StarTalk Radio - StarTalk Live: I, Robot (Part 2)

Episode Date: December 1, 2013

Neil deGrasse Tyson and Honeybee Robotics’ Stephen Gorevan focus on robots here on Earth, from steam pipe repairing robotic inchworms and Predator drones to Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics and the practicality of cyborgs. Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. We are live at the Bell House. StarTalk! I've got one of the founders of Honeybee Robotics. Steven, welcome to StarTalk. Thank you. What I like most about Honeybee Robotics is that they're based in Manhattan. That's just cool.

People think of Manhattan as Broadway and Wall Street, and you're like rocking the universe in Manhattan. That's true. Eugene, who do you have over to your right? I have W. Kamau Bell and Jason Sudeikis. The one and the only of each. So I just want to talk about robots closer to home. So you've developed robots, my crib sheet here says, for Con Ed, for Coca-Cola. Sell out. For Nike. Why does Nike need a robot? Is it to put the shoes together? Oh, boy.

I can't tell you that. I have a proprietary agreement on that one. But I can tell you the Con Edison robot. All right. The Con Edison robot is a robot. I'd really rather hear about the Nike robot. Yeah. I would. They Con Edison robot is a robot. I'd really like to hear about the Nike robot. I would, they'd take my firstborn. So Con Ed, for people who are not residents of New York City,

is the electric company of New York City. That's right. Consolidated Edison. And if you've seen movies of New York, there's steam rising through the streets. This is because that Con Edison controls something called a city steam system. And there is actually steam generated and sent through hundreds of miles of pipe under Manhattan. And they heat skyscrapers. The Empire State Building is entirely heated with city steam. There are no boilers in it. There are no air conditioners. There are steam air conditioners in the Empire State Building and in the World Trade Center. I'm sorry.

I have no idea what that means. What is a steam air conditioner? I don't know how it works, but I know that the city steam air conditioner... That's weird that you two guys don't know how that works. I feel like that calls into question everything else we've heard tonight. That steam leak that comes up through the streets...

I'm not buying none of this. Robots on Mars, I'm not buying this. You can't explain an air conditioner. I mean, I don't know how it runs from steam, but the steam coming up through the streets is actually, there are leaks in the city's steam system. So, Conadison hired us to seal

those leaks. And this meant sending a robot through the pipes. And we developed an inchworm system that goes through the pipes and welds the leaks from the inside of the pipe. I think that makes up for not knowing how. Yeah, sure does. We're good with that?

You built robots that go through our pipes and weld. He built an inchworm robot that crawls through the steam pipe and welds holes. You're the greatest threat to the world. You cannot be stopped. When we were called upon to develop our concept for how to get to the world. You cannot be stopped. When we were called upon to develop our concept for how to get to the ice pack in Europa,

we used the Con Edison design as the baseline for that inchworm robot, except for going sideways. We said we can use the same concept to drill down, to inchworm itself down into the ice pack. So is this autonomous, or are you telling it what to do? Well, almost all spacecraft and automation and robotics is what we would call supervised autonomy.

You give it a sequence of commands. It has certain ability to, these robots have certain abilities. To achieve consciousness. Well, to make decisions. Does it ever go like

like that? It'll improvise a little bit. That's right. On Curiosity, just now, we've switched to an auto-nav system where Curiosity now is making some decisions.

We don't dictate the path the rover has to go inch by inch. It gets to make some of its own decisions. Like Peyton Manning. Yeah. They cause audibles. It's like, no, I'm not going down there. You go down there. It's like, I'm going this way.

But we haven't really allowed our robots to be completely free yet because we're afraid that they're going to. We've seen the movies. We know why. Yeah, we know the we've seen the movies. We know why. Yeah, we know the movie. Yeah. What? We know what. Itch worms with lasers everywhere.

So what did you do for Coca-Cola? Well, there used to be a giant sign in Times Square that was imposed of... Until Superman 2. ...moving parts. I was going to say that! It had five moving parts.

It had a 70-foot straw. These were all mechanical devices. And these devices, some of them were 10 tons. And they moved 120 degrees. They would form Diet Coke and then Coke. And the Coca-Cola bottle itself that the straw was in was bigger than my first apartment in New York. It was huge. Because you had an incredibly giant first apartment in New York.

