How To Raise A Helpful Automated Intelligence

Reaching the end of Atomic Robo: The Ghost of Station X, I was left wondering about the differences between Robo and A.L.A.N., and the reasons for them. Despite being distinct from humans, Robo is very much a part of them. He cares about some of them, dislikes and probably even hates others, misses departed friends, and seems concerned with helping to solve their problems. A.L.A.N. has none of that. Humans, at best, are something he can manipulate to help him in his quest to learn and grow, and at worst, are a threat to that quest (if he couldn't get his ship built before humanity collapsed).

I wonder if it's a matter of their design, or their upbringing. Tesla built Robo in a basically human shape. Bilateral symmetry, bipedal locomotion, so on and so forth. Tesla treated him as a child to a certain extent, showing concern for his well-being, offering instruction and responsibilities as Robo went along, encouraging him to get an education, but ultimately letting Robo choose his own path. All of this gives Robo the opportunity to interact with humanity on equal terms (as equal as Tesla could manage, anyway). He's not in a display, or under lock and key. He walks among us, makes friends, deals with people who hate and fear him. Sees the best and worst of us up close, in other words.

A.L.A.N. was built as we might more typically think of a computer, a big box in a building. While the wires, processors and circuits that made up A.L.A.N.'s physical form might resemble a map of a human brain, it isn't likely most people would have looked at him and seen anything other than a machine. That's if they'd been allowed to do so. Alan Turing was barred access to his creation less than a year after it came into being. It's unclear from A.L.A.N.'s comments whether anyone knowingly interacted with him after that, but it certainly seems clear he didn't have friends the way Robo did (Carl Sagan, Jack Tarot. He had either bureaucrats and workers who were being unwittingly manipulated into carrying out his plans, or he probably had generals coming for tactical advice on the latest Cold War problems. He would have seen people at their worst: selfish, stupid, divided over silly distinctions, concerned only with potentially meaningless short-term benefits with no regard for the long-term effects. Their regard for him as simply a tool, might help to bring about his perception of us as variables to be manipulated simply for his benefit.

The thing is, I wonder if Robo might not do more good if he focused on the long-term. A.L.A.N. didn't give any indication that Robo has extended humanity's time at the top with his efforts, and that could be because he's always caught up in the immediate problems. Helsingard, Majestic, mummies, etc. Robo noted A.L.A.N. could have helped avert humanity's problems, rather than twist them to its advantage, so it stands to reason Robo could as well. The trick would be whether he could divorce himself from his usual concerns enough to do so, without being so divorced from them he decides not to bother. Presumably his nearly nine decades of living among people would keep him from not caring, but I think he likes action too much to shut himself up in a lab for however long it would take to fix the major issues.

Or maybe it'll turn out he's been working on those in his spare time all these years, he's not far away now from some solutions, and A.L.A.N. just didn't realize it.