Undercover Robot School Event
Undercover Robot, my First Year as a Human is a hilarious story about a robot that raises philosophical issues. It is aimed and children aged 9 to 12. Would you like to book the authors for a seminar at your school or event? Storynory's Bertie Fraser and philosopher David Edmonds can provide an in-person or zoom meet up.
Contact [email protected]
Undercover Robot has been widely praised. Alison Gopnik, renowned psychologist and philosopher, and author of many books, including Philosophical Baby tweeted:
@AlisonGopnik
We finished Undercover Robot today. Totally fantastic book, a perfect way to introduce a bright child to Big Questions, and just plain smart, exciting, fun read for anyone.
The book tells the story of Dotty, a robot who looks like an 11-year-old girl. She has to spend a year at school without anyone spotting that she is not human. If she remains undetected, she and her maker, Professor Katnip, will win a huge prize offered by a Californian billionaire. But she is one of several competing undercover robots around the world, and the Californian billionaire is also offering smaller prizes for anyone who correctly identifies a robot at their school. One of Dotty’s classmates, the geekish Martin Strange, harbours suspicions about Dotty.
The overarching theme of the book is what it means to be human. But each chapter is based around a more specific philosophical question. For instance, how do humans tell the difference between ethics and mere tradition or etiquette? Why are humans expected to keep their promises, and not to lie? Do humans have an obligation to obey the law? What makes a person the same person over time - is an adult the same person they were when they were a child, and if so, why? Is it acceptable to injure or kill a person in an emergency, in order to save the lives of many more people? What does it mean to be conscious, and to feel emotions, like falling in love?
In this seminar, we encourage the group to think through some of these questions.
How do you spot a robot?
We read the opening of Undercover Robot in which Dotty arrives at school and meets real-life kids and teachers for the first time.
We ask how do you think you would spot a robot in your class? What would be the hardest thing for Dotty’s makers to get perfect?
We make a list of all the difficulties of creating a “human” being.
Lying
Dotty is staying with Professor Katnip; his family do not know that Dotty is a robot. Mrs. Katnip makes Dotty promise to always tell her the truth. But she faces a dilemma - we explain how 12-year-old Ricky Katnip has deliberately broken his mobile phone hoping that his parents will buy him a new one. We read the passage where Mrs. Katnip asks Dotty if she knows what happened to the phone.
What would you do? Would you cover for your friend?
Imagine your friend did something only a little bit wrong. Not a lot wrong. Let’s say they walk into the classroom with muddy shoes, and don’t own up when the teacher asks who’s responsible for the mud. Should you tell the teacher? If the teacher asks you directly who did it, should you lie?
And would you ever tell a “white lie” - for example? What if one of your parents came home from the hairdresser, and they had a hairstyle that made them look like a 1980s punk rocker? Would you say, “That’s cool, Dad?”
We read out a passage from the book about the Katnip family under these circumstances.
If a parent asks you if you like their new haircut, should you be honest about what you think? Or tell a little white lie?
Is there such a thing as telling a lie for the greater good?
The Trolley Problem
Suppose a violent bear is heading towards 25 people. If it reaches them, it might injure them all. Perhaps even kill them. And suppose you could distract it by waiving a huge pot of honey - so that it turns away and runs down a slope, at the bottom of which there are 5 people. Should you tempt the bear down the slope? Why? Is it OK to put five lives at risk, to save 25 lives?
We read out a passage from the book in which a raging bear, escaped from his cage at the zoo, is in a very similar circumstance.
Suppose the five people at the bottom of the slope were not strangers. Suppose they were members of your family. Your Mum and Dad and siblings. Should you put their lives at risk to save the 25 lives?
Suppose the 25 people were actually a gang of robbers. Would it then be ok to let the bear attack them, rather than redirect the ferocious animal towards the 5 people?
Suppose the bear was charging towards 25 innocent people but this time the only way to stop it was to push someone in front of the bear – a perfectly innocent person. Should you push this person – even if it meant they would be mauled by the bear? After all, if you did so you would potentially save the lives of 25 people.
Emotions and feelings
We read a passage from the book about Dotty feeling jealous. Do you think a robot could ever have feelings? Could a robot smell roses, appreciate the colours of a rainbow, taste a delicious chocolate bar?
Conclusion:
We go through the original list of difficulties of “creating” a robot that was indistinguishable from a human being - and how we might spot a robot. And we see what we have been able to add to that list during the lesson.
David Edmonds is a presenter/producer for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service and a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford University. He is the author/editor of 13 books including the international bestseller Wittgenstein’s Poker. He hosts several podcasts, including (with Nigel Warburton) Philosophy Bites, which has had 42million downloads. He is a Guinness World Record holder for his part in the creation of the world’s largest Jaffa Cake.
Bertie Fraser is the writer for Storynory.com, the children’s story podcast that he founded in 2005. He has a degree in Classics from Oxford University. He spent the early part of his career as a journalist. He lived in Russia in the 1990s and reported on the immense upheavals and changes taking place there for many international news outlets Later he joined the BBC where he worked mainly for the World Service.
Contact [email protected]