That's what I'm trying to figure out here. It's an unusual analogy. To say something's bigger than a New York apartment, therefore it's huge, doesn't work. Even a small apartment is a very big object, right? So we did signs for them. We did these robotic signs for them. He's like, shut up. I thought it was a wonderful point.

It's a dirty job and somebody's got to do it. And I see here you also work for the Navy. That you can talk about Nike. Yeah, you seem unreasonably upset by the word Navy. Well, we work for DARPA. The Defense Advanced Project Research Agency. That's right. It's one of the golden projects, really.

The robotics industry is to be able to take spacecraft that are orbiting the Earth, that are running out of fuel. We're talking about spacecraft that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and they become defunct simply because they're running out of station-keeping fuel. Yeah, just to clarify, satellites don't need fuel to orbit the Earth. Once they're in orbit, they're there. They need fuel to prevent the little bit of atmosphere that's up there from knocking them out of orbit. That's right. Can we send fuel to them or no? Well, that's what we're talking about now.

We've never done it before, but the holy grail, if you will, of space robotics people is to be able to get to these spacecrafts and refuel them with a robotic spacecraft that can latch onto them, hook up a hose, and refuel them. Well, I wish you the best of luck with your plutonium hose. Yeah, what kind of fuel is it? Is it like hydrazine? Hydrazine, okay. Yeah, mostly it's hydrazine. Nasty stuff, very nasty stuff. Yeah, I get that it's fuel.

That was the first. Hydrazine goes way back in the space program. It's one of the most reliable fuel sources that you can... But we don't use it a lot on Earth. Because it's really nasty stuff. What does that mean, nasty stuff? It means it's highly... If you drank it, you'd feel dizzy.

I hope. So that's a yes. It's very volatile, and I think it's highly carcinogenic, too. Okay. But that's not what you were doing for the Navy. What were you doing for the Navy? Fighting Aquaman. Well, for the Navy, we've done a number of things.

We were making some sensors for the Navy. We were making some quick attachment points for... Just to clarify, when the Navy wants sensors, it's to shoot something down that it sensed. I know. But these were for... Okay, I just want to make sure we're on the same page. Nike can't say a word about it. Can't say a word.

Navy, yeah, we built things that'll shoot shit down. That's all right. Well, a lot of robots, in order to function well, they have to be able to switch hands. There aren't really any good human-like hands on robots that we can reliably use now. So what we do is we switch out hands. That aren't really any good human-like hands on robots that we can reliably use now. So what we do is we switch out hands that do different things.

Like a hook and like a handy hand. So what we were doing for the Navy was we were developing tools essentially that were sort of related to different hands. Is the hand movement the toughest? I mean, I know I've never been a good artist, but people talk about trying to draw hands when they're very difficult. Is it as difficult to replicate in a robotic way as well?

Yes, and that's... In fact, it's a stunningly difficult achievement. It's something else, isn't it? Yes, it's something else. We're way far away from being able to do that well. Makes you really believe in evolution. The hand-eye coordination, we're a long way away. Yeah. And in fact, robots in general don't act much more sophisticated than a three or four year

old. All the three year olds I know are being taught fist bumping. Don't teach this robot fist bumping. Let's move past that as humans.

But a robot, though, could paint a car better than any person can. Oh, yeah? Okay. All right. Bring out the car.

Let's do this. Jason Sudeikis painting cars versus a robot. Car paint wars. Sounds great. This is like the modern... Who's the dude laying the railroad track?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the dude's name? Oh, gosh. The man versus the machine. John Henry, yeah? John Henry the steel driving man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, okay.

Yeah. He goes against machine, and I think he drops dead at the end, if I remember correctly. He does drop dead. Yeah. But, I mean, if you want to paint, you know, a person can paint a car very well, but a robot can do it with precision and the next car comes along, it can repeat it far better

than any human could ever repeat it. Yeah. So there are things that they can do better. It would only do the same color over and over, whereas someone like Michelangelo. You want your car painted, don't go to a guy. Go to my robot.

He'll really do it again over and over well. So what about all the unmanned, the robotic aerial vehicles, including the Predator? Do you build stuff like that? No, we were not involved. If you didn't, you would have just said no. But you said, uh... Don't Howard Stern him. No, wait. If you didn't, you would have just said no. But you said, uh... Don't Howard Stern him.

