Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

The Significance of a Second-Person Perspective for the Development of Humanoid AI

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Edge Computing – EDGE 2022 (EDGE 2022)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13732))

Included in the following conference series:

  • 273 Accesses

Abstract

Anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism are a pair of basic directions in cognitive science and AI research. These directions correspond respectively to “first person” and “third person”. The confrontation between these two concepts not only has guiding significance for the exploration of cognitive science but also has ethical importance. Human-like AI (for instance, Artificial General Intelligence, AGI for short) research hovers between them. I propose a second-person, or limited consensus perspective as a philosophical and ethical research context that is integrated with the first and third person to constitute a “trinity” relationship—what I call the “trinity of the contexts of intelligent artificiality”, which could be represented by the relationship between emulation, simulation, and imitation. The consequences of the general loss of the first-person context will be explored, including the uncertainty of the ethical landscape of humankind—such as the fragmentation of the self—and the risk of going against the original intention of AGI research. This cannot be fixed by returning to a first-person perspective. The second-person context is an idea that is situated between anthropocentrism and non-anthropocentrism, and it may be employed to avoid these risks.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Adolphs, R., Gosselin, F., Buchanan, T.W., Tranel, D., Schyns, P., Damasio, A.R.J.N.: A mechanism for impaired fear recognition after amygdala damage. Nature 433(7021), 68–72 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Anderson, J.R., Lebiere, C.: The Newell test for a theory of cognition. Behav. Brain Sci. 26(5), 587–601 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bello, P., Bringsjord, S.: On how to build a moral machine. Topoi 32(2), 251–266 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bello, P., Guarini, M.: Introspection and mindreading as mental simulation. In: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, vol. 32, no. 32 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  • Block, N.: On a confusion about a function of consciousness. Behav. Brain Sci. 18, 227–287 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bostrom, N.: Are we living in a computer simulation? Philos. Q. 53(211), 243–255 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clarke, R.: Toward a credible agent-causal account of free will. Noûs 27(2), 191–203 (1993)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Darling, K., Nandy, P., Breazeal, C.: Empathic concern and the effect of stories in human-robot interaction. In: 2015 24th IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), pp. 770–775. IEEE (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  • Darwall, S.L.: The Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D.: Essays on Actions and Events: Philosophical Essays, 2nd edn., vol. 1. Clarendon Press, Oxford (2001)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Duffy, B.R.: Anthropomorphism and the social robot. Robot. Auton. Syst. 42(3–4), 177–190 (2003)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Firth, R.: Ethical absolutism and the ideal observer. Res. 12(3), 317–345 (1952)

    Google Scholar 

  • Floridi, L.: The Ethics of Information. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2013)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Fong, T., Nourbakhsh, I., Dautenhahn, K.: A survey of socially interactive robots. Robot. Auton. Syst. 42(3–4), 143–166 (2003)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Frankfurt, H.G.: Alternate possibilities and moral responsibility. J. Philos. 66(23), 829–839 (1969)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gibson, J.J.: The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception: Classic Edition. Psychology Press, New York (2014)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A.I.: Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2006)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, H.M., Gray, K., Wegner, D.M.: Dimensions of mind perception. Science 315(5812), 619 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gray, K., Wegner, D.M.: Feeling robots and human zombies: Mind perception and the uncanny valley. Cognition 125(1), 125–130 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hawkins, J., Blakeslee, S.: On Intelligence: How a New Understanding of the Brain Will Lead to the Creation of Truly Intelligent Machines. Henry Holt, New York (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  • Hofstadter, D.R.: Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. Basic Books, New York (1979)

    MATH  Google Scholar 

  • Hurley, S.: Understanding simulation. Res. 77(3), 755–774 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kane, R.: The Significance of Free Will. Oxford University Press, Oxford (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kaptelinin, V., Nardi, B.: Affordances in HCI: toward a mediated action perspective. Paper Presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  • Keijsers, M.: Robot bullying. Doctoral dissertation, University of Canterbury. Research repository of University of Canterbury (2020). https://ir.canterbury.ac.nz/handle/10092/100776

  • Kieras, D.E.: A summary of the EPIC cognitive architecture. In: Chipman, S.E.F. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science, pp. 27–48. Oxford University Press, Oxford (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kim, J.: Causation, nomic subsumption, and the concept of event. J. Philos. 70(8), 217–236 (1973)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kissel, A.: Free will, the self, and video game actions. Ethics Inf. Technol. 23(3), 177–183 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-020-09542-2

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Knobe, J., Nichols, S.: Free will and the bounds of the self. In: Kane, R. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Free Will, 2nd edn., pp. 530–554. Oxford University Press, New York (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kotseruba, I., Tsotsos, J.K.: 40 years of cognitive architectures: Core cognitive abilities and practical applications. Artif. Intell. Rev. 53(1), 17–94 (2020)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Laird, J.E., Newell, A., Rosenbloom, P.S.: SOAR: an architecture for general intelligence. Artif. Intell. 33(1), 1–64 (1987)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li, X., Hammer, P., Wang, P., Xie, H.: Functionalist emotion model in NARS. In: Iklé, M., Franz, A., Rzepka, R., Goertzel, B. (eds.) AGI 2018. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 10999, pp. 119–129. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97676-1_12

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Markram, H., et al.: Reconstruction and simulation of neocortical microcircuitry. Cell 163(2), 456–492 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mori, M.: Bukimi: no tani [the uncanny valley]. Energy 7(4), 33–35 (1970)

    Google Scholar 

  • Mori, M., MacDorman, K.F., Kageki, N.: The uncanny valley [from the field]. IEEE Robot. Autom. Mag. 19(2), 98–100 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Newell, A.: Unified Theories of Cognition. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, D.A.: The Psychology of Everyday Things. Basic Books, New York (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Connor, T.: Why agent causation? Philos. Top. 24(2), 143–158 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rifkin, J.: The Empathic Civilization: The Race to Global Consciousness in a World in Crisis. Penguin, New York (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  • Seibt, J., Nørskov, M., Hakli, R. (eds.): Sociable Robots and the Future of Social Relations: Proceedings of Robo-Philosophy 2014, vol. 273. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • Strawson, P.F.: Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays. Routledge, London (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  • Tegmark, M.: Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Knopf, New York (2017)

    Google Scholar 

  • Trope, Y., Liberman, N.: Construal-level theory of psychological distance. Psychol. Rev. 117(2), 440–463 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Turing, A.: Computing machinery and intelligence. Mind 59(1950), 433–460 (1950)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  • Vallverdú, J., Trovato, G.: Emotional affordances for human–robot interaction. Adapt. Behav. 24(5), 320–334 (2016)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Waytz, A., Gray, K., Epley, N., Wegner, D.M.: Causes and consequences of mind perception. Trends Cogn. Sci. 14(8), 383–388 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wang, S., Lilienfeld, S., Rochat, P.: The uncanny valley: existence and explanations. Rev. Gen. Psychol. 19(4), 393–407 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weizenbaum, J.: ELIZA—a computer program for the study of natural language communication between man and machine. Commun. ACM 9(1), 36–45 (1966)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China

    Hanlin Ma

Authors
  1. Hanlin Ma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Hanlin Ma .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Min Luo

  2. Kingdee International Software Group Co., Ltd., Shenzhen, China

    Liang-Jie Zhang

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Ma, H. (2022). The Significance of a Second-Person Perspective for the Development of Humanoid AI. In: Luo, M., Zhang, LJ. (eds) Edge Computing – EDGE 2022. EDGE 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13732. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23470-5_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23470-5_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-031-23469-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-031-23470-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics