Freegulls, Unfree 16-year-olds, Free Robots?

First, you must all take note that one of our own, Tamler (one-m) Sommers, is now one of the "world's leading thinkers" (along with 39 others who argue for The Myth of Free Will).  Tom Clark is there too!  Unlike humans, but like fruit flies, I think the seagulls on the cover are supposed to have free will.

Second, here's the the Allstate ad I mentioned:  "Even bright, mature teenagers sometimes do things that are “stupid.” But when that happens, it’s not really their fault. It’s because their brain hasn’t finished developing. The underdeveloped area is called the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex. It plays a critical role in decision making, problem solving and understanding future consequences of today’s actions. Problem is, it won’t be fully mature until they’re into their 20s."  I am currently trying to use this quote to illustrate everything that is both right and wrong about discussions of free will and responsibility.

Third, I'm looking for help finding a good reading (preferably a short story) about a robot being put on trial for a crime (does it have free will?).  I use trials in my intro class (e.g., Trial of God for suffering, Trial of rich American, using Singer's arguments), and this semester I want to add a Trial of the Robot (is it responsible or his creator or both for a murder or something, etc.).  Any suggestions?

Comments

[Neil]

Something from Asimov's I, Robot? I read these as a teenager, and as I recall they were somewhat subversive: the robots act entirely predictably given their programming - but so do the humans.

Tamler may not be the most famous of the world's leading thinkers. But he is more deserving of the accolade than some of the others in the book.

[Alan]

I couldn't believe what I was reading--yes--I, Robot, is THE definitive resource. Your post Eddy officially put me into the realm of paleontology. It was even filmed somewhat responsibly as an episode of The Outer Limits back in the 60s (I saw the original broadcast as a young boy if you want to carbon-date me).

[Eddy Nahmias]

Thanks! I'll go back and read I, Robot (last read it in high school), but remind me, is there a robot who commits a crime? a trial? Is there an excerpt that could be assigned for one day and could stand alone? Has anyone read Dennett's "Did HAL commit murder"?

[mnelson]

It's not robots, but it is actual history on a similar issue: In the Middle Ages animals--from pigs to rats to insects--were charged, jailed, put on trial (appearing in court), and sentenced (although some were successfully defended). There's a film, _The Advocate_, about the defense of a pig accused of murdering a boy. I don't know of any stories on the subject, but there is a study of the matter in _The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals_ that is very entertaining and interesting.

[Neil]

Eddy, what do you think is the problem with the Allstate ad? Executive processes do mature slowly: there is good reason to think that the average teenager is less able to exercise impulse control than older people.

[Thomas Nadelhoffer]

Eddy,

More importantly, what is your problem with freeguls. Minimally, their local reflective control should just make you neurotic! Once we do the neural mapping of the gull brain, there freedom will go poof in the air--no pun intended.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Hi Neil, I think the Allstate ad is correct to point out that responsible action is tied to proper functioning of the brain (as opposed to, say, a non-physical soul). Ironically, even though it is saying that you need the brain to be responsible, I think it is still playing on what I call our "Mechanism Incompatibilist" intuitions--that we are not responsible for our actions if our actions are produced by lower-level mechanisms, e.g., in the brain (this intuition, of course, is distinct from the traditional "pure incompatibilist" intuition that determinism precludes MR).

Despite what it gets right, the ad also says that 16-year-olds' stupid actions are "not really their fault." But, as you point out, less developed dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex (DLPC)--if it is required for self-control, etc.--would entail that teens are "less able to exercise impulse control," not that they are *unable* to do so. Once we see free will as a set of cognitive capacities that are possessed and exercised to varying degrees, then we can see that we normally increase our free will and, with it, our moral responsibility as we mature.

We all know that normal 16-year-olds possess *some* capacity to consider future consequences in making decisions, to control immediate impulses, etc. (The degree to which different teens can do this varies.) So, what the ad should suggest perhaps is that their stupid acts are not their fault *as much as* similar acts would be the fault of older drivers (but that would be a less interesting ad!).

What the ad should really suggest is what it does suggest, that because teens are less self-controlled, we may need a little paternalism and keep them off the roads (or make sure an adult is with them or that they are not driving at night or with friends, etc.). I can certainly say that my current self would take my 16-year-old self off the streets.

