Speaker 1: The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Speaker 1: Accident and Injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2: No, it's Mandy Connell and Don.
Speaker 1: On KLAM ninety four one FM.
Speaker 3: God Waity Kim The Nicety three by Connald.
Speaker 4: Keith Sad Thing.
Speaker 3: The Mandy Connell Show is sponsored by Belle and Pollock
Speaker 3: Accident and Injury Lawyers.
Speaker 2: No. The Architect of the Future, the future is now.
Speaker 2: It's futurist Thomas Frye.
Speaker 3: At futurists speaker dot com. If you'd like him to
Speaker 3: come speak to your organization. I do want to give
Speaker 3: a little payoff for those people who waited David who
Speaker 3: was on hold with his two people to repopulate the earth.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to tell you who they were because
Speaker 3: it was too funny not to, he said, Chris Christy
Speaker 3: and Simone Biles. I don't know the thinking behind that,
Speaker 3: but it made me laugh out loud. So thank you
Speaker 3: David for that. We'll talk about that a little bit later.
Speaker 3: But Thomas is on today to talk about robots. And
Speaker 3: you've been you've been deep in the robot rabbit hole
Speaker 3: for a little while. What is uh, what have you
Speaker 3: been seeing in the world of robots, Thomas.
Speaker 2: Well, they're going to start evolving very quickly here.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to start seeing robots with capabilities
Speaker 1: we never imagined. But I recently wrote this this column
Speaker 1: just titled will robots replace the children that we're not having?
Speaker 2: Replace the kids are not having?
Speaker 1: And uh, it's interesting because there's benefits to having robots
Speaker 1: around it. I mean, as soon as we ironically, as
Speaker 1: soon as we have robots that can change a dirty diaper,
Speaker 1: it'll make it much easier to actually have kids. So
Speaker 1: maybe robots will actually increase the population rather than decrease it.
Speaker 3: Do you think there's going to be because I got
Speaker 3: to tell you, as a mom, like, the thought of
Speaker 3: handing over my little baby you to a robot just
Speaker 3: does not drive with me right now, That just does
Speaker 3: not What kind of what kind of curve are we
Speaker 3: looking at for robot acceptance?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: You're talking about development, right and I think some of
Speaker 3: the stuff is happening in robot development is fascinating, really
Speaker 3: really fascinating. But when you're talking about a new mom,
Speaker 3: especially of second mom, like second kid, the mom will
Speaker 3: be like take the baby, it's fine. But first time moms,
Speaker 3: I mean, how what is that curve going to be
Speaker 3: looking like before we all just accept that we have
Speaker 3: a robot made that come is in our house, or
Speaker 3: a robot taking care of our babies, or a robot
Speaker 3: taking care of our older people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to have robots that we're comfortable around.
Speaker 1: We have to have ones that have a soft touch
Speaker 1: that we can have interactive conversations with that they feel
Speaker 1: much more human than anything that we exist today.
Speaker 2: We still have a long.
Speaker 1: Ways to go up, and so there'll be many iterations
Speaker 1: of evolution on the robot world before we get to
Speaker 1: that point. But yeah, I think that having a robot
Speaker 1: that can walk to your kids to school, that can
Speaker 1: actually go out and play with the kids, I think
Speaker 1: people are going to love that.
Speaker 2: And interestingly enough.
Speaker 1: You know people are worried about too much screen time
Speaker 1: for the kids today, Well, they might be worried about
Speaker 1: too much robot time with.
Speaker 2: The kids in the future.
Speaker 3: I would think that that would be concerning to some parents.
Speaker 3: I think other parents would be grateful that they don't
Speaker 3: have to deal with that anymore.
Speaker 4: But you know some parents who are very involved.
Speaker 3: I think my questions would more be along the lines
Speaker 3: of if my child asks my robot nanny.
Speaker 4: We'll call it robot nanny. Okay.
Speaker 3: A question, a philosophical question. As little children do they
Speaker 3: ask you these questions throughout their childhood, all of these
Speaker 3: really deep, meaningful questions. How do I program the sort
Speaker 3: of response that I would want my robot to give?
