Android Awareness

In an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Data, the android, is told he is to be dismantled for study purposes. His horrified commander (the impressive Captain Piccard) demands an official hearing.

After much philosophizing, the Powers That Be determine that Data, though neither human nor even organic, is a person. As a result, he receives all the rights and privileges of a person (which, in the "Star Trek" world, is a somewhat hazy concept to start with!).

Now, professor Peter Ford Dominey has invented a child-sized android, iCub, which, he believes, will bring the "what does it mean to be a person" question into the real world.

In an interview in NewsDaily, Dominey asks: "Is perception consciousness? The ability to understand that somebody has a goal, is that consciousness? These kinds of questions, we will be able to ask with much more precision because we can have a test bed, this robot, or zombie, that we can use to implement things."

So far, iCub has only taken its first virtual baby steps. It can play games and interact, respond to and ask questions. Someday soon, though, it may be capable of actually helping out around the house, acting as a sort of occupational therapist's aide, and much more.

We have a little while yet to decide whether inorganic thinking machines have souls -- but we'd better get moving. ICub is only a baby now, but in another few years it may be ready to file suit for voting rights.

Photo courtesy of Lorenzo Natale, RoboCub Consortium