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THE KYROID

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kyroid - "kyr" means a thousand years, "oid" suggests a form of resemblance. My project is a speculative one and as such the symbolism of a thousand years is where I have chosen to ground my posthuman world and the posthuman robots.

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Works Cited Tofunmi Kuti Anderson, Susan Leigh. “Philosophical Concerns with Machine Ethics.” Machine Ethics, edited by Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 162–167.

Asimov, Isaac. I, Robot (The Robot Series Book 1). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition

Ben Byford, “Machine Ethics podcast with Sam Hill” Machine Ethics, 4 November 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HueYxUrfgo8

Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013. Paperback.

Maize, "The Conversation - David Krakauer & Robert C. Wolcott" Maize, 9 November 2017.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ySeKdcflQc&t=698s

Nicholas A. Christakis, "How AI Will Rewire Us," The Atlantic, April 2019.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/04/robots-human-relationships/583204/

R. Murphy and D. D. Woods, "Beyond Asimov: The Three Laws of Responsible Robotics," IEEE Intelligent Systems, vol. 24, no. 4, July-Aug. 2009, pp. 14-20

The Economist Online, “Robot Ethics: Morals and The Machine.” The Economist, 2 June 2012. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2012/06/02/morals-and-the-machine

Torrance, Steve. “Machine Ethics and the Idea of a More-Than-Human Moral World.” Machine Ethics, edited by Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2011, pp. 115–137.
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1. History
  Many years after a major breakthrough in strong AI research, we are closer to living in a posthuman world...
  
  It has been over a decade since Irene Axell, founder of Axell Corporations succeeded in replicating and enhancing the human consciousness. With her research and testing team, they successfully created the ARC (Artificial Robot Consciousness). The design team spent months creating the perfect form, put them through a rigorous trial-and-error testing phase, and engendered a new race of self-thinking and self-conscious robots called the Kyroid.
  
  The First Year
  During the first year, the launch of the Kyroids was announced, humans around the world were in a frenzied state. Majority of the population were ecstatic by the thought of having an efficient helper at home, at work, and at school. Parents began to dream of the long get away trips they would be able to have, once they get a robot nanny to watch the kids. CEO's imagined how much more efficient their days would run, with a robot personal assistant who wouldn't forget their coffee in the morning. School's began celebrating at the thought of having more efficient security, there had been way too many kidnappings within the passed month already. Yes, majority of the world began to yearn for a life of bliss and security once they had robots in their lives. A smaller population of the world however, had watched enough science fiction films to know what their fate would be. They were terrified of a world where competent machines roamed freely among them, so they began organizing riots against Axell Corp's launch. Axell Corp began buying property in neighborhoods around the world and started constructing houses designed for their Kyroids. Protesters tried their best to slow down the construction but more members of each neighborhood were thrilled to have robot neighbors and protected the construction site from any protester that dared disrupt it.
  
  The Second Year
  Much to the dismay of the minority, the protests caused no disruption towards the housing constructions and proposed launch of the Kyroids. So a year after the world had long awaited their arrival, they were finally released into the world. The day the Kyroids set out to their homes went down in history as the beginning of a new age for most and the beginning of the end for a few. This monumental event was covered by every news station on the planet and humans all around the world got a glimpse of their new cohabiters. Axell Corp had created about a billion robots as a test run and dispatched them into their various homes around the world. Every Kyroid was welcomed into their new neighbourhood by a thousand pair of eyes from the crowd of people eager to catch their first glimpse of a robot, camera lights from people eager to get live coverage, and rotten fruits to the head from protesters who wanted to let them know they weren't welcome here.
  After a few weeks, the Kyroids adapted to their various societies really quickly and began seeking jobs to earn money, making friends to feel like part of the community, and taking up leisure activities to keep themselves busy. After several months, a Kyroid could now walk down the street without having every eye fixed on them in amazement, and speak to a human without having them initially shriek and stare infatuatedly. Yes, the Kyroids were quickly adapting to their new society, and it seemed the humans were quickly adapting to them as well.
  