No, I'm just trying to get inside his head here. Well, we've been contacted by some drone people because of our ability to sample in the Mars environment with very low-power devices, and we've had all kinds of samplers. What are some of your secrets? So, in fact, there was a time when we were contacted by drone people

They wanted us to see if we had any insight To how we could get to Saddam's bunker And He's not here anymore We couldn't help them What the cute robots So the drone users Sometimes they want to look at

See if they can do some quick sampling on the ground And that's my only involvement with drones. How about robots that do safety things? You know, lately we've been sending dogs into rubble to find people in earthquakes. But surely there are robotic things that could do that better, faster. Well, safety has always been the number one driver to use robots. If you can save putting people in harm's way, like at Chernobyl, there were robotic devices that were put forth by people associated with Carnegie Mellon that were

able to get into their nasty part of the accident and to do some critical analysis. Nasty meaning highly radioactive. Highly radioactive. People would have died. The connoisseur pipe thing too, you can't get people, these pipes are, even when they turn them off, they're 100 degrees. And how about, is it a bomb or is it not? Yeah, diffusing bomb. These are big things now. And NYPD bombs...

Do they cut the red wire or the blue wire? Yeah, don't send Bruce Willis. Well, see, there's always usually a person, though, that's supervising these robots at this time. Again, it's kind of interesting to me that we haven't really let these robots free. So they're like Avatar-ish. Yeah, they are.

They are. It's a good example, people. Do you think that we should move to a place where robots are allowed to just do their thing and not monitored by us? I have one of those in my house.

The Roomba. The Roomba, yeah. It's great. It's the best invention in the world. I'm talking no on-off switch. Oh. I would let my Roomba

just be around. Yeah. Yeah. Just decide. So Roomba is a robot. Roomba is a robot. I'm asking. Yes, I think it is.

The Rumba vacuums your... Certainly more than Voyager. So, do you own a Rumba? No. Oh, yes, I do. I never use it. Isn't that the way that you see it late night on TV? You buy yourself a robot. Then it just sits there. You just hang your clothes on it. Isn't that the way that you see it late night on TV? You buy yourself a robot.

Then it just sits there. You just hang your clothes on it. What about the robots that... Wait, I want to know why he doesn't use his robot anymore. Why don't you use your Roomba? Because it has a dust volume thing that's the size of a peanut. You have to empty it every two minutes. Oh, so you have a much bigger apartment.

Why don't you build a much... Roomba can't handle this, my state. Can't you, like, hack into your Roomba and make it twice as powerful? I could, I suppose. Wait, wait, did you just... That's the answer I wanted. Yeah, probably, yeah. I'm the most qualified to do that.

That is my trade, yeah. Did you hear what you just said? Yes. Just, I want to clarify. You just said, this device that automatically vacuums my house, it's too much effort to change the dust container for it. That's what you just said.

Oh, God. Oh, yeah. It falls into question everything he said, doesn't it? He's trying to dig on an ice moon. Leave him alone. Can't explain air conditioning. Doesn't use his Roomba. I don't know, everybody.

I don't know. What about the robots that help people out who don't relate to other people, like autistic folks and stuff? Like an Asperger's robot that's like, social cue coming. Eye contact too long! Warning!

No, I mean, is that a future of robots as well? Yeah, I think so. Certainly there are groups selling robots that work as nurses and aides in hospitals. And this is for real. As nurses? What does it mean? That's the last place I'd think of putting a robot. I don't want a robot putting lotion on my body.

I don't want that. Hey, what are you giving it for? I don't know. That's the holy grail as far as I'm concerned. Do you know how much time I spent lotioning myself that could be saved if I had a robot lotioner? You could do it while you're on the internet. Yeah, yeah.

You could 40 minutes a day, actually. So much lotion has to be applied. Without knowing a ton about nurses, I'm not sure their primary thing is lotioning. I think you're thinking really... I'm glad you've been so healthy all your life. Yeah. Yes.

You need more lotion, are you? I know you need antibiotics, but first, the lotion. I am just nurse lotion. That's all I'm here to do. I'm just... I'm the nurse that applies the lotion. What kind of things do the nurse robots do? Well, it's more like a nurse's aide.

