Page 74 of Chaos Theory
‘A lot of things happen before we’re ready for them,’ Ron interrupts. ‘If I was to sit around and wait for everyone to be ready, why…for a start, I’d never get to a dinner reservation on time.’ Ron positively twinkles at the audience, who laugh along in return.
‘You didn’t let me finish,’ says Mimi calmly.
‘Please, continue,’ says Laura.
‘I was about to say: we are not ready, but it is already happening. As usual – and I’m sure Ron would at least agree with this part – the technology is years, perhaps decades, ahead of laws, regulationsand guidelines. What we need to do now, as fast as we can, is to make sure that we put in place the rules by which we want robots to operate in the workplace. And – this part is really important – we need to make sure that the people who write those rules are not the same people who are selling us the robots. For a new way of working to be robust, it needs to have input from everyone who will be affected.’
‘That sounds just swell,’ says Ron. ‘I will happily attend any meeting you manage to organise with all parties.’
‘Ah,’ says Geoffrey, who suddenly seems emboldened to join in. ‘I do believe I detect some sarcasm in Mr Tron’s response.’
‘Not at all,’ says Ron. ‘I want to do whatever it takes to ensure cobots are accepted in the workplace. I just think that we’ll never reach this set of perfect golden rules that Professor Lee seems so focused on.’
‘I never said perfect—’ says Mimi, but Ron interrupts again.
‘Laura, if I may? There’s an elephant in the room here that all of us have been ignoring, and he’s getting mighty impatient.’
Even though I know this is a cliché, Ron is such a commanding speaker that I covertly glance all around the room – just in case. Hopefully Josh doesn’t notice. Luckily, he seems preoccupied with checking his watch and scrolling on his phone, in between sweaty glances at the stage.
Laura puts her deck of talking-point flashcards on the table. ‘I guess I won’t be needing these any more,’ she says to a handful of laughs. ‘Let’s get this elephant centre stage.’
‘The way I see it is this,’ starts Ron. ‘We don’t really need to worry about the robots. The ones we need to worry about are’ – he stirs his microphone in a full circle to encompass the panel and the audience, then pauses for dramatic effect – ‘us.’
‘Ooh, he has a point,’ says Geoffrey, swept up in the drama.
‘Geoff, my man, please,’ says Ron.
‘Sorry. Do go on.’
‘Everyone here knows that AI systems are not just learning from datasets any more – they’re actually learning from humans.And they’re doing it on the job – just like an intern or an apprentice. When they start work, sure, they know a lot of theory and can do some practical things. But the real learning – their real value – is acquired in hands-on experience on the job. So it naturally follows that if the staff are behaving and doing their jobs right, the cobot is going to copy that behaviour. And attitude too, actually. So really, all these rules that you want, Mimi? You should already have them in place for your human staff. And if a cobot does something wrong? Well, maybe they just had a bad role model.’
Ron extends his arm, and for a moment I think that he’s going to deliberately drop his mic on the floor.
But Mimi smiles. ‘Thank you for proving my point for me so eloquently, Ron. You’re saying that cobots are heavily influenced by the humans around them, yes?’
Ron gives a vague upwards nod.
‘And I guess that would include the developers, coders and programmers who train the AI before it arrives at the workplace, right?’
Ron shrugs in tacit agreement.
‘Well, what assurances do we have thatthose peopleare being good role models? If a cobot arrives with bad code baked in, it’s going to be one hell of a job to overwrite that with new learned behaviour, yes? It’s like deliberately choosing to play out the nature versus nurture debate in robotics, when we don’t need to. Both nature and nurture are powerful forces – but if we can start with good in nature, we should. Why should we rely on nurture to override any natural negative tendencies? It’s too risky. Yes, we need to provide good role models in the workplace, but we need to also provide good role models in the…the…birthplace, if I may put it like that.’
‘In the home, she means,’ says Geoffrey.
‘Please don’t tell me what I mean,’ says Mimi.
‘Yeah, come on, Geoff,’ says Ron.
‘Just trying to help.’ Geoffrey takes a sip of water, shrinks in hisseat a little.
‘Okay, okay,’ says Laura. ‘Let’s bring this back. Let me summarise what we’ve heard so far, because I have a surprise for all of you in a moment. On the one hand…’
Josh turns to me. ‘Maeve, I need to tell you something.’
‘What is it?’ I whisper. ‘Can’t it wait? The panel is nearly over.’
He groans and looks at his watch. ‘Okay.’
