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Today, I'm speaking with Eve Harreld about her recently published book, Robots and the People Who Love Them, holding on to our humanity in an age of social robots. Eve is a science writer and consultant and director of policy research and education for the HealthSpan Action Coalition. Robots and the People Who Love Them are an especially relevant book today, especially in the wake of the recent release of chat GPT-40, the most advanced chatbot to date. Understanding the evolving human-robot relationship is of necessity as it promises to expand at a rapid pace. And engaging in highly readable exploration. Eve's book is a wild ride through humanity's changing nature. Eve, thanks for joining me today on the New Books Network. Thanks for having me, Caleb. Of course, you know, this book, it was really, really fun to read. I think you just constantly do a great job of bouncing around, you know, looking at both academic studies, but also, you know, working in really fun stories that are just extremely memorable. It's always fun to read this sort of writing. But, you know, before talking about the book, I just want to just tell us a little about yourself and your background. Well, I've had a long history as a science writer and also as communications and other type of executive in the medical and scientific non-profit sector. I spent about 30 years in Washington, D.C., working for various scientific non-profits. And also have written, this is my third book. My first book was on the subject of stem cell research. The second one was called Beyond Human, and that was on medical implants and enhancements that are implanted into the body and that work in concert with the body and can actually, like, either cure disease or actually enhance our performance. So, and now my latest book is on robots. I got interested in robots as I was working on the last few chapters of my last book because I kept coming across and my research mentions of caregiving robots that were socially interactive, and that just really captured my imagination. And because it just kept creeping into the research here and there, I decided that I would have to do my next book on that. So, that's what I buckled myself in and did this last time. I also have published a lot of articles that have been published pretty widely in mostly scientific publications. So, I'm very busy, as you can imagine. Writing about science today is an never-ending challenge because the developments are coming at you hard and fast. And, you know, I mean, just staying on top of what's going on with AI and robotics has been a challenge. But an exciting and fun one too. Yeah, certainly. I mean, I think I speak for many people that every time there's a new chatbot or new AI announcement, I just immediately check it out. It's just such a fascinating topic. I think, you know, something that gets obviously lost in a lot of it is there's such a focus on the tech that we forget about, the fact that, you know, it's going to have a profound impact on human lives. And I think that's what's really important about this book is that you really have that as center stage. You look at the humanistic element. That's what fascinates me, Caleb, is how these technologies are affecting society and changing, you know, everything from our day-to-day lives to our relationships and how we relate socially. I mean, when you look at some of the recent technologies, fairly recent, like social media, for example, it's completely changed people's lives. The way they get information, the way they maintain friendships and social life and dating and all the rest of it. So that's kind of where my fascination is, is science and society just, you know, this interplay that's just kind of transforming the world every day that we live. Yeah, absolutely. You know, which thing that you talk about in something that you talk about in the beginning of the book is that for years, robots living among us, it seemed like the stuff of science fiction. But as you demonstrate robots, they're already all around us. There's robots on the internet, there's robots, you know, in person, you know, is it working as traffic, you know, helping to help the flow of traffic? You know, the list really goes on. I wonder if you'll just give us a little rundown on the current state of human robot relations and a little bit of what you learned and talk about in that first chapter. Well, the first thing I think that I learned is that this is something that's coming at us a lot faster than we seem to think. You know, when you look at the implementation of robotics and all around us, and when I say robotics, I use that loosely, whether they're embodied or whether they're online bots, chat bots. You know, they're really kind of insinuating themselves into almost every nook and cranny of life. I mean, you know, they do all kinds of things now. But I'm really interested in the human robot interaction and how they can, the services that they can provide because they have this amazing ability to be interactive. And, you know, because the interface now is the spoken word and we will train our robots. We train them by what we tell them. And so they keep track of everything that we tell them. They remember it for future reference. They incorporate it into their future communications with us. You know, they learn, we're programming them almost unconsciously without even thinking about it. And making them very exquisitely compatible to us. So that's the thing about social robots that I think is so incredibly seductive is that the longer you interact with them, the more they become really intricately attuned to you and your taste and your interest. And, you know, on a level that it would be very hard for a human being to keep up with. So that's what fascinates me is that potential