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Workshop Title: Robotic assistant or electronic

person? A workshop designed to advance secondary school students' appreciation of the power and limitations of science in real world and

multidisciplinary arenasCan a robot ever fall in love or appreciate music the way that people do? Can a robot have a conscience and be held responsible for how it behaves?

Students are given a mental workout through the sciences, economics, philosophy, religion, psychology and history in preparation for questions we’ve never before had to ask. The ideas and content will be relevant for teachers/mentors who teach science, RE, computer science, philosophy and history. It is designed to enhance students’ epistemic insight and help them to appreciate why some questions are more amenable to science than others.

The introduction to the workshop will explain that by investigating different ways to address questions, teachers can develop children’s appreciation of how scholarship works including and particularly – what it means to be working scientifically. We will explain that beginning with one question – “Can a robot hear?” students’ explorations then branch out into a series of hands on investigations and research activities. Students compare what it means to ‘hear’ with what it means to ‘respond to sound’, and choose from a shopping list of robot parts and functions to make a robot that is as humanlike as possible. In this way the package provides a way to address Big Questions such as what it means to be human and what criteria we might one day use to decide if a robot can be counted as a person. Students learn to work with single discipline and multidisciplinary approaches and look at why it can be helpful to call on more than one discipline when addressing a ‘Big’ Question.

Year 10-11 Science in real world and multidisciplinary arenas

Robot /nobot / electronic personThe Anthrobots are coming!

The key aim for this session is for students to appreciate that: “scientism is not a necessary presupposition of science””

On the EI spiral objectives grid below this session is designed to meet two Learning Outcomes. These are for students

To be able to explain with examples that scientists tend to focus on questions about the natural world and sometimes set up artificial conditions (such as lab experiments) to test their ideas.

To appreciate that scientism is not a necessary presupposition of science.

WHERE DOES THIS FIT INTO THE EPISTEMIC INSIGHT SPIRAL CURRICULUM?

This session is in a unit for Year 10-11 (age 14-15) below:

Science and Religion

Objectives that we propose for settings that can directly address the relationships between science and religion such as RE lessons and family discussion

Science education.

Objectives that we propose for settings that can develop students’ appreciation of the power, relevance and limitations of science in real world and multidisciplinary arenas. These are settings

Character education and teaching across multiple subjects including science.

Objectives that we propose for settings which can develop students’ scholarly attitudes and appreciation of the strengths and limitations of disciplines


such as science lessons and science museums.

In yr 10

To have access to resources which can help them to appreciate the role that ultimate questions can and have played in stimulating and invigorating scholarly enquiry;

To be able to explain that and why science and religion are not necessarily incompatible; to know that science and religion have changed over time

To be wised up to uncritical scientism and to have experiences across subject boundaries that show that tools like reductionism, prediction and modelling and objective observations are methodological and not metaphysical guidelines in science.

To be able to explain that scientism is not a necessary presupposition of science and that some questions are more metaphysically sensitive than others;

To have experiences of cross-discipline workshops where they can see that scholars sometimes frame questions narrowly and address them through one discipline and sometimes frame questions more broadly for many disciplines to address.

To be able to explain that curiosity is an essential attitude for a scholar and to be able to articulate their own preferred types of questions and methods while acknowledging other approaches.

In yr 8

To appreciate that science and religion are historically situated – they are comprised of the knowledge we have and the questions people ask at a particular time and place.

To be able to explain that and why science and religion are not necessarily incompatible and to be able to identify and discuss ultimate questions relating to being human

To experience workshops with knowledgeable teachers that help them to appreciate the way that the media can influence how language is used to talk about the power and limitations of science;To feel encouraged to ask about the relationships between science and other disciplines.

To be able to explain with examples that scientists tend to focus on questions about the natural world and sometimes set up artificial conditions (such as lab experiments) to test their ideas.

To appreciate that scientism is not a necessary

To appreciate that subject boundaries can create pressures to stay on topic in lessons and to have experiences that provide strategies to negotiate and bridge the borders.