[Clifford Sosis]

Hello Eddy,

May I recommend, for your reading pleasure, "Risk Taking in Adolescence: New Perspectives from Brain and Behavioral Science" According to the article, the surge of socioemotional development during adolescence (and the neurological activity which we associate/identify/correlate with it) overwhelms the immature cognitive control network, and explains impulsive, risk taking behavior (drug abuse/promiscuous sex/crime) in adolescents. It's interesting that the ad lets adolescents off of the hook because of their inability to veto their impulses rather then the strength of the impulses themselves (a fact of being an adolescent most of us have been, and some of us still are, familiar with). In a sense, the dog outgrows the a leash but the ad implicates the leash, when it seems that we wouldn't have to worry about a strong leash if the dog, our impulses, weren't so gosh darn powerful (we don't worry about children whose control mechanisms are less developed than adolescents, because they don't have the same dangerous impulses adolescents do). So Eddy, considering the sheer strength of adolescent impulses and weakness of the cognitive control network, shouldn't we take to jist of the ad to the heart and choose our insurance (and design our educational/political) policies accordingly?

Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis.

[Joe Campbell]

I don’t have anything that is explicitly what you’re looking for but here are two related items.

First, there is a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode called ‘The Measure of a Man,’ where the robot Data is held on trial to see whether or not he is a person.

Second, there is a very interesting scene from “M” where a group of criminals hold child murderer Peter Lorre on trial. Many interesting issues come up during the trial -- Was Lorre’s behavior compelled? Was he responsible? Should he be put to death even if he is not responsible? The trial scene occurs at the end of the film (Chs. 16-17).

There is also a great web resource:

http://arts.anu.edu.au/Philosophyandfilm/videodata/search.asp

One cool thing about the website is that you can do a search under various topics. Recently, I did search for personal identity and found the Star Trek reference.

[Eddy Nahmias]

Joe, thanks. I use the last 20 minutes of Measure of Man (the trial of Data) in my intro class and phil mind class. It's great. But for the trial I want to have my students do, I want there to be a crime and the question will be whether the robot is responsible, his creator, or both.

Clifford (how ya doing?), your points are well taken, but the idea of a blanket excuse for teenage misbehavior seems absurd (almost as absurd as saying none of us is responsible for anything!). Rather, judgments of responsibility will have to be fine-tuned to the relevant powers of the individual and her situation. The data from the mind sciences is highly relevant, but I can't see how it properly suggests that teens are not able to control their absurdly powerful impulses *at all*. Consider, for instance, how many teens manage to get themselves to study for tests to get into college or hold down jobs to survive, etc.

Of course, the more we know about the teenage mind (and everyone else's), the more we can help develop proper incentives to help them (us) do the right thing (including the things we judge to be the right thing but know we have a hard time getting ourselves to do).

[Clifford Sosis]

Hello Eddy,

A magnificent example of a robot on trial can be found in the Animatrix, a series of short anime films. The film I have in mind is called The Second Renissance, Part I, in which, according to the Wikipedia article ofn the film:

a domestic machine named B1-66ER is threatened by its owner. The machine kills both the owner and a mechanic instructed to deactivate the robot. This murder is the first incident of an artificially intelligent machine killing a human. B1-66ER is arrested and put on trial, but justifies the crime as self-defense, stating that it "simply did not want to die." During the trial scene, there is a voice-over of Clarence Drummond (the defense attorney) quoting an infamous line from the Dred Scott v. Sandford case in 1856 in his closing statement, which implicitly ruled that African Americans were not entitled to citizenship under United States law. Using this as a precedent, the prosecution argues that machines are not entitled to the same rights as human beings, and specifically that human beings have a right to destroy their own property, while the defense argues not to repeat history, and to try to judge B1-66ER as a human and not a machine.

Personally, I found the film amazing. Part I and II are intended to explain how, eventually, the Matrix enslaved humanity. It illustrates the notion of biochauvinism beautifully. I reccommend it, highly.

Excelsior!
C.L.Sosis.

[Clifford Sosis]

Good news! You don't need to rent the DVD. Here is a link to Part I of the Second Renissance [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TArP-mpXqME] and, if you are interested, here is an irrelevant link to Part II [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7TLCcbN0Jk].

[Eddy Nahmias]

Thanks Clifford! I remember being blown away by those two parts of Animatrix when I saw it. Very scary stuff since it seems likely we will, before too long, have to deal with the moral, social, and legal questions regarding intelligent robots that we create and that we may not do very well with it. Since I use the Matrix in this class anyway, this might work well.