Speaker 3: For instance, I lean conservative politically, liberty and freedom are
Speaker 3: very important to me. How do I, as a parent
Speaker 3: ensure that my robot will reinforce those values that I'm
Speaker 3: trying to instill in my kid?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not going to have little switches at say
Speaker 1: Republican or Democratic on them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they are.
Speaker 1: This this role I think these robots, I think will
Speaker 1: evolve around the conversations that are currently being had around
Speaker 1: for the family.
Speaker 2: I don't think that.
Speaker 1: There's any hardcore way of programming the robot, but I
Speaker 1: think that they will be very adaptive and understand what
Speaker 1: the conversations are that are taking place.
Speaker 2: Currently and how to actually feed on that.
Speaker 1: I see robots becoming much more human like over the
Speaker 1: coming years, and to the to the point where where
Speaker 1: they actually are hybred, actually flesh bots that are we
Speaker 1: actually have human like flesh that grows on the outside
Speaker 1: of these things and so the touch that they have
Speaker 1: is going to be actually real human touch, and of
Speaker 1: course there's going.
Speaker 2: To be all kinds of ups and downs with a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of weirdness that goes along with this.
Speaker 3: But okay, you just took me right to Star Trek
Speaker 3: next Generation and Data. Okay, Data was a robot, but
Speaker 3: he always looked like his skin had been grown in
Speaker 3: a lab to me. So I mean, is that what
Speaker 3: you're talking about where they look humanoid but they actually
Speaker 3: have a robot in our core?
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Yeah, we will see how how this all
Speaker 2: takes place.
Speaker 1: And there's lots of people that have talked about downloading
Speaker 1: their personnel, their their essence of who they are into
Speaker 1: the internet to live forever, but talking about downloading it
Speaker 1: into a robot that actually has physical capabilities so you
Speaker 1: can live forever as a robot.
Speaker 2: That's that's a whole different ballgame.
Speaker 1: And so that opens up another wide area of discussion
Speaker 1: that we're currently not prepared to have.
Speaker 3: Well, it would be my look that only the irritating,
Speaker 3: annoying people who text me relentlessly every day would find
Speaker 3: a way to download their consciousness into a robot so
Speaker 3: they would never die.
Speaker 4: That it would only be the annoying people, right that
Speaker 4: would do that.
Speaker 3: It wouldn't be the people we actually wanted to do that.
Speaker 3: It would just be people that are irritating and whatnot.
Speaker 4: So I don't know. I mean, I am on the
Speaker 4: one end.
Speaker 3: I'm very excited about the future of what robot do
Speaker 3: and what they can accomplish and how.
Speaker 4: Game changing they can be. And I guess.
Speaker 3: The evolution of not just the robots, but also how
Speaker 3: we interact with the robots is going to be a
Speaker 3: much slower process, so we'll have time to adapt, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's been kind of funny to me to
Speaker 3: see how quickly people adapted to self driving cars in
Speaker 3: San Francisco, where they're willing to get into a waygo
Speaker 3: that has no driver and go ahead and let it
Speaker 3: take them around San Francisco. I would have thought that
Speaker 3: would have been a much longer curve, but it's not.
Speaker 3: People seem willing to just like, let's do this. Is
Speaker 3: that surprising at all?
Speaker 1: I guess.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was reading some of the projections on humanoid robots
Speaker 1: and how quickly these things will grow and how many
Speaker 1: people are going to buy these things, and projections are
Speaker 1: by twenty and thirty five. One projection most that we'd
Speaker 1: have one and a half million robots out there.
Speaker 4: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And another projection that was by twenty and forty was
Speaker 1: that we would have a billion of them out there.
Speaker 1: And so somewhere in the middle, I think is the
Speaker 1: real number. And so how popular will these things be? Well,
Speaker 1: it depends on all their capabilities and how easy.
Speaker 2: They are to work with and get along with.
