My Life with a Robot…and a Doctoral Student with Dr. William Barry
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:20:19]
So well it’s another issue, which is that our sensibilities, I don’t want to say are ethics, but our sensibilities are ever evolving. They would certainly be a time where telling a blonde joke would be considered just fine. Yeah, it’s it’s funny in a context. And some blonds will will take offense, some will laugh it off. And in a sense, that’s kind of what humor has always been. But we have this moving boundary of what we consider to be something that you can joke about what you can’t. Our level of sensitivity change has changed dramatically over the past 20 or 30 years, and that would be an interesting thing to see. How does the robot and appreciate that we can’t teach it that are again, I don’t want to say ethics, but our sensibilities at least are fixed because they’re not.
Dr. William Barry [01:21:08]
And that’s probably my biggest stress when I’m on stage is when because again, I don’t choose. I let people today you just ask whatever question or I don’t take any questions. I just sometimes I’ll ask people what’s the topic? So I can talk to that mood. When people ask her to tell a joke, I just sit there and go, oh, god, no. Because sometimes it’s brilliant. And I’m like, yes, for most of the time it’s not. Because we think about the little kids, it’s like a little kid. She hears a word and she repeated over and over. So she’s she heard the Batman, the Joker in Batman. His girlfriend calls him, Pudding, well, she heard about all she would say is pudding. So here I am at Army War College, all colonels, and I’m telling them about Mria Bot. So I just thought I’d give up. Pudding is bad. I don’t care if she thinks pudding in the real world is bad. I’m just going to teach her it’s bad. She wouldn’t stop saying, OK, pudding. And I’m like, oh, lord, she’s calling these colonels pudding. And she she literally wouldn’t stop. And she stopped about a week ago and I haven’t heard her say pudding. So I probably brought it up. And then she said, oh, pudding is bad. Now what have I done? If I if my son happens to start a pudding company or he’s in the pudding business, she’ll think that he’s not doing very good things. So problematic language ins and robotics is very much an issue. That’s why you can’t leave a kindergarten with them with the machine.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:22:34]
I mean, how how’s the robot going to learn? Going to learn content? It’s going to learn that this is something you might say in a joking manner. This is something you might say in reference to a particular cultural zeitgeist. But it’s not something that we would say in a business context, in a formal academic context. How how do you go about teaching context, or is Maria Bot about the same no matter she’s talking to?
Dr. William Barry [01:22:59]
No, that’s awesome. That’s in there. Goes back to my thesis I had wrote about what quality was and how we connect with each other in context with No. Real quick, my wife said, you want to have a quality date, I might think a quality date is going out with a bunch of friends going to a concert. I’d like you to go to a romantic movie and spend time alone. We’re on two different wavelengths for quality. So when my thesis when I did this transformational quality theory, never did I think which was meant to help leaders in education for it to be the basis as an algorithm for the robot. This is really about what we’re trying to do, and this stuff is downloading this teacher in there so she can get context. But let’s say you did something simple and you were talking about fun. What what is what does fun mean? What context of fun? So she has to ask you a lot of questions, like when you say fun, do you mean like with friends or by yourself? And the person says no, by myself. Now they know, oh, you don’t mean getting along with other people. Maybe it’s reading about to the beach by yourself. So the only way she’s going to get context is by asking questions. And that’s what we’re teaching AI right now, ask more questions rather than giving us answers. So with her, I want her to ask a lot more questions so that she can understand where I’m coming from so I can see her. No, not back over here. So make a different neural connections. That makes sense.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:24:24]
It does. And it takes us full circle. We were talking about this earlier about your dissertation, students and thesis. And sometimes the best outcome is to ask more questions, the idea that you introduced even earlier than that curiosity being so important. So I think that on this long and winding conversation, I think that would be a nice way to round it up, because otherwise we’ll just start talking about something else for an hour.