I should have clarified. Bringing food. No, thank you for not clarifying That was great for all of us Bringing food Bringing supplies Moving supplies back and forth Through the hospital

Yeah And they have avoidance sensors You know to avoid people So people don't run into them And so on Yeah And basically No so it doesn't run into people

Sure Well I'm a robot guy though Yeah Okay fine He's like the robots are alive The people they're crippled Whatever I would be upset if my robot The He's like, the robots are alive. The people, they're crippled, whatever. I would be upset if my robot got hit by a person. The people are empty shells.

The robots are very complicated. All right, so when I think of a famous robot, but we don't remember it as a robot. We remember it as a computer. I think of Hal in 2001. Hal controlled everything. So Hal was a computer, robotic, everything. And do you see that happening? Do you see computers becoming conscious

and then doing things that we'd otherwise do because they're conscious computers? Well, you know, even in... That's a cyborg, I guess. A cyborg. Well, cyborg's part human, no? Would it have to be? If you're using the word cyborg, I believe so. Cyborg's a real word?

Yes. What's a real word? I didn't know. I assumed it was a thing that villains in a movie. Cyborg's a real thing. Just a computer chip attached to a person with a claw hand. Is there anything that you guys have made that you call a cyborg? That's what you're after.

Not yet. So he's right. Alan Turing was a famous early computer genius. Yeah. You've got people here. I love his test. His test for... The Turing test.

The Turing test was that if you could sit at a keyboard and start a conversation and have a response on the screen, and if you could not tell whether or not it was a machine or a person yeah then you have in fact developed a thinking machine yeah and we've done that yes yes it's intelligently interpreting your sentence yeah so so cyborgs so what would be the first cyborg what can you imagine it to be is it is it terminator is it what is? What does it look like? Is it part biological? And why distinguish between carbon-based and silicon-based? That's very carbon-based-centric of you. He hasn't technically answered.

I think the first cyborgs... We have to think about drivers. If you think in the military sense, I don't think there's any reason for the military to develop anything but hardware robots. But I just saw it recently.

Stephen Hawking said that perhaps we can download our minds into a computer. I don't know if anybody saw that. I would say that would be uploading into a computer. That's how I would call it. Well, it seems to me that the preservation of life

and extension of life would be a natural consideration for cyborg development. I mean, we have artificial hearts. We have artificial other components. So forget your organs. It's your brain you care about. You get a machine that lives forever, put your brain in the machine,

now you become the machine. The machine becomes you. I think there'll be a driver for that. So yes, I think that's what happens. machine becomes you. I think there'll be a driver for that, so yes. A driver means an economic incentive. You're saying that it's how many years, do you think 100, 200, 500 that I could, 1,000? No, much sooner. Oh, like

22? I don't know why I'm trying to get you to nail a year. We've got people talking about the singularity. By the time you leave here this evening, Eugene, it will be possible. There could could upload, there would be like a kind of quirky Jewish robot that was like, well, it made a...

Yeah, do you want to be buried, cremated, or uploaded? You get a choice. I think there are people alive today that will see things like this. If I put my brain in a machine, does the machine go to the Bahamas and then develop new memories? No, the machine is just stuck there. I continue to add to my memories and my loves and hates and quests.

My brain, frozen at that moment, doesn't continue to explore, doesn't continue to live, to feel. I thought you could play chess. It's a lifetime sport. Why is this robot that your brain's in not have a hard drive that can remember new stuff? I get on an airplane and go to the Bahamas. Yeah. The computer doesn't. Why not? robot that your brain's in not have a hard drive that can remember new stuff? I get on an airplane and go to the Bahamas. Yeah. The computer doesn't. Why not? Is the computer boring? If you're putting your brain in a robot, why can't you

imagine the next step that's maybe shipping it to the Bahamas? There's no way a brain could remember Atlantis and all the water slides. A robot's going to get stuck at the metal detector forever. It's never going to make that flight. Do you have anything else in your pockets?

You're not talking about loading your brain up into a machine that's static in there. You're talking about loading your brain into a robot that basically continues to live out your life. Come on, we're talking about putting brains in other people's bodies. People die, and then you put your brain in that body, and then you take over that body. Yes, that's where we're headed, right? You tell me I'm wrong, you son of a bitch. You tell me I'm wrong. No, no, no.

