Robotic Nation Evidence

Math and Marriage: A Match Made in Heaven? and Researcher uses math formulas for marriage

Elsewhere in this blog you can find posts that describe the vulnerability of fast food workers, pharmacists, teachers, truck drivers, nurses, lab assistants, umpires, actors, surgeons, factory workers, farm hands, convenience store clerks, air traffic controllers, etc. to robotic replacement. Now we can add marriage counselors to the list. From the article:

At first glance, the idea doesn't add up. How could a formula possibly predict which married couples are going to get divorced? But a team of mathematicians and a psychologist say they've figured out how to use numbers as a kind of crystal ball.

"Using the mathematical model, we can predict dissolution or divorce with 90 percent accuracy over four years," says Kristin Swanson, an adjunct research assistant professor of applied mathematics at the University of Washington.

This statement from the article is especially interesting:

"Before this model was developed, divorce prediction was not accurate," Gottman says in statement, "and we had no idea how to analyze what we call the masters and disasters of marriage -- those long-term happily married and divorced couples."

The implication is that, prior to this model, divorce prediction by human counselors was not accurate. So, not only will robots be able to replace human counselors, but they will do a better job -- they will be able to accurately predict divorce and then do something about it. The article describes the techniques a robotic counselor might use to steer a marriage down the right track:

After studying hundreds of videotaped conversations between spouses, the researchers came up with a mathematical formula to gauge the stability of the relationships... If the tests show that a relationship is troubled, researchers can make hypothetical revisions to the conversations, changing how the spouses react to each other, and then see if it changes the overall picture, Swanson says. Based on the results, counselors can make suggestions to the couple about how they should interact.

Robotic marriage counselors will revolutionize the industry. They will be able to predict divorce with 90% accuracy and offer useful solutions to problems in the relationship.

Humans with troubled marriages might have a problem "opening up" to a robot that looks like R2D2. Fortunately, they won't have to. We will be able to create robotic counselors that look completely human.

In Robots get friendly, the work of "Sculptor roboticist" David Hanson is described. From the article:

Later this month Valerie will go on duty behind the reception desk at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Sciences. Besides doling out information and directions, she'll chat about her ever-changing personal life. If you introduce yourself, she'll remember you. If you ask about the weather, when she meets you again she may bring up the subject.

Valerie, in case you haven't guessed, is a robot - one in a long line of increasingly sophisticated machines.

Keep in mind that this is all happening in 2004. Imagine what robots will be like 25 years from now. Hard to imagine? Compare computer games from 1980 (Remember Pac Mac? It was introduced in 1980) to today's (e.g. Half Life 2). Pac Man had little pixelated icons moving around in a square maze. Half Life 2 is a fully immersive DVD-quality gaming experience. The same thing will happen with robots over the next 25 years. Today Valerie will be a little rough around the edges. In 25 years, she will seem completely human. And she will be able to fix your marriage.