Would a robot ever get angry enough to Become A Killer Robot?

Science Robotics discusses Sunny, the new Apple TV scifi series, and what happens if social robot assistants have emotions and learn to become killer robots to protect their owners.

In the series, iCub like robots are ubiquitous in a near future. Suzie is given one such robot, Sunny, which was apparently customized by her husband who died under mysterious circumstances. And when Suzie or her friends and family are threatened, Sunny machine learning program exceeds normal prohibitions to defend and fight back- even killing an attacker.

Sunny is the subject of a new article in Science Robotics, which explores the question of whether real-world robot companions would develop true emotions and, if so, what would hold those emotions in check. Click here to access the article behind the paywall.

Emotions have been used in real-world robotics since the 1980s. While a 2020 survey by Savery and Weinberg shows a whopping 74% of research papers are about social robots displaying appropriate emotional responses (often not having emotions but faking them to socially engineer the interaction), the original use of emotions was for self control. Emotions in biological systems use emotions for self-regulation and for adapting or improving performance; for example frustration is an indicator that something is going wrong and requires attention and adjustment. These emotions began to be displayed in order to communicate inner state, such as "don't bother me now, I'm frustrated with something." This allows others to update their mental model of the agent.

Sunny suggests four realistic ways that dangerous emotional responses could emerge in real- world robots. It also is consistent with advances in creating a deliberative metacognitive structure to manage behaviors, the new twist by Prescott, Vogeley, and Wykowska (2024) is it may involve an unexplored form of sensing, interoception (3).

You can read more about emotions for self-regulation in AI robotics in Introduction to AI Robotics 2nd edition Chapter 4 Software Organization of Autonomy and Chapter 7 Perception and Behaviors and for social interaction in Chapter 18 Hurman-Robot Interaction.

One of my students Russ Tardiff did a nice MS thesis on emotions for controlling multiple robots.

You can find more science fiction (and science) on the Emotions topic page.