To be able to explain scholarly choices about which arguments are appropriate for different disciplines.


presupposition of science.

In yr 6

To access the explanation that creation and evolution are different, but not competing ways to explain why living things exist.

To be able to explain with examples that science and religion are mostly concerned with different types of questions.

To have experiences that help them to appreciate that working scientifically includes forming questions that can be addressed scientifically;

To be able to explain that our scientific curiosity is stimulated by making and talking about observations;

To be able to explain that science is a way of thinking that focuses on what we can say based on data gathered via the senses

To have experiences that help them to appreciate that being scholarly includes thinking creatively and to be prompted to use creative thinking to come up with questions and ways to investigate them.

To be able to explain with examples that some questions are more amenable to science than others;

In yr 4

To appreciate that scientists can be religious and that religious people can work in science;

To be able to explain that science and religion are mostly concerned with different types of questions;

To talk with more knowledgeable others about the similarities and differences between a scientific and a historical investigation

To be able to explain that our scientific curiosity is stimulated by making and talking about observations;

To appreciate that a school is a multidisciplinary arena and that each of the disciplines has its preferred questions, methods and norms of thought;

To be able to group questions and answers that seem to be connected and talk about those connections in terms of disciplines and subjects.

In Year 1-2

To appreciate that scholarship is made up of many disciplines;To be able to explain that ‘why’ questions can be explored through science, religion and other disciplines.

To appreciate and have experiences which explain that science focuses on questions about the objective observable world which we can explore with our senses.

To be able to explain that in science we gather data (observations) using our senses.

To appreciate that school days are often divided into subject lessons; some subjects focus on a scholarly discipline (like science, history, theology);

To be able to sort books and learning resources into categories corresponding to scholarly disciplines.


In Early years

To appreciate that we live in a wonderful world and to have experiences which show that sometimes we look to science and sometimes to religion and sometimes both to help us to make sense of what we are seeing and experiencing.

To be able to explain that a ‘why’ question can have a scientific and a religious type of answer.

To appreciate that science focuses on questions prompted by observations of the world around us (rather than feelings inside us).

To be able to explain that when we are working scientifically we sometimes try out ideas together to see what happens and we talk about and make observations.

To appreciate and have experiences that help explain that scholarship is made up of many disciplines;

To be able to match questions with their answers and to notice that one question can have many answers.

Curriculum LinksNational Science Curriculum

Key Stage 4 (Upper secondary): Through the content across all three disciplines, students should be taught so that they develop understanding and first-hand experience of:. appreciating the power and limitations of science and considering ethical issues which may arise

Additional Intended Learning outcomes:

Students should be able to:

Discuss different perspectives on the question of what it means to be human Identify instances where rich and complex are replaced by or changed into

more limited scientific-technical words and meanings. develop the habit of looking critically at claims made about robots and robotic

technology

Resources: Robot worksheet PowerPoint which accompanies the student ssession. Detective Sheet 2: Dancing Raisins Videos are at http://www.epistemicinsight.com/ingenious/sample-video-resources/

Session Outline


http://www.epistemicinsight.com/ingenious/sample-video-resources/

Introduction

Ask students to consider: “How smart is your technology and will your technology one day be smarter than you?”Draw students’ attention to the way that question uses the word ‘smart’ to describe technology before applying it to a person. Would we think about this question differently if we began by thinking about why and when we might say a person is smart before then asking if technology can be as smart? Explain that in this session we will be asking questions about increasingly humanlike robots. The aim is to not to say that technology will never have the capabilities of a person – but to look at some of the tricks that can persuade us they are much more personable than they are.

Create discussion around the questions – “what does it mean to be a person” and “could a robot ever become essentially a person – and have the same status as a person?” “what are the criteria we should use to decide if a robot is a person?”“Can an artificial invented entity one day achieve personhood?”