Speaker 1: And certainly if they can take a lot of the
Speaker 1: workload off of us, that will they'll make it much
Speaker 1: more valuable in our own minds. So I see, I mean,
Speaker 1: if a robot can take care of our kids and
Speaker 1: take care of the dogs and clean up the house
Speaker 1: for us.
Speaker 2: If they can wash our dishes, well we still need dishwashers.
Speaker 1: If they can cook our food for us, well we
Speaker 1: still need We still be inclined to go out to restaurants,
Speaker 1: or will be more inclined to to eat dinner at
Speaker 1: home and engage and bring our friends over. And how
Speaker 1: long will it be before a robot comedian is funnier
Speaker 1: than human.
Speaker 3: Comedians or talk show host I mean, I mean everybody
Speaker 3: likes to think, well, my job's not replaceable, but realistically,
Speaker 3: we're very quickly moving to an arena where AI. There
Speaker 3: are radio stations right now that have fully AI DJs,
Speaker 3: and it's not as well recepted, I think, as they
Speaker 3: would have liked, because people are a little turned off
Speaker 3: by that, I guess, But ultimately, I mean, are we
Speaker 3: all replaceable? Are there any Are there any fields where
Speaker 3: it would be safe to say I could not be
Speaker 3: replaced because I don't see it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's actually hard to so some of the areas
Speaker 1: that I don't know how we'd replaces. A robot will
Speaker 1: not start a busess will not know how to take
Speaker 1: risks if there's no human involved. I don't think a
Speaker 1: robot will be able to open a bank account. Robots
Speaker 1: don't need clothing, they don't need food. There's lots of
Speaker 1: needs that they don't have. So we still need humans
Speaker 1: to generate our economy. But they can replace a lot
Speaker 1: of the workload that we would normally have. So it's
Speaker 1: hard to actually purse us out into Yes, s will work,
Speaker 1: and now that won't work because we're going to figure
Speaker 1: out new ways to do things right robots that we
Speaker 1: never mentioned.
Speaker 4: Somebody just asked this question. I think it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: If a robot is a witness to a crime in
Speaker 3: the house, how would this impact the accused and their rights?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm assuming that they have the capability of
Speaker 3: out lat least a limited time playback that they could access,
Speaker 3: and they might be an actual video tape of what
Speaker 3: just happened. I mean, that would have to be sorted
Speaker 3: out because I don't want my robot recording everything that
Speaker 3: happens in my house.
Speaker 2: Could your robot get subpoena? Did in court?
Speaker 4: That's kind of I think what they're asking like, what
Speaker 4: do you know? Do you could the video be subpoena? Yes?
Speaker 4: But could the robot testify? I don't know.
Speaker 3: I mean I don't know if that would be I
Speaker 3: don't know if I'm on a jury and a robot
Speaker 3: sits there and says, this is what happened.
Speaker 4: Because they can't swear on a bible. I mean they could,
Speaker 4: but does it really mean anything?
Speaker 1: You know what?
Speaker 2: I mean?
Speaker 4: What's the ethical standards that robots have?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What does robot bible look like?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Exactly, exactly, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that we're going to all kinds of
Speaker 1: legal issues that we never anticipate it as.
Speaker 2: Well, having robot intruders. A robot breaks into my house,
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, fault is it?
Speaker 3: I mean it would have to be the people that
Speaker 3: program the robots to break into your house. I didn't
Speaker 3: even think about that, Thomas. That's a whole new worry,
Speaker 3: because a robot could kick in your door, come in,
Speaker 3: overpower you physically and not you. You can't do anything
Speaker 3: to fight back against a robot. And then what are
Speaker 3: you going to identify? Yeah, robot came in my house,
Speaker 3: I'll give you a description. You know, they all look
Speaker 3: the same kind of thing. That's a little bit scary
Speaker 3: as well. So I mean it's going to be as
Speaker 3: soon as criminals get robots. What are criminals going to
Speaker 3: do with robots?