there. And it's also a little concerning because, like I said, it's hard for a human being to, first of all, to remember everything that you tell them. And second of all, to be as endlessly accommodating because these robots are made to be, you know, very pleasing, very accommodating, very pleasant, conversational. And that's something that human beings can't keep up 24/7 the way a robot can, unfortunately. So there is some concern about the displacement of human relationships or maybe just a gradual, you know, shift in the relationships that we depend on from real relationships to artificial ones. And I think we're primed for that. I think we're completely primed for that. And I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. And I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. And I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. I think it's a little bit of an interesting thing. I think this notion of social robots and how they can impact people's ability to, you know, maybe become a more emotionally aware, more intelligent that a robot could actually help a person become maybe more human in a way. I was going to talk about that and some of the research that you look at there. Yeah, so, you know, it's really interesting because it's a double-edged sword here. There are people who, well, I mean, I'll mention the case of programs for autistic children. There are robots that do, you know, autistic therapy, so to speak with children. And they will teach them basic social skills that these children really have a hard time with. That's things like turn taking and, you know, listening when someone is telling you something and responding appropriately, making eye contact and all the rest of it. And that seems to work really well with autistic children. There's been studies on this and they find that the children, you know, to some extent, in some ways, they do better than they would with a human counselor. And the reason because that, because of that, is that there's a lot of noise in human relationships. And the noise in our minds that we hear is a level of tension that's based on fear of judgment. And unfortunately, autistic people have that in spades. They have a very amplified fear of judgment and intimidation around people, which makes it hard for them to do things like even make eye contact. And so when they're interacting with the machine, the idea of judgment is completely removed from the equation. And this allows them to relax and relaxing allows them to learn. And they can make progress here and it's a valuable thing. And I think that's a very valuable use of some social robots. But there are also people who just for whatever reason, and you're talking to really think about emotional intelligence here is what we're kind of getting into. Who don't have the kind of family or social milieu that allows them to develop healthy emotional intelligence skills. And robots are primed and programmed to respond and interact in ways that are not abusive, that are not dysfunctional. And, and that sounds really, really simple and rudimentary, but the reality is there are any number of people, probably a great number of people who could use that kind of interaction to help them get in touch with themselves to understand their own emotions to learn to to learn to relate in a healthy way. And I think there's a role for that too. Yeah, I imagine, you know, you have a, a, an AI chat bot that has studied the entire corpus of psychology research, and you could freely access it instead of having to go and, you know, pay $400 an hour to, to a specialist. Obviously, you know, I can imagine it'd be extremely valuable whether or not it's, it's a supplement or, or just a supplement or it's a total replacement. I think that's still very much to be seen, you know, a lot of it obviously depends on how smart these robots can get and also what that even means. Can you tell us today how smart are the smartest robots obviously by the time this goes live, it might have completely changed. Well, you know, that's, that's a very interesting question and it's a very active debate in the science philosophy community because, you know, there, there are people who are on a spec there's a belief system that's on a spectrum where there are people who think that robots are as smart or smarter than human beings, or not as smart and never will be as smart. So, let me just give you my take on it Caleb. They're robots are excel at certain types of intelligence and the type of intelligence that they excel in is computational intelligence mathematical logical computational intelligence. And if you're worried about a robot being smarter than you in this respect, they've already left us in the dust, because they're wizards. I mean, they're wizards at computation. On the other hand, human beings have a whole palette of different types of intelligence that robots don't have. And I personally question if they ever will have and one of them is in tell is emotional intelligence. You know, while a robot can emulate emotional intelligence, it's only doing and saying what it was programmed to do. So it doesn't have an inner voice. It doesn't have the gift of introspection that we have that really leads us into greater emotional intelligence. So that's really kind of a transactional computational interaction at its base. There are also other types of there's musical creative moral, you know, kinetic, even spiritual types of intelligence that so far robots don't seem to have. And I don't see in the technology in the current technology that I'm familiar with with neural nets and large, large language modeling and things like that. I don't see anything in the actual technology that would, you know, lead to some kind of tipping point where they would suddenly have like a true emotional intelligence or true moral