Here's what you do. Guy's got secrets. What's the new Jordans look like? What do you know? So here's what you do. Sorry, sorry. He gets like this every time. Until we can fix the ailing body,

there are these two diseases, horrific diseases, that we live with. Yep. yep okay one of them is racism and sexism no one of them is alzheimer's where you lose your mind the other is amelotrophic lateral sclerosis alice the luke eric's disease where you lose your body yeah and so if one day you can move a brain somewhere, if you can put it in a machine, why not put it in another body? Yeah. So now the ALS victim has their brain live in the new body from the Alzheimer's.

But maybe it would go into a machine before another body. Why not? I would have fun being first in a machine and then being like, oh my God, I'm Bill Clinton. You could stay out in all weather and things like that. Yeah. So for everyone who is about to die, you would build a machine and then they continue to live.

The earth would be very crowded very quickly. Yeah, but when I was a kid, there was a myth that Walt Disney was frozen somewhere and then he had to keep himself alive, right? It exists today. Yeah. You've got to believe that there would be people that would want, when they were about to die,

to at least keep their brain alive somewhere. So he's not, as far as we know. As far as you guys know, that's BS. I can't tell you that. Yeah. I would say, if I had to pick two people who might know, it would be these two. He is. He's in the basement of Aldi Law.

What's your favorite robot movie? Metropolis. That's old school. Oh, wow. The Maria, the robot. It's the most beautiful robot I've ever seen by far. Because she was actually human in the movie. Well, there was a Maria,

and then there was a robot that impersonated Maria. Yeah. And the robot before she turned into Maria was this beautiful... Has anybody seen this robot I'm talking about? No, I've never seen it. It's a beautiful design, Fritz Lang's design. He gets hot for robots.

Yeah, I do. I would imagine. I would hope. It was very early in the robot age, and nothing surpassed it for me. I'm a fan of Arnold in Terminator. That's a robot you've got to contend with right there. Really not Data?

You're just Arnold the murdering robot? So... R2-D2, no? That's a robot, yeah? Yeah, but it's not my favorite. It's not what? What did you say? It looks like one of those. What did I do, dude?

No, seriously, what about R2-D2? Not a robot? No, it just looks like a garbage can. Yeah, and it just beeps. Yeah. I think garbage cans were maybe made to look like it because it was such a big damn movie, right? Garbage cans with a round lid.

Exactly. No, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. Isaac Asimov wrote a novel in 1941 called? I, Robot. I, Robot. Will Smith didn't write that? You're sure?

In it are Isaac Asimov's famous three laws of robotics. Nice. I will read them. Law one, robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. Every robot movie ever made violates that premise. That's so true. Are you saying his laws don't translate

to other movies? Law two, a robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the first law. As in kill another human being. You command it, but then it would violate the first law.

So it can't do that. Third law, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second law. Well, it's sad to say that they're not being held already. Well, because predators shoot... Yeah, drones shoot

missiles at strangers. Sorry to be the one to tell you. We have missile planes that kill our enemies. And on the ground, too, we're also developing incredible killer machines. Not me in particular, but... We wouldn't judge you. We know it's complicated.

So the idea is to keep our troops out of harm's way, but they're still keeping... To keep other people in super harm's way. That's one of the opening lines in the movie Patton, uttered by George C. Scott. Keep other people in super harm's way. Essentially, it was no one ever won a war by dying for his country.

They won a war by making the other dumb son of a bitch die for his country. That's what drones do, basically. So these laws are just... They're outmoded already. Didn't work. Yeah, there it is. They're for the kind of robots you'd have at your house.

But this complicates... One time my Roomba ran over my toe, so not even those are... To me, the most intriguing scenes in the movie iRobot, I don't know if this was in the book, was the robots, because they are acting under programming rules, and countless, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of lines of code, and you keep updating it, but you don't clean out the lines of code that were there before. So they're kind of dangling there. And if you have enough dangling lines of code, could dangling lines of code end up connecting

and creating behavior that you did not intend from your original programming. And what they were saying was that robots started achieving consciousness because it was all the leftover fragments of stuff that was not intentionally programmed to do that. And that manifested itself as free will. And I look at the wiring of the human brain and the entire billion year evolutionary tracking that it has, There's baggage in our brains. And I'm wondering if it's all the baggage that gives us the illusion of free will just as it occurred with the robots in that movie. And without it,

can you possibly ever have robots achieving free will? Now you sound like Kanye. You got a little... Tell me about free will and robots. Wait, it's unclear from your question if you believe that people have free will or not. But you answer your thing first.

