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Comment and Technology

Presenting robots as people stops us thinking clearly about AI

Last week, Pepper the robot spoke before Parliament, but this kind of stunt distracts from the real issues AI provokes, says Joanna Bryson

By Joanna Bryson

24 October 2018

A Pepper model robot gives evidence in parliament

A Pepper model robot gives evidence in parliament

parliamentlive.tv

Last week, a Pepper model robot was hailed as the first non-human to give evidence in Parliament, after it issued pre-recorded answers to members of the UK Education Select Committee during a session on the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Rather than shedding light on the advance of robotics, this stunt further obscures it.

It is not the first time I have seen this phenomenon. I began researching AI ethics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993. Doctoral students passing by what was essentially a statue made of motors, vaguely…

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