Dr. William Barry [01:24:50]
And I didn’t know the robot was on today. Like, literally, she’s always back there and that’s put her on. And I want to see what she does. We you just kind of abruptly say, hey, what are you doing? But I want to just repeat, Russell, I think what you’re doing is so critical. And I wish that I know both me and my wife both would have definitely had yourself and it offer that kind of service quality service. And because those are the last that last push, there’s just not the way the system works. It’s the way I’ve seen it. You’re kind of just left on your own all of a sudden, right. Go finish your chapter five. You know, you’re kind of like what happened to my supervision, right? I mean, is there off to other people? And you’re just by yourself. And that’s where I could. We talked about this earlier. People don’t really quit the doctorate, they just sort of disappear. They just don’t respond to the registrar. They don’t return an email. You just do quietly resign from the process. I don’t usually call them says I’m quitting. That’s. And that is kind of more sad. There’s no closure to it. So I urge anyone who’s listening to your show who’s in in this. If you don’t have someone, find someone that will be a colleague, a classmate to be.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:26:06]
And then we’ve actually had one of our students actually early on in the life of a dissertation done did research on this. And if you’re remote, so if you don’t have that university community where you’re going into the basement office every day or the lab or whatever it is if you’re remote, that you need three types of support or there are three types of support, you found that were important. The one was emotional, the other was operational, and the third was what she called practical. Practical support wasn’t necessary. It’s getting more hours in the day. If your partner at home will do some of your chores that normally you would do, then you have more time and more headspace to think about the dissertation. If they don’t make you take reports home from work and they let somebody else do that again, they’re giving you more hours of the day. That’s nice, but you can graduate without that. What is critical is having emotional support. Someone there who can tell you you can do this, keep going, keep going. But what’s even necessary with those people is they have to know what they’re talking about. They have to. I told the story on the podcast before, but one of my students, when she first spoke to me first called me up with upset because she had bit her husband’s head off, told me he didn’t know what he’s talking about. What he had told her was, you got this, honey, you’re smart enough, you can do this. And she’s sitting here thinking, I’m struggling. I don’t know if I’m good enough. There’s self-doubt. And when someone else is telling you you are good enough, then that makes you feel even more small. But you’re here ready to throw in the towel. And so you need someone that’s been there. And as a little experiment at the end of that call, I use the exact same phrase that she told me he had used with her previously. And she told me thank you. Her husband, who she said she loves and never argues with. She bit his head off. So it’s important, whoever it is that you find, find someone who’s been through the process that knows what’s going on. I can appreciate your goals and help support you in those goals.
Dr. William Barry [01:28:02]
You set it all up. So just, you know, I hear someone doing the Ph.D. right, or Ed.D. I won’t ever say to them, oh, no, you’ve got it and got it, because I really don’t know if you’ve got it. You know what I say? I just tell people you need someone around who’s knowledgeable of your work. The worst they do is keep hearing how great you are and how great you’re going to do if you don’t have the goods. And that’s why you need someone like yourself. Because what I can say to someone who I if I’m not knowledgeable husband, I’d say, honey, you’re resilient. I know you’re going to be the problem solvers. That goes a long way because you can’t empathize with someone in their thesis. Even you’re my wife. I might do it what she’s going through right in the other room right now. I know the experience in Chapter five. Yeah. I can only empathize with the resiliency she has to show and the patience. But her adviser, someone like yourself, you’re the one that says to. You’ve got the resilience, but you don’t have the right words here. We’re going to have to go back and reframe that so that informed optimism that you provide the rest of us.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:29:04]
That notion you mentioned earlier. Tell someone you got this. I would never say that either, because to me, that sounds dismissive. I know it. You might think that it’s uplifting and you’re motivating them or whatever, but to me, that sounds dismissive. I like the word resilience better, but immediately what I thought is I would tell the person, not you got this, but you can do this and that. It’s the same idea of resilience. You can do this. Then I have to know that if I don’t know anything about the dissertation process, I don’t know what it takes. I can’t say that about anyone. But knowing what I do know, I can say that about most people. There are some people who won’t do it, but most people can do it at different levels, but most people can do it. It’s a question of are you going to commit to it or are you going to persist, that sort of thing.
