Conference on Science and Compassion Telluride, Colorado 2012

Giving Robots Compassion

Cindy Mason cmason@steam.stanford.edu Stanford University and Kurzweil Technology

Programming Our Gadgets for Kindness

We are spending more and more time with computers, robots, laptops, phones, games. But computer programs were originally designed to avoid emotion and did not interact with people. Figure 1 shows how our relation to gadgets affects our relation to self, others and society. But many users report they are so frustrated they have shouted at or hit their gadgets. Our work is to program gadgets to be kind and compassionate4 and therefore have a good influence that is contagious!

A Cognitive Architecture for Compassionate Software Agents

Figure 3 shows the cognitive architecture of an emotionally intelligent agent designed for compassionate behaviors. it must have at least three things: common sense knowledge of compassion (behaviors, speech, norms, etc.), represent and update the state of self and other, a reasoning apparatus that takes these into account during thinking and feeling before it acts. To gather common sense knowledge about compassion we are buliding a web based Collective on the Common Sense of Emotion where anyone can share wisdom. We also created EOP Emotion Oriented Programming, a special AI language for emotionally intelligent agents built on top of LISP. More about this and related projects can be found on our website: www.emotionalmachines.org

Figure 1. The symbiotic and influential relations between man, machine and society is well documented primarily due to Nass and team5.

How to Create Computer Programs With Compassionate Intelligence?

Programming a computer is easier than programming the mind! And once we create a single program we can easily duplicate it many times. An intelligent software agent is a computer program with artificial intelligence. They can be embodied in cell phones (Siri), robots, laptops, medical equipment etc. or in software like a web browser or software telephone.

Figure 3. Modified Sense-Think Control Loop Cognitive Architecture

Bringing the Science of Compassion to Technology Is GOOD FOR YOU!

There are many recent discoveries in the science of compassion. Kindness and compassion have been shown to have a positive impact on the brain, immune, cardiovascular and neuroendocrine systems1,2. Similarly a lack of compassion/aggression has a negative effect on wound healing, glucose metabolism3. Because more people have gadgets than healthcare these discoveries mean that positive affect in human-machine interaction promises to globally widen both cognitive and physical health at all social levels.

Many Issues and Challenges

Creating compassionate artifacts raises many technical, ethical and social issues. Isaac Asimov created the Three Laws of Robotics, but these are not enough. The issue of how to represent computer knowledge of emotion and compassion and the good intentions of the programmer and robot are essential to the positive outcome of such endeavor. Acknowledgments This project is devoted to those who died from bullying. I am grateful to the late Professor John McCarthy for many insights and for the many kindnesses of teachers and friends. References
1. Azar, B. (2001). A New Take on Psychoneuroimmunology. Monitor on Psychology, 32(11), 34. 2. Grewen, K., Anderson B., Girdler S., & Light K. (2003). Warm partner contact is related to lower cardiovascular reactivity. Behavioral Medicine, January. 3. Kern, S., Oakes, T.R., Stone, C.K., McAuliff, E.M., Kirschbaum, C., & Davidson, R.J. (2008). Glucose metabolic changes in the prefrontal cortex are associated with HPA axis response to a psychosocial stressor. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 33(4), 517-529. 4. Mason, C., Human Level AI Requires Compassionate Intelligence (2008). Proc. American Association of Artificial Intellience Association Workshop on Meta-Cognition, Chicago, Ill. www.emotionalmachines.org 5. Nass, C. & Moon, Y. (2000). Machines and mindlessness: Social responses to computers. Journal of Social Issues, 56(1), 81-103.

Figure 2. Most software agents have a cognitive architecture and control loop without emotion or awareness of self, others.

As shown in Figure 2, most artificial intelligence systems have a cognitive architecture with a main thinking loop called the sense-act control loop: 1) sense 2) think 3) act 4) repeat. Many people are working on building systems that can recognize emotion (step 1 -input) and express emotion(step 3- output). This works ok when the only task is to solve a problem. But now that gadgets interact with us so much, we must reinvent! For us the most important thing is a computation capability of compassion (step 2). We have designed a new cognitive architecture that takes other agents and self into account before it acts.

Copyright 2012 CCARE/Cindy Mason