Consciousness. I get asked this all the time. Sorry. Sorry to bore you. I literally used to get asked, when do you tape Saturday Night Live? So deal with it, homie. You know, personally, I don't think that this is something

we're ever going to let happen. I just don't. Wait, wait, it's not that you let it happen. It's that it happens. Well, I also think that we won't let it happen, too. I really think that we will be in control of the situation. Gosh, I think it could, man. I feel like we're creating an entirely different race,

and that at some point they will decide, hey, I'm not going to work for you anymore. I got it from here. And we'll fight it, and there will be a fight. I don't think I'll be around here to see it or watch it. Why do you just assume that it would get out of control? I just think that it all does yet at some point, or has the potential to.

I mean, I'm encouraging us to check ourselves before I wreck ourselves, but what you're saying is at some point, if we go too far with it, it'll know better. And at that point, if it knows better, I say, go for it, robots. Allow me some summative thoughts based on what we have. Sure. I think I just closed your show. I think we're alright.

We'll let you both have summative thoughts and use the phrase summative thoughts. Here it is. In my read of history and human conduct and the creativity of novelists, especially apocalyptic, dystopic novelists, what I've found is any time there's a scientific advance

that could benefit humanity, there's a novelist who creates a story about that advance and how it destroys humanity. And I look at all of the scientific advances that have come along, and at no time has any of those predictions made by those dystopic novelists come true about that technology.

It has never happened at any time. So I think to myself, maybe we just love death, dying, and disaster in our storytelling because we're not getting enough of it in reality. So as we go forward scientifically and we invent robots, I'm not given reason to worry

that one day the robot is going to kill me. I agree with you, basically. And not with you, Jason. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not saying robot is going to kill me. I agree with you, basically. And not with you, Jason. Oh, no, no, no. I'm not saying it's going to kill us. I'm just saying that it's going to want to be its own thing. And we've got to deal with that. Not kill.

It'll come of age. Yeah. And then wander off. Let me just say this. Water world, you're wrong. The only person that's ever heard that sentence was the executive that greenlit it. The big secret tonight is that Stephen is actually a robot sent by his company.

I knew it! We have a couple of minutes for Q&A. And so we didn't have time to put out microphones, but I'm going to point to you if you have a question for any of us up here on the panel. Yes, sir. I'll repeat the question for the microphone. I heard the inchworm, the mole, it's honeybee.

How is nature going to influence robots? Ooh, he heard about the inchworm inside the pipe made by honeybee. How does nature influence robots? You get some cues from nature? Oh, yes. And in fact, the inchworm was very much on our minds when we developed that. And I'll give you another example. We were told to develop a spacecraft that had to perform an autonomous rendezvous and docking in deep space to go to a comet. And the problem was

the two spacecraft couldn't get together with a great deal of precision. So somebody told us at NASA, who was a very smart guy, said, think of nature. And so what we thought of was a spider web. And so we said, if we can develop one spacecraft to have sort of a spider web deploy from it, it's not necessary to design the fly to get into the spider's mouth. All you have to do is get the fly caught somewhere on the web. And the two spacecraft, one spacecraft gets caught in the web,

and the other spacecraft can suck the web in. The two spacecraft dock, and there you have it. But that was, we were thinking of nature from the beginning. I was hoping you were going to describe sex, but what you did is funny. Another question. Yes, sir, right here. . By what year can we expect the pleasure model

in Blade Runner? You know, I get calls every year from Harrison Ford. Where's my robot lady? I'm Harrison. I ordered it in 1982. That would be the biggest Kickstarter of all time

That would be They're from the Las Vegas area code So how long? Not long It's already started There are people that have sort of these things That are halfway measures Halfway measures

Halfway robots The bottom half, right? They're going to be... Just the shoulders. Whoever makes a real sex robot, the first one is going to be a rich person. The first trillionaire.

