Josh Goldman:
It’s interesting because I mean . . . that’s. . . again that’s I’m like a huge, like sci-fi nerd and just like [a] nerd about technology in general. So, like, every time one of those like Boston Dynamics videos comes out about the robotic dog that could open doors, I’m like all over watching it like I’ll watch those multiple times. So, like, it’s
Christy St. John:
Oh, I love the ones where they can like, they can right themselves. Like, you know, where they push it over with a hockey stick, and they can back up and like pick up boxes. . . Yeah.
Christy St. John:
It’s so interesting that in some ways. . .
Josh Goldman:
There’s one I saw that like backflips now, it’s just, it’s crazy to think about these things they are now doing.
Christy St. John:
So cool! When we think of robots, we think of like the Terminator. And that’s not really where robots are going. Like, generally robots are, you know, they’re in like medical offices and shipping office, they’re helping do tasks, but they’re shaped like a mechanical arm, they’re not shaped like a human at all.
Josh Goldman:
Right, right, right. They’ll be delivering our mail or package one day. . .
Christy St. John:
Oh my gosh, I’ve already seen. . . are you in Los Angeles? Cause I’ve seen these little robots that go around. . . I’m pretty sure they’re for Postmates. There’s these like yellow Postmate robots and they have like a little display screen that says like, “I’m delivering food right now!” and they’ll be going across a crosswalk and I’m like, that thing is gonna get hit by a car.
Josh Goldman:
I haven’t seen any of those in person yet. I’ve been waiting but I don’t think they’re really down my way. But I… man, I don’t remember where I was, but a few years ago, I worked on a show with Morgan Freeman for National Geographic and they flew us all over the place. And because it was a Morgan Freeman show, they had us staying in these five-star hotels. One of them had a robotic assistant that would just like sit in the lobby until someone needed something. . .
Christy St. John:
*gasps* I’ve seen that!!
Josh Goldman:
And that would go. . .
Christy St. John:
Bring you towels if you need them!
Josh Goldman:
Yeah, yeah, yeah! And like I was just like; how do I get this thing to come to my room? Like this was just so . . .
Christy St. John:
Oh, I ordered towels I wanted to see it in action. . .
Josh Goldman:
Did it work?
Christy St. John:
Oh yeah, it did! And it has like a little thing, and it like just opened up and he’s like here’s your towels like it has like a little readout for what you can read and it makes little noises like kind of R2D2 style. . .
Josh Goldman:
Right, right.
Christy St. John:
Did you not test it? How could you go to a hotel like that and not try it . . . like I’m gonna do it!
Josh Goldman:
My schedule was really weird. I was doing data wrangling for them so like, the camera crews and everyone would go out and shoot during the day, and then they would come back to me with the footage at night. So, I was always up overnight from like, eight at night until seven in the morning. So, my schedule was all out of whack. So, I think it got. . .
Christy St. John:
Oohh, got it
Josh Goldman:
. . .got away from me while we were there.
But, talking about that kind of thing, how worried are you, with everything that you know about artificial intelligence and robots, and what now is happening in Artificial the show? How likely do you think a Terminator-like not necessarily coming back in time to kill someone – but just like a robot uprising? Or the singularity? Or just even just having like these AI entities integrated with society? Do you think that’s a future that we’re heading towards? Or do you think robots and artificial intelligence will just remain as servants?
Christy St. John:
I definitely think the future that we’re heading for I’m not worried about it in terms of Terminator, because I don’t think it’s going to happen in my lifetime, like seeing where robots are, anyone who’s had a conversation with Alexa knows that she’s not an amazing conversationalist.
Josh Goldman:
Right, right.
Christy St. John:
And we’re still a long way off in my mind from Ex Machina and Artificial. I think that everything I’ve seen of just robots is only like helping though, I feel like it can only help and like I feel much more excited to order towels from a robot as we continue on into the future, but, you know, it’s the questions that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep bring up, asking what is life? Is it empathy? Is it love? Is it feelings? Is it an emotion? Is it walking? What is it? And I am excited that the more advanced we get, the more sophisticated our tests for robots pretending to be humans are because we’re trying to figure out what makes you, you.