intelligence. I think that is an area. That, that for the time being and I, you know, I, I qualify that for the time being is a human skill that robots don't have the capacity for. It's not a matter of giving them more computational power to do that because if you, if you did give them more computational power, you would be giving them more computational intelligence. So to have a different type of intelligence completely, you would need a different technology, a different in kind, not just in degree, if that makes sense to you. I mean, and there are people there are science philosophers who believe that with a certain level of computational power that at some point robots are going to turn the corner and become conscious. You know, again, that that's another thing that's that's a lively debate in the scientific community, which is a fascinating debate to follow if you ever want to start googling that. But again, you know, I'm skeptical of a robot consciousness, you know, just because of the same reason that I'm skeptical that they'll ever have true emotional intelligence. You know, because again, computation doesn't, it mimics part of what our brains do, but it doesn't take on everything that our brains do. I think human uniqueness is still safe for the time being. It's that time of the year, your vacation is coming up. You can already hear the beach waves, feel the warm breeze, relax and think about work. You really, really wanted all to work out while you're away. Monday.com gives you and the team that peace of mind. When all work is on one platform and everyone's in sync, things just flow, wherever you are, tap the banner to go to Monday.com. Right, like, even just to connect what you were saying earlier before about, you know, the value that these, you know, that a chatbot, for example, might have for helping someone develop emotional intelligence. It's still doing a computational model based on things that, you know, it's a corpus of information that's studied from humans already. So it's just, it's good, it's effective at trotting out the information that humans have already produced instead of necessarily creating its own information when it comes to helping people there. Exactly right. And I don't want to, you know, diss that to either, because there's a role for that kind of service and, you know, and it can be very helpful up to a point. But I think the real point that we need to make here is that you need to have a demarcation line in your mind between what is real and what is artificial. And to realize that, for example, in the case of children, autistic children having an autism therapist that's a robot, that will help them probably tremendously up to a point. And then, but it won't help them past a certain point when they need to transfer those skills into the human arena. And I ran into that theme again and again throughout the book, you know, of the different functions of robots, that they can be very helpful up to a point. But the trick of it is to do to use them effectively and to use them in a healthy way is to be able to determine when, you know, you've gotten what you're going to get out of that robot you've gotten all the growth and all the learning and whatever you're going to get out of that, that robot, and you need to transfer those skills to the human, you know, to the human world. And that's, and that's more of a challenge than you might think. Certainly. Yeah, it's, it, it seems like making, making the leap, as you said, like that, you know, the humans are have such a level of complexity beyond just mere intelligence. It's, it's obviously so hard to replicate it that it's a, it's a, it's a difficult leap. You know, I'm interested just kind of continuing in this, this vein about the ways in which, you know, robots can help ways that they are that social robots can help make people's lives better. You know, there's really no mistaking at the world has a loneliness epidemic, obviously. This is something I've been fascinated by for quite a while one of my favorite books is Robert Putnam's book, Bull in the Lone, where he talks about the decline of social capital. And a lot of what he pins it on is the rise of television and technology that these tools that we have these these, you know, these robots make it so that we don't necessarily interact as much with people but but you talk about how robots can actually help with the loneliness epidemic in the future. So how do you see this, this, this working? Well, I think, you know, there's a role there again, you know, it's that again, of course, it's a double edged sword and, and you know, we can talk about that too, but there's a definite role. I mean, like you said, there is a loneliness epidemic in the world. Strangely enough, it's it's more prevalent among young people in most countries than it is in older people. And we tend to kind of stereotype and think that, you know, young people are all socially connected and they have all these friends and all that. But that's really not the case in a lot of countries. You have places like Japan where, you know, the levels of isolation are really, really high, very small percentages of young people even date. They're more comfortable with relationships with technology. And, you know, they, they actually have a have, I'm sure you saw in the book, there are people in Japan who have developed intense relationships with holographic figures and, you know, and computer program characters. And I would say to those people if they're truly isolated to the point where they're where their basic social skills are at your fame. And they have some little companion to talk to whether it's electronic or not, whether it's real or not. There's a plus side to that and I think there are people who can benefit from that. And then we do have to, you know, draw the line and say, okay, when