Workshop activity: can a robot hear?The facilitator asks students to give their opinions about whether we can design and build a robot that can hear. There is a work sheet with these two questions: 1) Suppose you were designing a robot that can hear – how would you address that challenge? 2) How would the robot demonstrate that it can hear (if it can hear)?Then the facilitator demonstrates a robot that starts and stops moving on the sound of a clap and again asks the question, ‘Can this robot hear?’. The aim is to help students consider whether there is a distinction between ‘hearing’ and ‘responding to sound’. Students are asked whether there is a difference between a person hearing and a robot hearing. Pupils may suggest that ‘understanding’ or ‘emotions’ are involved in the person hearing. The list of the differences between a robot hearing and a person hearing is written on the board by the facilitator. (Participants may suggest that hearing for a person is more complicated than just a responding to a clap. In that case, the facilitator may ask what about Siri (the voice recognition and response system on iPhones): Does Siri hear what the user says, and if this is hearing, how is this different from a person hearing?) During the discussion among students, the facilitator should try to highlight two different answers that students may give to the question of whether hearing is the same as responding to sound. One view is that ‘hearing and responding to


sound are the same’, the other is that ‘a robot responding to sound is different from a human being hearing’ (the facilitator refers back to this distinction later).

Workshop activity: comparing the visible behaviour of a humanoid robot and a human being.

The facilitator explains what a humanoid robot is (perhaps showing some interesting photos or video clips). She/he asks the group of students to do a simple task (such as raising their hands a couple of times). Then the facilitator asks the students to imagine that there is a group of humanoid robots in one room and a group of students in another room, and that both groups have been asked to follow the same instruction (raising their hand). The facilitator asks, what are the similarities and what are the differences between these groups and what they are doing. The point is to discuss the difference of ‘rule following’ between programmed humanoid robots and the human beings. These are the questions for thinking and discussion:

o Would the robot get tired if we asked them to do this many, many times? Would that be a difference between a humanoid robot and a human being? (If students say robots never get tired in the way that a human being gets tired, the facilitator may ask them to list the signs of tiredness in humans and say, ‘How about if I give this list to an engineer and ask for a group of robots that show all these signs after repeating the job for a certain number of times? Does this reduce or even fill in the gap between the robots and the human beings?);

o Do you think that any of the humans or robots or both would start to get cross if they are asked to do this several times? (The facilitator can then say that the engineers will be asked to address this gap in their design);

o Do you think that any of the humans or robots or both would refuse to follow the instruction after a while? (The facilitator can again say that this will be addressed in the design of the robots);

o Does the robot group understand what they are doing?


The facilitator broadens the question and asks whether, in general, engineers can fill the gap between humanoid robots and human beings – by honing its visible behaviour until it matches the behaviour of a person?

Other attributes of a person

In the next section we consider three (of many) ways to come up with a set of attributes of criteria for ‘being a person’ –

One is functional behaviour – what a person can visibly do and how they respond.

Another is relational – where a person fits in and what connections a person has with other people

Another could be biological – what are the parts of a person

Another is an inner life or consciousness – how a person feels and what he or she cares about.

We then say that we will suppose we take a broad approach and list the attributes we might consider to be in a person. Perhaps we can use this additive model to say that at some point it is a person.

APPENDIX: Handout sheet

Shopping for a robot that qualifies as an ‘electronic person’

Imagine that it is the year 2100 and robotics / computing are greatly advanced from their current state. You have an array of technologies to choose from at your local computing and robotics shop.You are a keen amateur technician and you are entering the annual ‘artificial life’ championships. With a £1000 budget, you have to build the machine that has what it needs to have the status of electronic person. How will you choose to spend your budget? Be prepared to explain and defend your decisions.