Speaker 2: Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So so I was I was thinking if if you
Speaker 1: want to buy groceries, should probably want your robot to
Speaker 1: go to the grocery store and buy them for you, right,
Speaker 1: pick them up and bring them home. But you don't
Speaker 1: want to give the robot access to your main bank
Speaker 1: accout count.
Speaker 2: So would you set up a separate bank account for
Speaker 2: your robot? I would?
Speaker 3: I mean I would because I have had situations where
Speaker 3: someone else was doing my shopping for me and I
Speaker 3: set up a separate bank account just for them, and
Speaker 3: that was a human. I'm not giving a human access
Speaker 3: to my bank account, you know what I mean? I
Speaker 3: mean my husband, yes, but not a general person. So
Speaker 3: that would make sense, I mean yeah, I mean you
Speaker 3: just give them their own little bank card.
Speaker 1: So then if somebody decides to hijack robot and steal
Speaker 1: their money, what does that look like? Then?
Speaker 2: Who's going there's all these what if scenario?
Speaker 3: It was gonna say, how do you hijack a robot?
Speaker 3: Are you talking about hacking in or or standing there
Speaker 3: holding you know, a gun at a robot saying give
Speaker 3: me all your money or I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that. And should a robot be allowed
Speaker 1: to defend itself? And to what extent should it be
Speaker 1: able to disable the person that's trying to harm it?
Speaker 3: I'd say yes, because ultimately, if a robot is there
Speaker 3: to serve and protect you, then they should be able
Speaker 3: to defend themselves, but only in a defensive posture, meaning
Speaker 3: they could block someone from hitting them. They could neutralize
Speaker 3: someone by putting them in a hold, a robot hold,
Speaker 3: so they can't move or do anything while they're simultaneously
Speaker 3: calling the police on their little imaginary headset that I
Speaker 3: just gave them inside their robot heads I mean, yeah,
Speaker 3: but it's the most challenging thing for me is that
Speaker 3: I know that the military is working on making robot soldiers,
Speaker 3: and how do you program a robot to kill certain
Speaker 3: people but not others? And what's to prevent someone from
Speaker 3: hacking into that set of robots and turning them on you.
Speaker 3: That's this kind of stuff that I think about.
Speaker 2: Thomas, Right, there's a downside to all of this.
Speaker 1: But yeah, if you if your robot suddenly calls the
Speaker 1: police to come in and intervene, it would actually be
Speaker 1: a police bot that shows up.
Speaker 2: That takes over.
Speaker 1: And so how does a police spot then take care
Speaker 1: of this person that's giving problems? Does that police spot
Speaker 1: have more leeway in dealing with criminals? Yeah, that's it
Speaker 1: raises all kinds of interesting questions. Should they be allowed
Speaker 1: to use me be allowed to use tear gas?
Speaker 3: In theory, you would think that, like, let's talk about
Speaker 3: RoboCop here for a second, not the movie, but an
Speaker 3: actual RoboCop that we're building in my mind here, you
Speaker 3: could make that robot pretty right now, when a police
Speaker 3: officer engages with a criminal in a physical way, there's
Speaker 3: a good chance.
Speaker 4: That cop could also get hurt.
Speaker 3: But if you had a robot cop that could then
Speaker 3: sort of disable that person by holding them down or
Speaker 3: getting them still because of their superior strength, and they're
Speaker 3: they're in their unlikelihood of getting hurt, I think that
Speaker 3: we'd be all, like, Yeah, if that robot grabbed you
Speaker 3: and held you and then you hurt yourself because you're fighting,
Speaker 3: that's your own fault, you know.
Speaker 1: What I mean.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think we'd be willing to give them
Speaker 4: a little.
Speaker 3: Leeway because they can actually get closer to the criminals
Speaker 3: than actual police officers can.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if we had a situation where somebody actually died
Speaker 1: in the hands of a robot, what kind of feedback
Speaker 1: would happen? Then?
Speaker 2: What kind of backlash would occur?
Speaker 1: A sys another George Floyd situation where we would have
Speaker 1: overpowering robots setter demanding.