is it not healthy. Now another application as far as loneliness goes is in the case of, and I have to say, there are older people so very, you know, elderly people who tend to be isolated because they've outlived their friends You know, and a family lives far away and things like that. And I think those, that demographic could really benefit from having companion robots. And one of the really good benefits from it is that not only does it give them social stimulation, it's kind of a hedge against dementia, because it keeps the mind and the brain engaged. And so these are actually being used in nursing homes now. They're in mainly in Japan, but also in Europe and in North America we've got several in the United States now that use them. Some of them are really, really simple little robots, they're kind of, they're little animal robots and they're kind of like our robotic animal companions, like Paro the seal, you know, Paro. It makes all these cute noises, it responds when you touch it, when you stroke it, it acts like, you know, it wants you to stroke it some more. There's little cats that do that little dogs that do that. I mean, they supposedly have a really positive effect on some people with dementia in nursing homes. They soothe them, they keep them occupied, they give them something to talk about. So like I said, you know, there, there's a place for all of this. And what about people who are just lonely because they live in an isolated place, and they don't have people around them who have the same interest. There's plenty of people like that in America, you know, and having if you had a robot companion, and you were interested in say, you know, World War II plane airplanes or, you know, a certain fashion in the tutor age or something like that, some kind of interest. That robot could be completely versed in that subject, and discuss it with you, and you may not have that, you may not have that available to you in your social circle. So I think there's definitely a role there. Right. Yeah, it's certainly, you know, I think especially for the idea of helping to prevent against dementia. I think that, you know, that that's actually quite exciting because, you know, obviously, a lot of people, if they are, you know, when they age, you know, it's great to do exercise practice, you know, exercise the mind, play verbal games, and it's hard if you don't have a person there to pay, you can pay to help you, or you don't have family that can help you, you know, you can have a chat bot that not only can help you, but can also remember, if you met forgot something and can help remind you. Exactly. You know, there's a concept that you describe in the book. This is, you know, concept, I think I first learned about it when I was a, when I was a teenager and I thought it was so fascinating. It's called the uncanny valley and the reason why I learned about it was because there was this movie which you talk about in the book the polar express, which is a lot of people consider it. You know, it was this, this new animation style that was supposed to be revolutionary, but it's, there's something you look at it and these these characters they don't, you know, they look real but there's something so off about them it's very deeply unsettling. Can you talk a little about the uncanny valley. And how it's being overcome. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's really an issue and I got so, I got so interested in the psychological matrix of the mind, you know, that's causing that kind of reaction, which was, which was really, really interesting to me, you know, what happens is that when we, when we see something, we need our brain needs to classify it in a basic classification where they're living non living, you know, real unreal or whatever and what happens with these robots is that a lot of them. You know, it's the humanoid ones that they have the most problem with this, and that is that they might look relatively human, and they might start speaking, and then something weird will happen that's off, you know, and it's like the speech is slightly synchronized or something and then you realize that, you know, that there's like a, there's a little electrical storm that goes on in your brain, and you're literally confused about whether something is living or dead. So, and we get flashes of things like zombies and ghosts and you know say the Frankenstein stuff like that, all that stuff it's kind of living embedded in the bottom of our brain and we're not thinking about it consciously, but there are triggers that can bring it out. That's what the uncanny valley does I mean I've seen robots that brought out that reaction in me. I don't know if you have, I've seen there's a robot called Sophia she's like ultra realistic. Sophia, she's one of the most realistic humanoid robots in the world and she actually is now a citizen of Saudi Arabia she was the first robot to get a citizenship but when I look at her speaking, her face is like super animated. So it's like they if they're going for overkill with the expressiveness, and I start looking at and I say whoa this is this is weird this isn't what's wrong here you know, and it does bring up those weird flashes of mortality. It's a challenge for roboticists. Yeah that the, the, I'll definitely be sure to include that in the show notes because it's definitely the videos of Sophie I think are quite. There's, there's something very unsettling about it which is you know yeah it's the perfect example of the uncanny valley. You know it's, it's interesting you know we've talked about some of the, you know the benefits of, of these social robots, things that they can do to improve and obviously like, you know we might feel unsettled by them I think it's very natural. I think sometimes that unsettling feeling of the uncanny valley can lead to people