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AI Monkey Robot
Sircus writes "The BBC is carrying this article regarding a robot 'monkey' that has been taught to swing from rung to rung of a ladder, using only the distance between the rungs and some basic equations about swinging. There's not much technical detail, but this is an interesting approach to the problem of dumb robots, and one which certainly gives the suits something pretty to look at."
IMO, this is not that great. Heres why:
The article states:
"The human instructors have told it some equations for swinging and the distance between the rungs - it must do the rest." - The monkey knows how far it has to go to get to the next rung. What would be amazing is if it could sense where the rung is and calculate that distance itself. It does not solve the problem (to quote the article again) of "bumping into the object" because the monkey knows the object is there.
While it may be great for the mechanics of a robot, (able to swing) it is not that new of a technological developement. I have toured several car making plants. At one plant they had a robot that cleaned the floors and all it had was a map of the building... it simply sensed when objects (people and trash cans) where in the way. The monkey has everything told to it and it also uses trial and error.
What may be new is the fact that they managed to fit all that info and technology into something fairly small (judging from the pictures). Robots that are small and can do what the monkey does are rare (I do not know of any others that exist). I just don't think the swinging (kick legs/hands out until object is caught - then repeat) is a breakthrough.
Remember - this is just my opinion (not flamebait or troll) and I may be wrong... but I have seen far better robots (judging by usefulness, size, and technology) around.
Is it progress if a cannibal uses a fork?
Well, a smaller robot on litle rails (like the library ladders) would be more effective than one on two legs... Two legs is, in general, not that much of an advantage for most activities, and creates far more problems than it solves. Far more balance is required, and given the length/power ratios of our limbs, we are amazingly not efficient. Look at a pet cat - a leap from a floor to the top of the counter, window sill, or fridge. Now think about it. You should be able to leap to the top of a two story house with that same little effort. Or just the following:
Top Speeds: Man(10-20mph); Cheetah(60-70mph)
Two legs are a problem for most practical designs, not a solution.
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I wonder why they told it the distance between the rungs, though. If the robot is fast enough to track its own movements in three dimensions, what stops it from locating the next rung the same way?
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From Reseach Activities 1998, Robotics and Mechatronics Laboratory of Micro System Control, Nagoya University.
Brachiation Robot That Learns By Doing
Study on the Control of a Two-link Brachiating Robbot via "Target Dynamics"
...this approach, with the one taken by Mark Tilden:
The latest Smithosonian had an especially good article about him. Apparently his original demo 'bot was a robust walker that could clear most obstacles, run by all of 12 transistors.
I think somebody needs to look at combining the approaches of AI based robots that make decisions based on modeling their world, and robots such as Tilden's that seem to simply have "body feel" for their environment. Perhaps a Tilden type robot body could carry a reasoning "head" that sets goals for the body to carry out. I think this would be much like ourselves. Imagine if you had to walk or jump with only your eyes to guide you. No sense of balance, or kinesthetic sense. I doubt you could do it. We shouldn't expect robots to do the same.
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Also, swinging along parallel ropes of a known distance appart is nowhere near as hard as walking. If it could literally swing between oddly arranged branches, that'd be cool. But it's not. It's another interesting case study in "how animals move", but the lessons you can learn from this do not translate very easily into the world of walking robots.
They're fun, because I could see the power company making robots that walk along power lines, or some crazy thing. Imagine a ski lift that swings up the lines. Lots of weird, fun applications come to mind.
But, this robot is not a "big swing forward" in robot development. It's a very specific, not very useful instance of people with too much time trying to make a robot that does Yet Another Goofy Thing.
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If an infinite number of swinging monkey robots, along with an infinite number of swinging input devices, translating contact to text, how long would it take them to come out with SP10 for win2k?
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While I feel that AI is a noble cause, I question the reasons behind an artifical monkey. What's next? Robot monkeys in congress? Robot monkeys for president? Is no one considering the effect this might have on our children? I'm willing to support the advance of technology, but I draw the line at robotic monkeys. If you recall the US attempted to put a monkey into space and frankly, we all know how that ended ... in utter chaos.
Perhaps Jon Katz could write an article on how this will ruin life as we know it unless stopped. Or maybe how I'm oppressing robotic monkeys and forcing them to commit violence in labratories across the nation. I can hardly wait.
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Bad Mojo
"If you can't win by reason, go for volume." -- Calvin
The same type of calculation of forces is necessary for the function of a walking robot. Now, with walking, you're dealing with a push instead of a pull, and feet that have to balance instead of arms that have to grip, but the calculations are similar.
But most signifigant is that the robot has to try to grab the next rung, and if it doesn't, it has to figure out what adjustments to make on the fly. Simlarily, if a robotic step went wrong, the robot would have to recognise it, and correct itself before it fell
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Ahhh, but the fact remains that the swinging monkey robot has the luxury of several attempts to grab at the rung until its swinging slows (from what I read it can also accelerate its swinging with its legs). In the case of a walking robot one missed step and it has fallen, therefore the walking robot cannot as easily learn from its mistakes without having some support other than the two legs that it uses to walk.