Speaker 2: Too much of our people.
Speaker 1: It raises these ethical questions we've just not had discussions
Speaker 1: about yet.
Speaker 2: I Mean, this is all Virgin territory, and.
Speaker 4: Isn't the ethics kind of the hardest part of this
Speaker 4: whole thing?
Speaker 2: Well, it is. Is there a regulations that should be
Speaker 2: in place?
Speaker 1: I think so, but we don't know enough about these
Speaker 1: things yet to know what the regulation should be.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of my texters are giving you some
Speaker 3: variation of this. Has anyone ever seen the movie Terminator
Speaker 3: or Mandy. I've seen I Robot and Ex Machina. I'm
Speaker 3: good on the robots, but ultimately, you know, we've been
Speaker 3: scared of things in the past. We used to think
Speaker 3: lightning was the gods that were angry, right, so as
Speaker 3: we as our knowledge has evolved, as we become as
Speaker 3: we've traveled in space, we're less likely to believe that.
Speaker 3: You know, we're gonna have the kind of aliens are
Speaker 3: going to come down and kill us on Independence Day.
Speaker 3: So I think as this stuff starts to roll out,
Speaker 3: because it starts with a roomba, it starts.
Speaker 4: With a robotic law. One of my neighbors has one
Speaker 4: of these.
Speaker 3: It doesn't start with fully humanoid robots living in our
Speaker 3: houses full time with skin that was grown in a lab.
Speaker 3: That's not how it gets started. So perhaps that will
Speaker 3: make the adoption a little bit easier. But somebody did
Speaker 3: ask this, Thomas, and I think this is an interesting question.
Speaker 3: They said, what happens when the government hacks my robot
Speaker 3: and can see inside my house? Could you, in theory,
Speaker 3: tell your robot if anyone tries to change your programming
Speaker 3: or program you to spy on me, I need you
Speaker 3: to let me know right away. Would that work with
Speaker 3: something that simple, in something that is constructed to work
Speaker 3: within a framework, an ethical framework that has to be created.
Speaker 4: With something like that.
Speaker 3: Works, say, look, if anybody's trying to spire on me,
Speaker 3: I need you to tell me.
Speaker 1: I think one of the core pieces of every one
Speaker 1: of these robots is they need to be the guardian
Speaker 1: of your privacy. They need to be your protector, that
Speaker 1: they're watching out for you more than anybody else's interests.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: If we don't have that, then I don't think that
Speaker 1: I don't think they're going to sell many of these robots.
Speaker 1: But if the robot is actually working for you, if
Speaker 1: it's doing everything you wanted to do, then you can
Speaker 1: rely on it. It's trustworthy, something that you can count
Speaker 1: on to help you every day, then it becomes super
Speaker 1: valuable and it.
Speaker 3: Would become I would think I would envision this as
Speaker 3: being robots becoming a part of the family, at least
Speaker 3: in the United States of America. In some other cultures
Speaker 3: where they still have servants and things of that nature,
Speaker 3: perhaps they would be treated like a servant. But I
Speaker 3: could see Americans bringing the the robots in and having
Speaker 3: them become an extended part of their family.
Speaker 2: Don't you think, Yeah, these robots should be your buddy bot.
Speaker 2: They should be your best friend, the friend you always
Speaker 2: wish you had.
Speaker 1: Something that can actually finish your sentences for you and
Speaker 1: knows what you're going to be saying next that you
Speaker 1: have all these good conversations with. I think that's the
Speaker 1: kind of robot people want, and I think the people
Speaker 1: that are designing robots are going to go on that
Speaker 1: path and try to figure out, oh, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: narrow spectrum of things that everybody wants.
Speaker 2: Let's try to include all of that into this robot.
Speaker 3: Thomas rise our futurists. You can find him at futurist
Speaker 3: speaker dot com. Thomas, great conversation and now lie awake
Speaker 3: at night waiting for the robot uprising. Thanks so much
Speaker 3: for that.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, Thomas, I have a good day.