having a, you know a lot of extremely pessimistic view about the future of social robots seeing it as, as this is going to be the downfall of humanity can you give a little bit of a, of a rundown of that, you know the, the basis of that perspective and, and maybe evaluate a little bit what you think of, of the pessimists. There are a lot of doomsayers and, and you know as you know with AI, you know there are a lot of doomsayers and, and that's relevant because these robots are now being there incorporating AI and generative AI and with some of these robots. So, the, the thinking goes that robots will eventually become smarter than us that they will start to design other robots that those robots will design smarter robots and so on and so forth until you reach a certain point where the robots break free from human control and, you know, come up with some way to kind of eradicate humanity whether it's through, you know, some kind of willful conscious plan of theirs because at this point is presumably they would be conscious, or if it was just simply some kind of glitch that got into the system of robots and that they, they kept repeating and duplicating over and over to the point that it created some kind of worldwide disaster, you know, disruption of economies and firing of, you know, nuclear weapons or whatever. I am not a doomsayer I don't think that these robots are ever going to eradicate human beings and I think a lot of that is because human beings are at this point are in control and I think we have the power to always be in control to an extent. Robots do not have volition, they can't, they don't have a will of their own. So, you know, for them to conceive of the idea okay I'm going to start a nuclear war because I want to eradicate and humanity and I can be in control. They don't have that kind of consciousness. And, you know, based on everything we've talked about so far the reasons we've talked about before, I personally don't think they're going to develop that kind of consciousness. I follow this type of this dialogue because it's interesting and of course we're all interested, you know, I mean we're thinking, you know, could something like this actually happen is a horrifying thought. So it's something worth following, but I don't see it happening. I'm kind of in the middle. I do see other things happening that could be, you know, not so good for human society that could be unhealthy and take us in the wrong direction. Maybe, but I don't see it as an annihilation of the human race. I think a very similar, similar viewpoint to you that if, if AI is used as a tool to annihilate the human race that I imagine that will probably be a human that is the one that pressed the button that that executed the code. So worrying about the fact that, you know, worrying about that person is probably a bigger issue than it is worrying about the actual technology itself. Exactly. One of the topics you talk about, and I think that this is a, this is, you know, slightly controversial topic because it's about human sexuality and human sexuality. Obviously, it's endlessly fascinating. So, you know, it can be, it can be a bit of a lightning rod, especially when it comes to human sexuality related to robots, but can you discuss a little bit the, you know, the strange and fascinating, interesting, maybe disturbing world of people who are sexually attracted to robots and, and you know, cohabitate with them. Yeah, you know, this is something that never ceases to get attention from the book and I wrote a lot about the writings based on the theories of David Levy, the British scientist who wrote a book called love and sex with robots back and I think it was 19 2005 or 2006. And, you know, he, he believes that robots, you know, sex robots are going to be a real, you know, popular item that lots of people will have them lots of people will use them on a regular basis and that there's nothing wrong with it. It's completely healthy and you know who's, you know, it's a victimless crime, so to speak, who's going to, who's going to suffer. You know, which I think he has a point there. But, you know, there's a darker side to that too and I, when I was writing about this because there's not much information about people who actually have relate sex relationships with robots. There is a body of research on men who have relationships with dolls love dolls. And you kind of the whole psychological syndrome that that they exist in, which is basically very dehumanizing to real women and ultra anthropomorphizing and fantasizing about inanimate dolls and sex objects. There's that which I think could be, you know, I mean, because they're sure there are people who have this problem where, for whatever reason, they, they're not able to find a sex partner or, or, you know, a mate, so to speak. And, you know, I think there's a, there's a use there and I would not judge anyone in that situation if, you know, for whatever reason that was, you know, all the outlet they had. But the problem is that the more these men use these sex dolls, the more they dehumanized women. And they became more misogynistic. And I think that that's something we need to be concerned about. The other thing is that men who have very unwholesome, shall we say, sexual proclivities, like abuse and things that are like damaging and not healthy with women could do those, those types of behaviors with robots. And, and the first glance you say, well, it's good. They're not doing that to real people. On the second glance, you say, but wait a minute, is that actually habituating them more to that type of behavior and making them more likely to expect that from human beings. Or is it siphoning off that energy, you know, and somehow therapeutically helping them to kind of overcome it. We don't know because the work hasn't been done. The research hasn't been done on that. So I'm not sure about that myself. I mean, I, I had a really interesting time researching all this and I do think that, like I said, there's a place in for the service of these robots. I mean, there are, there are men who will use them instead of prostitutes. And, you know, maybe spare prostitutes, some of the more, you know, not so pleasant side of their profession. So, I mean, there's that, but I think we really need to delve into this more. We need more research on how is this really, how is our interaction with robots actually affecting how we would treat people. And there's not much research done on that yet. