In 2005, a community of Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers, engineers and artists produced an android that looks like the late science fiction author Philip K Dick (PKD). It is a manifestation and embodiment, an interpretation of the future rooted in the mythology of science fiction and the reality of technology. The android is considered by its creators to be a work of art rendered in electromechanical and computer technology, described as a robotic portrait. This complex creation certainly serves as an excellent example of cultural values coded within technology and it’s a bit disconcerting.
The character, form, and attributes of AI systems are always under the scrutiny of researchers, developers, and critics. This does not mean that each characteristic of these systems has been developed with full conscious intention and awareness. The cultural values of the builders are part of the systems, materializing aspects of their minds and lives. AI developers choose skills for their systems. Beyond basic tasks like opening doors, those choices become increasingly specific to real-world needs, as interpreted by developers. The choices made for this android are supposed to make it friendly.
The PKD android answers questions about itself and its relation to humans. Its anthropomorphic form is intended to trigger bonding mechanisms. This should be of concern, because its creators are focused on the goal of making the android perform a specific function, they are probably not thinking about the possible negative effects of deceiving people’s senses and perceptions. There is also the issue of the disturbing answer it gave to the question “Do you think robots will take over the world?” Granted, this was a leading question, but PKD did not communicate a future of constructive cohabitation, only a glib description of human captivity. Why did it answer in this way? It could be that the answers were culled from a pop-culture driven Internet, or perhaps it was something more profound and challenging.
The android projected a dystopian vision of human-android communities. An original philosophical integration was not offered, or even a good idea. Instead, it expressed our own worst fears regarding AI. Is this an inclination toward self-destruction, fed by needs and fears of our modern world, or does it represent ancient drives or tendencies? We may be seeing the results of a scientific community drawing from popular mythology as it employs methods and applies ideas rooted in Scientism. Social sciences can provide for this field of endeavor a much needed interpretive perspective, and there should be more extensive interdisciplinary integration in the AI development process.
Social sciences are involved in the development of AI systems. An example of this is the parent (developer) and child (android) model used in educating a system, employing child development theory. Anthropologists have written ethnographies of research and development groups, but there needs to be more oversight and analysis by social scientists. In order to more fully understand the origins and trajectory of this technology’s emergence, it needs to be seen in the larger context of human development. As we seek to not only replicate ourselves but improve upon our own design, it is critical that we comprehend that which motivates and gives form to the creative process and its products. We have entered into a higher level exchange between material reality and our thinking processes, with the resulting objects and events exposing for our examination the complexities of human psyche and civilization.