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Robots and reality: a reply to Robert Sparrow

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Abstract

We commonly identify something seriously defective in a human life that is lived in ignorance of important but unpalatable truths. At the same time, some degree of misapprehension of reality may be necessary for individual health and success. Morally speaking, it is unclear just how insistent we should be about seeking the truth. Robert Sparrow has considered such issues in discussing the manufacture and marketing of robot ‘pets’, such as Sony’s doglike ‘AIBO’ toy and whatever more advanced devices may supersede it. Though it is not his only concern, Sparrow particularly criticizes such robot pets for their illusory appearance of being living things. He fears that some individuals will subconsciously buy into the illusion, and come to sentimentalize interactions that fail to constitute genuine relationships. In replying to Sparrow, I emphasize that this would be continuous with much of the minor sentimentality that we already indulge in from day to day. Although a disposition to seek the truth is morally virtuous, the virtue concerned must allow for at least some categories of exceptions. Despite Sparrow’s concerns about robot pets (and robotics more generally), we should be lenient about familiar, relatively benign, kinds of self-indulgence in forming beliefs about reality. Sentimentality about robot pets seems to fall within these categories. Such limited self-indulgence can co-exist with ordinary honesty and commitment to truth.

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Notes

  1. Sparrow (2002).

  2. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, p. 308.

  3. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, p. 316.

  4. Sparrow and Sparrow (2006).

  5. Most recently: Sparrow (2009).

  6. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp. 308–309.

  7. Sparrow and Sparrow, In the Hands of Machines, pp. 151–153.

  8. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp. 316–317.

  9. Levy (2007).

  10. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp. 309–312.

  11. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp. 313–314.

  12. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp. 315.

  13. For the complexities of any concept of self-deception and the difficulties of holding agents responsible for being self-deceived, see Levy (2004).

  14. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp. 315.

  15. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, pp 315.

  16. Again, I don't suggest that this is the only argument available to Sparrow, or the only argument that he relies upon. It is, however, a central argument, and its acceptance would commit us to the kind of puritanism about truth that I am attempting to identify and criticize.

  17. Hofstadter (1995), p. 157.

  18. Sparrow, Robot Dogs: 315. See also Sparrow and Sparrow, In the Hands of Machines, p. 155.

  19. See, e.g., Taylor and Brown (1988), p. 196.

  20. Taylor and Brown (1988); Snyder and Higgins (1988).

  21. Taylor and Brown (1988), pp. 194, 197–199.

  22. Snyder and Higgins, Excuses: 32 (emphasis in the text).

  23. Sparrow, Robot Dogs, p. 315.

  24. Kant (1948).

  25. Compare the discussion of fictive judgments and critical contexts in Joyce (2001), pp. 190–194.

  26. Levy, Self-Deception, pp. 297–98.

  27. Nozick (1974).

  28. Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. 45.

  29. The Matrix Reloaded (2003) and The Matrix Revolutions (2003).

  30. This is surveyed in Blackford (2004).

  31. McMahon (2002), p. 177.

  32. Similar misfortunes are discussed in another context by Nagel (1979), p. 4–6.

  33. Benson and Stangroom (2006), pp. 179–80.

  34. E.g., Taylor and Brown, Illusion and Well-Being, p. 195.

  35. Compare Joyce's discussion of the instrumental value of truth Joyce (2001), pp. 178–179.

  36. Clifford (1999), pp. 70–71.

  37. Clifford (1999), pp. 70–71.

  38. Clifford (1999), pp. 73–74. Compare Joyce (2001), p. 179.

  39. These examples are mentioned by Sparrow, Robot Dogs, p. 312.

  40. Benson and Stangroom (2006)

  41. Glover (2001).

  42. Mackie (1977).

  43. See generally Hofstadter, The Ineradicable Eliza Effect and Its Dangers.

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Acknowledgments

I wish to thank Rob Sparrow for his encouragement and assistance in personal communications regarding the subject matter of this paper.

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  1. School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle, University Drive, Callaghan, NSW, 2308, Australia

    Russell Blackford

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Blackford, R. Robots and reality: a reply to Robert Sparrow. Ethics Inf Technol 14, 41–51 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-011-9266-6

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