Yes, right here. So you hear about finding water and being the rocks on Mars. Isn't it true that the water you found on Mars is around about 3-5% which is the same as the rocks that we find in the desert? Yes, I'll repeat the question. So she said if you're finding water on Mars

in these rocks, it's only at a few percent level. That's the kind of water we find in our deserts and we celebrate our deserts for their absence of water. So what gives here? But by Martian standards, the water in the Mojave Desert is a lot of water. And this is a surprise that we're seeing so much water in the rocks on Mars. And it's good news for when people go to Mars, because we need the water for fuel and to drink. And there's a lot

more than we ever thought. And we could make it from those. Basically, you can take a ton of rocks and make some water. Yeah. And you can make it from those. Basically, you can take a ton of rocks and make some water. Yeah, and you can make fuel and heat and oxygen. Oxygen, too. Yeah. No, I love oxygen. H2O. Yes. Yes, right here. Could robots ever make art?

Ooh, can robots ever make art? They do. They already do. Yeah. I've worked with some of them. Haven't you seen The Tonight Show? Aw, come on. Dang. So fine art, robots and fine art, what do you get? I don't think so.

Why not? Well, because, I mean, if you like things like Box B Minor Mass, and you're saying if a robot is going to achieve something like that, I just don't think it's possible. Okay, robots now beat us at chess and at Jeopardy. Isn't art just a few minutes behind that? No way. Art is very special, Neil.

It's not all science. Jason mentioned Michelangelo before. I mean, come on. Wait, wait. Is it not going to happen because you don't want it to happen? Or is it not going to happen because you don't think it can happen? I don't think it can happen. Because a robot is not a human.

Yes, this gives us our identity, the great works of art. I think it goes back to that thing you were talking about, about accumulating information and then having it go through the prism that you've sort of developed as a human being and then putting it out. That's art, basically, right? So if it doesn't accumulate that stuff and doesn't interpret it... It's got nothing to write about. Yeah, there you go.

Another question. Yes, sir, right here. Are you developing robotics for future space missions? Do you work with intelligence on man- on presently or do you plan like 10 years ahead? I love that question because you want to drill through Europa on a mission that's 10 or 20 years ahead, but you're only designing it based on any technology available today. So how nimble are you as you go forward to adopt whatever is new? Because the memory on Voyager 1 is 70K. Yeah, there's a lag. Wow.

Spacecraft are generally using technology that we use here on Earth about five to seven years ago. And the reason for that is... At the time of launch. At the time of launch. And basically, this is related to computers mostly, is because it takes a long time to harden

the technology that we have in, say, five or seven years ago and make it withstand the radiation of space. It just takes a long time to do that. And not only that, but we have to vet everything for years to make sure they work. Is there anything towards, when you say bringing fuel to these places, to put a few chips

of RAM on there as well and a couple of external hard drives? We did that with the Hubble telescope. Hubble was a serviceable robot, basically. Robot telescope. And we sent astronauts up. The original one was not even a 286. It was like something before the 286. And they put a flash drive in it and were like,

good luck. So they did that with Hubble. But because the astronauts could get to it. Yes. And if you put something far away that's not on your travel route, it's hosed, basically. Redshirt here, yes. You talked about robots that are smarter or robots that are creative. Can you define intelligence in a way that means replicating? What is intelligence?

And how do you know if you're going to make an intelligent robot? Is it just making the same decisions you would have that you programmed it to but then it's not really thinking for itself but i think watson was really thinking for itself would you call watson intelligent yeah what's in the computer that you all know one jeopardy jeopardy yes i would call it intelligent but i wouldn't call it near human you'd say it knew a lot of facts yeah and when and it was intelligent. So then what is intelligence to you? Overrated.

There are degrees of accumulated knowledge and organized ability and I think though that when you get to be a human being, you get into the realm of art and then you see the difference. Am I crazy? Watson is named after Dr. Watson? No, no, the founder... One of the founders...

Is it? Yeah. James K. Watson. There's a Watson Research Center. Oh, okay. I would have assumed it was Watson. Watson, like... The more famous one.

The more famous one. Only because I... You know, to call it Watson would actually be a humble move because Watson in Sherlock Holmes mythology is the audience point of view kind of the dummy in comparison. To call it Holmes would have been a jerk move, but... Yeah.

But to call it after yourself is a different thing altogether. That is all for this week's StarTalk. Thank you, Stephen. Thank you all. You've been listening to StarTalk Radio, brought to you in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Give it up for the NSF.