  The Third Year
  After a year of Kyroids peacefully living amongst humans, an eye-opening incident occurred…
  
  One evening on Colwell bridge, three lives were claimed as two cars collided into one another, a white SUV and a yellow Porsche. Martha Norris and her daughter Susan were in the white SUV driving home from a night out at the cinema. In the yellow Porsche, Orson Allen and his girlfriend were driving home from a failed romantic dinner and began yelling at eachother in the car. At about 10pm that night, both cars cruised down in opposite directions, by 10:15pm Orson had unknowingly swerved into the wrong lane and by 10:16pm he crashed into the white SUV knocking it over the bridge into the water below. A Kyroid was taking a stroll down the very same bridge that night and had watched the whole event unfold. In a split second, the Kyroid jumped off the bridge and swam down to the sinking car. Seeing that Susan was already dead, the Kyroid began to help Martha out of her seat and brought her to dry land. A bystander had already called for an ambulance and the victims were rushed to the hospital. Unfortunately only Martha survived the accident.
  The next day Martha Norris had filled a lawsuit against Axell Corporations for producing "deficient" robots. She claimed that when she saw the Kyroid approaching her car underwater, she motioned for the robot to save her daughter first and it blatantly disobeyed her, breaking the second law of robotics (Asimov, 36). Protesters rallied behind her claiming the Kyroid had also broken the first law by not attending to Orson and his wife on time. However, the charges were dropped by the court as Axell Corp was able to prove that their Kyroids were sentient beings and therefore above such 'primitive' laws.
  The whole incident caused a stir around the world because suddenly humans had no guarantee that they would be safe from an angry Kyroid, and their unrealistic expectations of security were quickly shattered. After a couple months, Axell Corporation made a world wide statement:
  "In light of the fallout from the Colwell bridge incident, it has come to our attention at Axell Corp that preconceived notions of what the Kyroids are, and what their purpose is, have been made. It seems the Kyroids have been perceived as second-class citizens designed and built to serve us (humans). I would like to reassure you all that the Kyroids, although incredibly enhanced, are no danger to our specie, and they will not be placed below us on a hierarchical scale. They are a race of their own, different from us, but worthy of the same respect as any of us are. As such, Axell Corporation would be publishing official set of laws guiding your interaction and expectations from Kyroids, they have already received legislative approval and would be implemented a year from now. I present to you the three laws…"
2. Post-human vs. Post-humanism The term 'Post-human' refers to beings and entities that exist in a state beyond being human. Literally, Post-human alludes to that which exists after, or beyond the human. This notion does not suggest the end of humanity, but rather signals the end of a certain conception of the human. The Post-human offers resources for rethinking the articulation of humans with intelligent machines (Braidotti,101). As such, the post-human does not necessarily move away from the embodiment associated with a human, but rather thinks to expand the limits and enhance the capabilities of the human.
  
  The term 'Post-humanism' is a critique of traditional humanist ideas that emphasize the value and agency of human beings, and that the human experience and rational thinking provides both knowledge and a moral code to live by. Post-humanism decenters the human and discards the concept of individualism, turning to a monistic understanding of the universe through an embedded non-unitary subject. As such, post-humanism completely moves away from the idea of the human body as "ideal" and embraces other forms of embodiment.
3. First Law Ria's assessment of the situation worked with an ethical theory called Act Utilitarianism:
  According to this teleological theory (a theory that maintains that the rightness and wrongness of actions is determined entirely by the consequences of the actions), the right act is the one, of all the actions open to the agent, which is likely to result in the greatest net good consequences, taking all those affected by the action equally into account. (Anderson, 162)
  
  Total net pleasure = Σ (intensity × duration × probability) for each affected individual. This computation would be performed for each alternative action. The action with the highest total net pleasure is the right action. (Anderson, 163)
  
  In a way, the first law checks the human understanding of morality and through the story, we see how Joseph ultimately puts himself over the elderly people and even makes a claim that he is in the right because his request to Ria will assist all the other people caught in traffic behind him. Anderson's article mentions how "most human beings are far from ideal models of ethical agents, despite having been taught ethical principles; and humans do, in particular, tend to favor themselves. Machines, though, might have an advantage over human beings in terms of behaving ethically." (Anderson, 166) Joseph was incapable of thinking objectively and therefore coming to the an ethical conclusion because it did not favor what he needed at the time.
4. Second Law
  Classic science fiction films that deal with human-machine interaction present all kinds of life and death dilemma's. "But these imaginings were not focused on AI’s broader and potentially more significant social effects—the ways AI could affect how we humans interact with one another" (Nicholas).
  
  The second law explores the human tendency to rely on technology to the point where they loose aspects of themselves, loose what it means to be humans by reducing interaction.
  
  when I asked my participants how long they generally spend on their phone, I got results varying from "1-2 hours" to "all day." When I corrected the question to "would you rather google a question or ask someone else?" the result was unanimous as most people expressed that they would be on the side of efficiency which is what google gives them.
5. THE KYROID kyroid - "kyr" means a thousand years, "oid" suggests a form of resemblance. My project is a speculative one and as such the symbolism of a thousand years is where I have chosen to ground my posthuman world and the posthuman robots.
6. Survey A look at the current mindset of humans prior to the dawn of a post-human world...

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