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But is it truely learning?
Or is it just a simple function? Perhaps all it is, besides a heck of alot of expensive equipment, is the following:
int try_swing(int force, int lastForce, int secondLastForce) // out of reach // We're just swinging between too high and too low and can't ever make the branch; // Try to grab the branch with this amount of force in his "kick" backwards // caught branch // Try a less force // Try a more force // Something happened, we can't do it
{
if (abs(force) > FORCEMAX) return FALSE;
if (force == secondLastForce) return FALSE;
switch (swing_out(force))
{
case GOT_IT : return TRUE;
case TOO_HIGH : return try_swing(--force, force, lastForce);
case TOO_LOW : return try_swing(++force,force, lastForce);
default: return FALSE;
}
}
My point is not to insult the researchers who created the monkey, but instead to point out that just because it can "adapt" enough to swing from branch to branch, that does not mean it thinks! If that is the case, then the thermostat in your house is a thinking robot, because it turns on the heat when it's cold in your house, and turns the heat off when the temperature is too warm.
For this monkey to truely "think", he would need to remember everything he has "learned" in the past and apply it to each new branch, or even to other aspects of its life. For instance, if it ran into a tree, the result should hurt it so much that it would resolve to shy away from trees in the future, rather than run into them again. He should recognize trees that he has already seen before and run them flawlessly, and use skills he learned from one tree on the next.
Notice, I said 'skills'. Anything can be programmed to do one skill. But for it to take that skill and turn it into a new skill, such as taking an unintentional fall and catching the next rung below him, and thus learning how to go from level to level... or to "learn", without ever being programmed, how to catch a branch behind it with its feet...that is learning.
Tepp
what are the odds that this AI monkey would evolve into an AI human? And if it did would they ban it in Kansas?- ---
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There already are walking robots. The Honda P3, probably the most advanced robot in the world. It's not exactly agile, but it does walk on 2 legs without exterior support, and it can even walk up and down stairs.
Why do I keep getting the urge to punch it?
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But what kind of range does a cheetah have? (I honestly don't know). I can walk 20 miles in a day (not day + night). Given a bike I can go 100. Maybe humans are more efficient than cats. On the other hand, cheetahs can probably climb trees better than me.
Ryan
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This robot is emulating an ape (such as a gibbon) and not a monkey.
Monkeys generally walk *on* the branches and leap from branch to branch. (Sometimes hanging from the branches to grab things, etc.)
Apes are the critters that brachiate. Brachiation allows the animal moving around in the trees to be larger than if it leapt from branch to branch. (Of course, some of the "greater apes" (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee and us...) got big enough that they rarely go up in trees anymore -- a full grown silverback male gorilla would break most trees if it tried to climb them)
I guess "robo-ape" doesn't sound as good as "robo-monkey" -- especially since most people think of gorillas and not gibbons when they hear "ape".
Meanwhile, the Powerpuff Girls, in colaboration with the BBC is putting out this false article to deceive Mojo Jojo into coming out of hiding so that Buttercup can beat him up again.
Alternatively, this could be some really intriguing research into real-world-ish dynamic systems, as most Computer Scientists can't handle anything more complicated than stationary cubes.
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I guess the next step is to program it with the Dewey Decimal System and teach it how to climb shelves.
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Smithsonian magazine (not sure of any link to this) has an article about a guy at Los Alamos named Mark Tilden. He uses advanced circuit design to build a machine that in some ways is much more capable to walk in a random environment than most computer controlled machines. His first 'bot had 4 legs and a total of 12 transistors that allowed it to figure out some complex behavior. Really cool stuff.
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I want to get a AI monkey and that dam iBO dog robot thing. You know the one, Sony makes it, looks like a dog, everyone and their mom is pimping these dogs out on their web site in contests.
Anyways, get these 2 robot creatures and put them in a free for all death match live though web cam on the Internet. Progess in the AI robtics field is only good if other AI robots can take them on in a death match, a fight to the finish.
Plus I am just getting so sick of getting spam for signing up for all these contests to win a dam little robotic dog that doesn't even come standard with a flame thrower. A buzz saw would not be hard to retro-fit on it though...
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I will be studying under Prof Fukuda starting next fall. During the winter break, I went to Japan and was invited to his lab to see the various projects there. Besides the monkey robot, the projects that were most interesting to me were a cooperative micro robot project, a set of legs that learn to walk, and a feedback control system for an invasive surgery tool/camera.
The monkey robot is currently most limited by the power/data cables that give it life and can only travel one or two bars before needing to be placed back where it started. It's motions are incredibly lifelike.
For more information about the people and projects at Prof Fukuda's lab, check out this link to the English version of the web page.
Then there is also The Great AIP (Artificial Intelligence Project) which is an internet open source project that has started recently.