own robots in the future.

“I have a bunch of robots, and they run a bunch of emotions,” Warner said. He wants people to look at a robot and immediately know if it feels happy or sad or angry.

These two stories show how AI research is moving in opposite directions. Some scientists are building machines that might control humans like puppets. Others are creating robots that feel emotions like people do. Both paths lead to a world where the line between human and machine becomes harder to see.

The scientists at Anthropic work for a company that says it wants to build safe AI. But their own words suggest they are not sure they can control what they are creating. They speak about job losses and human servants as if these things cannot be stopped.

Meanwhile, Warner’s emotional robots might seem less threatening than controlling AIs. But machines that can fake human feelings might be even more dangerous in different ways. If robots can pretend to feel sad or happy or afraid, how will humans know what is real?

Both groups of researchers are young and confident. They talk about reshaping human society as if they are discussing the weather. Douglas and Bricken casually describe a future where humans become biological machines. Warner cheerfully explains how he is teaching robots to fake emotions using lie detector data.

These scientists are not working in secret. They give interviews and post on social media about their research. They seem to believe that what they are doing will help humanity. But their own descriptions of the future they are building sound more like horror stories than helpful technology.

The speed of this research is also troubling. Warner is only 19 years old, but he already has a company and funding from Peter Thiel, a famous tech billionaire. Douglas and Bricken think major changes will happen in just two to five years. This gives society very little time to prepare for what might be coming.

Neither group of researchers talks much about stopping their work or slowing it down. They describe the future as if it cannot be changed. Douglas says humans face a terrible decade ahead. Warner says robots need emotions to work properly in human society. Both seem to accept that their vision of the future will come true.

The technology these scientists are building might help people in some ways. Emotional robots could take better care of elderly people or help children learn. AI that can do office work might free humans to spend time on more interesting activities.

But the researchers themselves seem most excited about the dramatic changes their work will bring. They do not spend much time talking about keeping humans in control or making sure the technology serves human needs. Instead, they describe a world where machines and humans switch places in ways that sound deeply unsettling.

SOURCES: https://futurism.com/robot-ai-heart-rate-sweat, https://futurism.com/anthropic-meat-robots

NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is not an AI voice. (AI Policy)