☐ HUMANOID BODY £150 ☐ BOX SHAPED BODY £50☐ MEMORY: £250☐ HUMAN LANGUAGES: £50☐ EMOTION CHIP (feelings include happy, sad, afraid, laughing): £200☐ PERSONALITY: £50

☐ LEARNS FROM ITS MISTAKES: £100☐ SENSES (vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste): £250☐ INTELLIGENCE: £150☐ PASSIONS (sport, hobby, music, etc.): £150☐ DREAMS: £250

☐ SELF AWARE: £250☐ A SOUL: £250☐ RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS: £150☐ SENSE OF FUN: £250☐ IMAGINATION: £150☐ GENDER: £200

YOUR TOTAL:

Discuss students’ choices – and ask them to explain differences and similarities between their choices and those by other students. Do they think that the attributes are ‘sufficient’? What else would they want to add?

For Older Students: Year 10 (age 16) Metaphysically sensitive questions

At this point the next activity depends on the age group of students. For all age groups, the workshop aims to establish with students that some questions are more amenable to science than others. For older students in Year 10, we also introduce the phrase ‘metaphysically sensitive’ to highlight that some questions are more contentious than others among scholars.To tune students into this idea, the facilitator explains that the question of whether scientists can fill the gap between a humanoid


robot and a human being is an example of a ‘metaphysically sensitive question’. This is because how a scholar answers depends on how they conceptualise ‘what it means to be human’. To explain this further, the facilitator gives a working definition of ‘metaphysics’:Metaphysics is the study of any of the most fundamental concepts and beliefs, on which many other concepts and beliefs rest. Or, metaphysics discusses the question of what is real.The facilitator then goes back to the question of hearing and the list of the differences between hearing and responding to sound and explains that the question of ‘can a robot hear?’ is also a metaphysically sensitive question because how we answer depends on what we mean by ‘a human being hearing’.If a person is just molecules and atoms and an assembly of mechanisms, then we are well on the way to having a robot that can behave like a human. If, however, hearing is more than a mechanical process and also requires some kind of personal experience and subjective response then this will be more difficult to achieve in a robot and, further, we may never know for sure if a robot is merely displaying the signs of hearing or if there is truly hearing happening too. In order to help students better understand the idea of ‘metaphysically sensitive’ questions, the facilitator then gives them some examples of less metaphysically sensitive questions:• Does this robot respond to sound?• How many batteries does this robot need?• What is the maximum weight that this robot can pick up?• How many neurons are in an adult brain?

The facilitator highlights that if a question is not metaphysically sensitive then it is likely that scientists will agree that the question is amenable to science. In contrast, scientists who hold different metaphysical positions are likely to disagree over how to answer a metaphysically sensitive question – and in particular may not agree about the amenability of the question to science.

Workshop activity: ordering questions from amenable to science to more metaphysically sensitiveThe facilitator gives 8 cards with questions that are more or less amenable to science on each and asks students to categorise them into (a) very amenable to science; (b) partly amenable to science; (c) not very amenable to science – but there may be smaller scientific questions that we can usefully explore. A worksheet for


this and other activities can be found on the LASAR website – as LASARcentre.com and also our newly developed site for teachers looking to develop students’ epistemic insight at epistemicinsight.com.Workshop concluding remarksThe facilitator sums up by highlighting the following points from the workshop:

1. In this workshop, we discussed the idea that questions can often be addressed by more than one discipline. We also looked at some ways that science and engineering interact with other disciplines such as psychology and philosophy.

2. We discussed the meaning of the word ‘hearing’ and the importance of being clear about what we mean when we use it to talk about what is happening when a robot and a person respond to sound.

3. We discussed whether it would be possible in the future for science and engineering to invent humanoid robots that can be considered to be persons.

4. We paused to consider what it means to be human and the difficulty of turning these ideas into a design brief and criteria that work for engineers. Could we ever be sure that any list we produce is really sufficient?

5. We next turned to consider what it means if we say that a question is ‘metaphysically sensitive’.

6. We discussed the idea that the question of whether a robot can hear is more ‘metaphysically sensitive’ than the question, ‘Can a robot respond to sound?’


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