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Google may begin working on ways to give robots a customised personality, or that of a real-life or dead person.
The company has been awarded a US patent, which states the methods and systems for robot personality development.
The idea is that a robot could potentially adopt or be programmed with customised personality features as well as related capabilities pulled from cloud computing platforms, reports Tech Week.
The patent document states: “A robot can be programmed to provide a desired look as well as intractability for the robot, which may be subject to change by the user or by the robot itself, such that the robot interface is customised to provide a desired personality for the robot.
“The robot personality is further disclosed as being sharable across a number of robots in varying locations.”
A potentially darker side of the patent is that Google may also be able to upload the personalities of real people, including the deceased.
Google’s patent continues: “The robot may be programmed to take on the personality of real-world people (e.g., behave based on the user, a deceased loved one, a celebrity and so on) so as to take on character traits of people to be emulated by a robot.”
Personalities will apparently be completely transferable, meaning the robot’s owner can port the customised qualities to other devices around the world.
The robotic personality patent will most likely raise many ethical concerns, and may even spark fears of a ‘robopocalypse’, which Professor Stephen Hawking reckons is on the cards with the development of artificial intelligence.
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