Robodex 2000 Kicks Off In Japan

Anne Marie writes: "Robodex 2000, an exhibition of the world of robots, has kicked off in Japan. Featured robots include Honda's humanoid Asimi robot and Sony's aibo, as well as upcoming challengers like Sony's SDR-3X humanoid. AP Coverage is here, and we'd better pay attention, because according to a ZDNET article, robots killed at least five humans last year."

Comments

Re:Robot? Or not?

[Mr. Slippery]

That brings up another question -- what is learning? Aaaargh, this is making my head hurt.

Vague memories of a grad school class in machine learning drove me to the bookshelf, where a copy of Readings in Machine Learning (Shavlik and Dietterich, ed.) revealed on page 1 (alway a good place for basic definitions):

Simon...has defined `learning' as "changes in [a] system that...enable[it] to do the same task or tasks drawn from the same population more efficiently and more effectively the next time." There are two ways in which a system can change: (1) the system can acquire new knowledge from external sources, or (2) the system can modify itself to exploit its current knowledge more effectively.

I suppose that drawing a new conclusion from existing knowledge would fit under (2).

Robodex

[SEWilco]

Robodex: A set of robots, fastened loosely at the bottom so they can easily be flipped back and forth for quick reference. Robots can be removed from the set for use, and additional robots can be inserted.

I don't see us becoming obsolete

[John Jorsett]

The ZDNet article says that "Moravec gives us 40 or 50 years until robots outsmart us." I think Moravec is ignoring the likelihood that we humans will end up using this and attendant technologies to augment our own capabilities. (To that end, I hereby claim first rights on the 'Brain Pilot' trademark). I suspect that we'll be a whole lot like the Borg (although probably invisibly) in the forseeable future.

Are robots the next postmodern paradox?

[Kiss the Blade]

What I mean by this is that as we look around ourselves, we see technology merging the boundaries of everything. How long until robots are bending the distinctions between the dead and the alive, in the same way that computer represented realities bend the distinctions between observed reality and perceived reality?

I see real potential for robots to become the next civil liberty issue, as various pressure groups call for them to be given rights, and not be exploited.

Will we treat our robots as we used to treat our women?

KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

5 people have died....

[Restil]

And one of them had to go out of his way to get himself killed by one. I work at a business that makes extensive use of conveyor belts. Despite explicit training and constant employee review on how to operate those belts safely, people still manage to injure themselves in sometimes permanant cosmetic ways. Someone once got accidently caught in the drive machinery, so they installed metal guards over any machinery that could be dangerous and forbid ANY employees from opening them. They do it anyways.

Nobody is clueless about that, its just some people are stupid. And due to stupidity, people sometimes die. I wouldn't get too worked up on it being the robot's fault. The robot didn't kill anyone. Those people killed themselves and they has nobody else to blame for it.

-Restil