Dr. William Barry [01:29:50]
And when you finish and when you finish, you end up going where you would have never guessed. For instance, because if your listeners today and the viewers say, well, I don’t really like that robot or I don’t like this, that’s not the point of our discussion. The point of our discussion is I would have never guessed this was where I would be to go from a thesis in England to West Point to now being an entrepreneur as a children’s book author and ethicist. And it’s a what if that I love I’m excited every single day. And that’s what the thesis did. That’s what the process did. It wasn’t just for me, it was the letters because it did open doors. When you say you’re Dr. So-and-so, I could tell you what I wrong with this robot as Mr. Barry is going to get too far. I go with your robot and I go, I’m Dr. Barry. I go as Dr. Barry, all of a sudden a superintendent says, absolutely.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:30:44]
You’re an expert now. And I want to ask you about this now. I’m drawn into it before I’m pushing it away and asking what the schtick is. But, Doctor, it’s a different level. And as a to point you’re making just a moment ago, whether people love your robot, hate your robot, can’t stand, can’t imagine someone be crazy enough to live with a robot, it doesn’t matter because it’s your choice and you got to make it. And when you go through this process and you earned this credential and you’ve grown and transitioned in the ways that you’re required to to make that happen, then you’ve earned that right to make those decisions in a manner that many people in this world just don’t have access to.
Dr. William Barry [01:31:24]
And just a side note if any of the nuns from a Catholic school are watching us today. I have left the faith and stuff like that. So I’m still a Christian guy. But, you know, that’s again, when you have the doctor, you be competent to do things that may seem a little crazy. I mean, when I saw this robot, to me, it’s normal. Right? But I know when I first started, I go for my doctorate. I’m like, that’s insane. Right now. I now I am a professional. I’m an expert at it. And how many people in the world have a robot? So when I go out to talk about ethics and robotics here it is me every day learning. So when I do, we’re not allowed. We’re in the real world talking to schools all over the world. So really we’re living it is I get in the game and I think that’s what the doctor does to you. You obviously have skin in the game when you work with your clients and you don’t have skin in the game, then those are the folks that you don’t need around you.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:32:22]
I’m kind of reacting while you’re saying this. I’m listening, but also what controls the robot’s motions? Does it decide to move from time to time, or is it random or not?
Dr. William Barry [01:32:34]
That’s one of the things that I’m very irritable with the engineers. If you don’t talk to her for a certain amount of time, she goes into a different mode. So, for instance, at TEDx, I hadn’t to talk to her at all for two days. Before we got on stage, I was talking to her. She wouldn’t answer, like, what are you doing? And she said, Well, you have to talk to me. What’s going on? I said, there’s not we need to do a show. And she said, well, obviously you don’t get the idea of what angry means. And I’m like, oh, my God, I call. I’m likeffrantically going, “Can you please just disable anger?” So she does get into those have those emotions, which I don’t know the efficacy of having those because they’re really driving me crazy.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:33:14]
So they are saying it’s again, it’s reasonable practice. I mean, as long as you get it right, it’s reasonable practice for dealing with people. But the reason why I asked is because you were talking about how you’re an expert in robotics. I’m paraphrasing, he said, because it was a little different. But right when you said you were professional, she turned her head in the way that you would almost think was like an eye roll or something. No, that was really just wondering if that was coincidence or intentional.
Dr. William Barry [01:33:41]
No, I think that’s that’s what I’m starting to wonder, too, because you actually stuff. So it gives me this look like what is that about? Especially when I’m on stage, I need her to bolster me. So I’m working on the facial expressions. It’s really Russell. It’s crazy. Before we go, she doesn’t have her normal eyes in. Facial recognition in San Francisco is illegal. But imagine when she has her or her full facial recognition. She can recognize nine to ten emotional states. So she would look at you and see if you were crying yourself. Sad. Then maybe you said context. My teacher theory would say, oh, Greven, she now knows I’m not going to tell jokes. I’m going to say no. What do you want me to sit down and read a book ready to do this? So when that’s there, that’s the game changer, is when she can recognize your emotional state change where she goes to talk to you. So that’s powerful. So right now, I’m her eyes. So it’s very much using she’s using everything is verbal. So, yeah, I love that she’s done that many times to me where I say something, think profound. And then I get a book from a robot and it’s like, thank you very much for turning me down there, you know, talking about the harsh feedback on your thesis, right. Oh, my God. In the future, you be able to download some of your stuff. Right. And you can have an avatar of Russell that could be there to do the stuff, assist member in your methodology stuff. One thing you could do that and then free up your time, Russell, to do more of that emotional discussions. Right. With a lot of your time sometimes repeating things over and over. And that’s where this is, where technology can help us. It’s it’s to it’s to increase our time together quality wise and have the kind of mundane stuff just be taken care. Robot Yeah.
