After all, if we’re going to be comparing humanity to machinery you have to consider that personalities are what make certain humans paragons, destroyers, sadists, or optimists. Our initial question kind of shifts then: how do you find out if an AI has a personality? For a long time humans have turned to the Turing test, a test of a machine’s ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to or indistinguishable from that of a human. It applies to things like speech, linguistics, sight, acoustics, and motor skills. It’s not a bad test by any means, but with the current state of our technology it could be said to be a bit outdated. Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg, two Google engineers currently leading the Google Big Picture Data Visualization Group, would agree with the Turing test being a bit outdated. It’s precisely why they set out to administer and record their own test to figure out if machines have feelings, personalities, and psychological idiosyncrasies. The pair wrote a blog post on Medium detailing their process to answer these questions. They decided to present four commercially available vision systems different Rorschach inkblots to see how they examined and reacted to them. Viegas and Wattenberg labeled their robots one through four, revealing the actual hardware at the end of their study, and employed an algorithm from this art project to create artificial inkblot. Here’s what each robot had to say about the different inkblots it was presented with. I’ve also included Viegas and Wattenberg’s thoughts on each test below the robot answers:
Robot 1: hook, clawRobot 2: barretteRobot 3: artRobot 4: Rorschach image
Robot 1: jigsaw puzzleRobot 2: fleur-de-lisRobot 3: designRobot 4: black ink splotch illustration
Robot 1: maskRobot 2: pinRobot 3: isolatedRobot 4: Rorschach image
Robot 1: hook, clawRobot 2: handle-bar mustacheRobot 3: printRobot 4: black face paint print
Robot 1: maskRobot 2: brass knucklesRobot 3: isolatedRobot 4: black and white optical illusion
Robot 1: pitcher, ewerRobot 2: fastenerRobot 3: isolatedRobot 4: black art splat
The duo built out this table to help synthesize the data:
Here’s the key for the robot personalities:
Robot 1: MetamindRobot 2: WolframRobot 3: ClarifaiRobot 4: Cloudsight
Here’s my take on it all. If we’re comparing robots to humans the Rorschach test is probably a good method of determining if there is a latent personality behind all the circuitry. However, I still consider it a pretty big leap to say that as a direct result of this test robots definitively do have a personality. More importantly though is the innovative methodology that Viegas and Wattenberg use to research an interesting topic – it’s absolutely a step in the right direction. I’d love to hear your take on this – please feel free to comment below. All images in the article body are from the Medium post referenced in the beginning Image Credit: Pixabay