Josh Goldman:
Right, right. And that’s actually. . . I’m gonna make a guess here, I might be wrong, though. But are you a Star Trek fan?
Christy St. John:
Yeah, but – I’ve only watched, not that much. I’ve watched like the first season of the original series and like the movies and that’s it. So, if you’re going to get into like a Data discussion, I’m gonna be like, oh man, I don’t know that much.
Josh Goldman:
What about Isaac Asimov’s three laws of robotics.
Christy St. John:
Remind me what those are. . .
Josh Goldman:
Okay. So, he has three basic rules posits that they should be ingrained into robots/AI beings: A robot may not injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders it’s given by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law. And the last one is, a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or the second laws.
So, my question is do you feel that hardwiring those into an artificial intelligence or robot would negate their ability to have free will.
Christy St. John:
It would certainly negate their ability to be human because obviously humans can and do break all of those laws. But I think they’re good laws as a logical facts-based person. I think that if nothing else, they fit the level of robotics that we’ve achieved in our technological view right now.
Josh Goldman:
I would definitely agree with that… especially after the events of the season two finale. We saw that Sofie was not able to prevent herself from committing harm to someone. So. . .
Christy St. John:
Well, let’s be honest, should Matt have gone to jail for that? I think he should have.
Josh Goldman:
Personally, I think so too.
Christy St. John:
Yeah
Josh Goldman:
With Lilith, how is your character going to try and stop that same thing from happening again?
Christy St. John:
It’s an amazing question because we are making the story up as we go along. So, the honest answer, I have no idea. I don’t know where the story is going. In my mind, my throat is gonna get slit by Lilith and I don’t know when that’s gonna happen.
Having said that, my approach is definitely – and I say this a lot of times on the show, is a friendship approach, really trying to get to know her as a friend. I think getting to know someone on a peer level is different than trying to get to know someone in a father-daughter, relationship level.
So, definitely trying to build her understanding of complex relationships from the beginning, especially knowing what happened with Sophie. And also, I think all of the characters in the show have a lot of faith that Lilith is trapped in that room. All the doors are locked; she can’t get out. So, there’s a feeling of safety in a controlled experiment. Again, I don’t know what’s gonna happen, but doors are made to be open.
Josh Goldman:
So, I’m trying to get to think of how to phrase this the best way. I don’t have kids, I’ve got a little sister that’s like six years younger than me. So I was still a kid while she was growing up. . . but people versus like an AI – when you were born, you had no knowledge of the outside world or what was going on. You had to learn everything along with the context that went with it, whereas with an artificial intelligence, they’re programmed with all this information already and they kind of have to learn the context as they go.
Do you think that’s the right method or would your character think that it would be better to treat a robot like a child and have them learn everything at the same time? Like, oh, this oven is hot. I shouldn’t touch it. Why is this oven hot? Or do you think it’s better to give them all that information upfront, let them have access to it immediately, and then try and teach them the context to go along with it?
Christy St. John:
I think at the end of the day, as we’re teaching Lilith, as we’re teaching, the robot, well, what everyone has to understand is that we have to throw out a lot of the preconceived notions of psychology that we have because it’s not a human. So one of the basic psychological principles is you know, for these stages of development, generally, you have to finish a stage in order to advance to the next stage.
Lilith is obviously a good example of, you know, she walked before she crawled, so is that correct? I think in some ways, I as Elle, am figuring out what the rules are and honestly writing them because it’s never been done before.
Josh Goldman:
I’m really excited to see where Season 3 is going, how all that takes place, where you’re going, where we’re Lilith is going, and just kind of everything.
Christy St. John:
You and me both.
Josh Goldman:
This is an interesting show, it feels like something that’s never really been done before in this way. So, I’m really excited to see to catch up on season three and to moving forward. Thank you so much for taking the time out to speak with me today. This has been a great conversation and I look forward to seeing where you’re going in the future.
Christy St. John:
Yeah, it was a really fun Josh. Thanks for talking to me too!
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