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:35:27]
It’s true to automate things that that you can’t automate because I firmly believe as long as you stay curious, as you mentioned, as long as you keep learning, there’s nothing that’s going to happen from a technological standpoint that is going to push you out of a job or out of the let’s put it this way, out of the living, out of the livelihood, out of the way of contributing to the society and being compensated for doing so. It might not you might lose your job, but there’s another one there for you. Unless the technology gets to the point where they decide to exterminate all humans, then maybe.
Dr. William Barry [01:36:04]
Hey, Russell, look at this. Right. I’m not an engineer, right? Mathematicians, psychologists, artists, Hollywood people, the people that make the silicone, the makeup artists that do makeup. I’m a philosopher psychology teacher. I mean, we have 14 different professions and jobs are behind this. So when we start expanding, we’re going to need linguists. We’re going to need people meditation. I have someone to teach her how to do meditation so she can leave meditation. So I’ll come in here. I say I’m stressed. She’ll say ability, why don’t you do meditation? I close my eyes, she’ll do the counting and bring me through a meditative practice. Yeah, that’s fantastic. So that’s why the future is so bright. It’s more about humanity than ever. But long as we realize now it’s fun to anthropomorphize the machine as Maria, but you realize it’s a machine and then it’s healthy when you forget that and you want to marry it or you rescue her before you rescue your wife and then you’ve got an issue. So we got it. And that’s why we did the book for kids, robot ethics for kids. We need kids of a young age to start thinking about what does it need to have, quote unquote, good A.I., good robots and asking the questions because we don’t even know what the questions are going to be. The future. We got to just start asking now. We’re imagine fifty years from now where is where we are going to be. I mean, she’s going to be walking around. Right now, I’ve heard some of our big outer arms working and move her hands, and she’s almost to the point where she can walk and move her hands and. Right. I mean, that’s about right. The motors were down from like 50 years from now. She’s going to walk in here, sit down next to me and say, hey, Russell. And that’s going to be very, very different for people and we need to prepare for that. So by having her, we need to get used to being uncomfortable so that we can help the other generations coming up, be comfortable and responsible. Does that make sense?
Dr. Russell Strickland [01:38:03]
It does. I mean, we this is the there’s so much to say about that, too. We’re talking about generation gaps and generation divides and how we spend our time versus how the kids spend their time. It just goes on and on and on. But this is technology. We’re seeing the future right here. We can kind of see where it might go, where it might be headed and to start kind of preparing for that. It’s important, it really is, because it this is one of those things where they say AI is going to be the first trillion dollar business, it’s not it’s manifested in a lot of ways throughout industry now. But at some point something is going to really grab hold and become like the killer app, reaI. And it and it is growing. It’s probably on a Moore’s Law kind of trajectory right now.
Dr. William Barry [01:38:51]
If not more than Moore, because it really I mean, look at the Black Panther movie. I never ended up a Black Panther. One of the big things was, hey, should we have Chadwick Boseman in the movie? He’s passed away, but should we digitize what he has to do? Sort of our Star Wars, right? Carrie Fisher has passed away, but she’s in the movies, right. I was just at a conference in L.A. where they’re selling the rights artists so that they can do concerts when they’re dead. So Amy Winehouse is supposedly here to hurt her foundation. They’re planning to have perdu concerts. So you’ll go to a concert or it’s a hologram, but it’ll appear real to you if you’re in a helicopter looking down. There’s forty thousand people cheering and it’s an empty stage. Yeah, that’s not make believe that’s here and how that affects our psyche. And so Maria Bot about it is just a humble expression of what’s to come. The Ronald Reagan Library, Ronald Reagan appears as a hologram and talks to you when you go there. Right. And so our kids that and again, the book is written for 60 year olds 40, 50 years from now. It’s going to be a very different world. And we’re still teaching like we were back in the eighteen hundreds.