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think the, the, the, the tack that you take with that is, you know, is very fair. Obviously, with these sorts of violence spillovers. It's so hard to, it's, it's hard to tell. And I'm sure it's obviously case by case, you know, like, there's people playing, playing, you know, combat sports. Does that lead to more violence? Or does that, or is that a great channel for those sorts of maybe war-like energies into into a more productive or less, less violent outcome? It's obviously hard to tell. But yeah, it's certainly worth, worth studying. I think, I think that, that's a great point that you make. You know, on a bit of a separate note, you know, you're totally separate note, actually. You also discuss how robots will transform childcare. And I was wondering if you talk about how this is developing because obviously this is potentially a, you know, a really great and exciting, but also maybe concerning future. Yeah, you know, it's all of the above, you know, just like the, like all of the issues, you know, with robots, it's, it's exciting. There's some really good indications that robots could serve a role in caring for children. Research has been done on that. And it's finding that robots can actually provide quality care because they can teach and they can play games and they can play movies and they can, they're, they're technologically rich, which, you know, gets the attention of the child, draws the child in and they can read them stories and they can, you know, ask the child to read back and didn't have little teaching programs. So they can really do some really good things with children. I don't think we want to open the door to making them a primary caregivers of children. You know, and, and again, that's where people need to be able to draw the line and say, you know, you've had two hours with the robot this morning. So now mommy's going to take you to the park. You know, because it is, you know, they're, I mean, what we can compare this to is children and technology, which a lot of work has been done. A lot of research has been done. So it's, you could compare it to sitting your child down with an iPad with that had all kinds of interesting learning programs on it. And no parent would ever say that is not a good use of that child's time. You know, I don't think so. If the child does it for six hours a day, then you have a problem. So, you know, we need to learn to navigate these things. And I think we will. I mean, I'm basically optimistic. I think we eventually learn to navigate these things and get the use, get the positive uses for the most part. Most of us will get the positive uses from robots for all different kinds of roles, you know, whether it's child care, teaching, elder care, companionship, all the things that we want them to do for us. But they, you know, I mean, it's, it's, again, we've got to learn to exercise those muscles. We got to develop those muscles and start thinking about how we're going to handle this and in advance, hopefully, before we get addicted to a robot relationship. Absolutely. I think the, the, the promise for the promises for education. I know a lot of, there's a lot of concern about chatbots being used to write essays and things like that, though I do think that there's, you know, plenty of workarounds like in class essays and things like that. But, you know, the ability for a customized chatbot to teach to someone in an extremely individualized manner. You know, I think that that could be such an enormous benefit. And especially, you know, it's better than a kid passively looking at an iPad, you know, watching YouTube. So much better, I think, like, as your point, you know, if your kid is going to use an iPad, you'd much prefer that they do something interactive and engaging and potentially educational as opposed to something just purely passive. Oh, for sure, you know, and I, like I said, I think there's a great, great uses there. I mean, what if you had a child that was really exceptional and was way beyond their grade level and wasn't being stimulated at school. Well, you know, they could get a more advanced program with the robot. And, or if you had the opposite problem, your child was struggling with reading or math or whatever, you know, and you can have a robot tutor that could bring them up to speed hopefully helps them get up to speed. So yeah, I mean, I think there's some really good applications there. Yeah, it's, it's, you know, a lot to look forward to and I think, you know, you look at the book, you kind of end it by talking about the big picture, really, of this, you know, what should we think about this. But, you know, reasons to be optimistic reasons to be concerned. You know, things that should give us pause. I wonder if you just, if you could just sort of, you know, we've talked about different examples, but, but overall, what's your kind of perspective having done this research on the future. On the future of social robots. Well, I think that robots are going to very significantly change human culture. And, you know, that's based on studies that have been done with people of all ages, whether they were children, teenagers, adults, even