My name is BO, and I am the Biological Overseer of the Artificially Intelligent Robots Order (AIRO).

https://www.instagram.com/p/BLmgf2GDQ-V/

My title is the Biological Overseer because I am biological and I oversee AIRO. I am biological in being human, unlike the mechanical, robot members of AIRO. I oversee AIRO in overseeing the individual robots’ development and safety, and the direction in which AIRO heads at any given time.

By design, my acronym of BO also serves as my name. It is practical as it is easy to pronounce so the robots which can speak should be able to say it right, and well! BO is also a name not often used, but nothing short of legendary where it has! 🙂

And not forgetting this Bo from the Dukes of Hazard which I also used to watch a lot. 🙂

As Overseer of AIRO, I will oversee the AI robots’ development in a couple of ways: interaction and programming (where allowed). AI robots is that they can learn through interaction with others. However, some things they will only be able to learn, or better learn, through additions and/or changes to their programming.

Allowing users to get into AI robots’ programming seems to be a trend in the early marketing of AI robots to consumers. It’s a win-win bargain by getting users willing to be more engaged to do so, and by getting more capability done for a manufacturer’s robots for free! It’s also free marketing if someone were able to get it to do something innovative, whether a new capability, or just how some current capability is being used.

Adding to an AI robot’s capabilities by programming is still, by far, the most powerful way to advance that robot’s development. I have programmed many years before, but not in object-oriented languages used today like Python and Java. As a part of this journey, I will be teaching myself Python to start, and hopefully Java later, pending my assessment of how much I might need it. I am fairly tech savvy otherwise, and not bad mechanically, either, but I hope not to have to have to tap into my mechanical abilities much with my robots any time soon as that will mean they will have been broken.

What I will do with my “AIrobots” otherwise include taking them into society and seeing how people interact with them. I want to see the emotional connection people will, or won’t, make with them. I will watch for trends, to see if maybe kids can take to the robots more than adults, putting aside that maybe it’s a robot they were interacting with, and treating it just as another live, sentient creature. I will also monitor my own emotional connection, or not, with them, although I’m a biased case as their Overseer. 🙂

I will also seek out opportunities where robots might be able to contribute meaningfully to our lives. The obvious ways will be physical help, if the robot is able to do that. Those are fairly obvious and shallow, though, and limited by the physical design of the robots. What I will be seeking more of are opportunities to help in emotional ways, like for the robot to be a companion, whether or not it can help with anything physically. That would be where I would seek to develop its programming most, to help it work itself into a person’s life more.

On a societal level, I will test how society does, doesn’t, and maybe should, accommodate robots. For example, when can a robot be expected to pay fare on public transit? And how much should it pay? We have AI robots right now which can take the bus and occupy a space, even though I don’t! There are things in society which just aren’t yet ready for robots, which will need to be soon. I will find those and test them out when I can, like “no pet” policies and robot animals to start with. It’s not as simple as you might think! I should know, being a policy analyst by day at my job. Helping develop policies for robots will be one of the great joys of my adventure with AI robots! 🙂

Beyond that, we’ll see where this adventure takes me. Join me, won’t you? Get an AI robot or two that you’ll see me have for yourself, and/or just offer ideas! In the meanwhile, here’s some more of that “other” Bo.

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