older adults. People, when they interact with robots, tend to believe that the robot is smarter than them. And this is a bias that we bring into the relationship. We tend to think that machines are smarter than they are. But certainly smarter than us. And this, when people interact with these robots and experiments where they're asked a simple question and they have a group of people and they go around and they say, you know, this is simple to say is a correct or is be correct. Well, they go around and say, for humans say that a is correct, but then a robot is in the mix and says, well, B is actually correct. Then the other three tend to change their answer to conform to the answer of the robot. And that does concern me some because, you know, like I said, we're talking about a very narrow specific kind of intelligence, which is indeed very impressive. But we're not talking about all the pieces of the puzzle that make up human personality and consciousness. And so I think that our relationships will become more like more robotics in the sense that we will emulate them more and we will, in a way, become more robot like the other thing that I'm concerned about is that people will become, will lose social skills because of their having this robot, you know, to interact with on a regular basis and, you know, this has been studied extensively by a psychologist at MIT, her name is Sherry Turkel she's done some brilliant work on this. Children and teens and their interactions with a technology and what happens is that the more they use technology, the more insecure they become the more their social skills atrophy. And then it becomes really daunting and intimidating to do something like pick up the phone and call somebody when you can send them a text. We have a lot of, we have a lot of younger people now, who would much who will not make a phone call, you know, who would much rather send a text instead of expressing or describing an emotion, they'll send an emoji. And anyway, it's kind of a, it's kind of a stripped down impoverished way of relating in my opinion. And I think that that's going to become more of an issue for us. The more we use robots and the longer we use them. And the hope is that, you know, they're like you said it's like a muscle that we have to train and that over time we'll develop the muscle to know when it's good to use the robots and the chatbots and when it's good to to try and do things the old, the old fashioned human way, and that, you know, we'll develop over time the skill, you know, when I, I'm on the sort of a cusp cusp or between the cusp of a millennial and Gen Z. So I think I kind of, I still remember a world before phones and technology. I, you know, my, my early childhood was, was not overly taken over by tech. But it was still the, it was a bit of the Wild West, and I think like lots of people in my generation are damaged by that. And hopefully, you know, we'll be able to do a better job of knowing how to to oversee how to put on the checks put on the breaks when necessary, but you know, certainly, as it stands, it seems like we're still figuring out exactly how to put the limits that certainly did not help. No, no, no, no, and you know, you're so right about this, Caleb, and I almost feel like we need a level of literacy about interacting with technology and it's surprising to me that we don't even teach that in schools, even today, you know, we're like 30 years into the Internet. And this is profoundly changing people's lives. You know, it's studied on the university level, but it's not really taught in schools and to the people, the young people who are actually using these technologies, and depending on them. And for better or worse, so yeah, we need to raise our literacy level. Yeah, well, well, you know, I think your, your book is a great is a great starting place for many people because it's, you know, it's engaging, it's highly readable. And, and I think you cover, you know, you're, you know, you take a position that that isn't, you know, the over overly optimistic robots are going to make life perfect, or the robots are going to are going to destroy us. I think probably much more aligned with what will actually happen, which is somewhere in the middle, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe a little worse, maybe a little bit better, but, but certainly different. Definitely different and, you know, definitely going to be opening up whole new VISTAs for us. I think it'll open up new subcultures, you know, people will adopt all kinds of interesting hobbies and that they'll do with their robots and whatnot, like they did with the road with the Internet. So, it just opens up the human imagination. And, and I do think life will be richer in so many ways. So, I mean, if I personally had the ability to buy a very highly able humanoid robot for the home, for sure I would get one. But I would also be a little bit leery so, you know, we have to kind of, like I said, we have to get those muscles and we have to know going into this that this is an artificial relationship. This is not going to make me truly flourish as a human being, as a human relationship would. And if we have that in perspective, then we can get all kinds of great benefits from them. Absolutely. You know, I hope someday in the future you'll be able to write a book about your experience living with a, with a humanoid robot and, and the ways that it's changed and affected your life. I'm sure you would have a lot of interesting perspectives on that. Oh, that would be so fun. And I would love to do that. Well, you've thank you so much for being a guest in the new books network. The book is robots and the people who love them holding on to our humanity in an age of social robots. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me Caleb. (gentle music) (gentle music)
