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Flesh and Machines: How Robots Will Change Us
In a way, robots are portraits of humans. Machines are just machines and assembly lines are just assembly lines. The buckets of bolts don't become robots until they start to take on some of the characteristics and a few of the jobs of humans. A drill for tightening a bolt may replace a biceps, but it's just a motor until it's on the end of a fancy mechanical arm that positions it automatically. Then it's a robot ready for a call from central casting.
Defining just what is and is not a robot is not an easy job for technologists because the replicants and androids are a touchstone and a benchmark for measuring our progress toward the future. It's 2002 and everyone is asking: Where's mad Hal steering a space craft to oblivion? Or more importantly: Why am I still vacuuming the floors and mowing the lawn by myself?
If you are asking these questions, then you might want to read the answers Rod Brooks, the director of MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, offers in his charming book, Flesh and Machines: How Robots will Change Us. The book is half a thoughtful biography of the various robots created by his graduate students and half a philosophical explanation of what to expect from the gradual emergence of robot butlers.
The biographical part is probably the most enjoyable. He and his students have produced more than a dozen memorable robots who've crawled, rolled and paced their way around MIT. One searched for Coke cans to recycle, one tried to give tours to visitors, and another just tried to hold a conversation. Brooks spends time outlining how and why each machine can into being. The successes and more importantly the failures become the basis for creating a new benchmark for what machines can and can't do.
An ideal version of this book should include a DVD or a video cassette with pictures of the robots in action because the movement is surprisingly lifelike. Brooks is something of a celebrity because a film maker named Errol Morris made a droll, deadpan documentary that cut between four eccentric geniuses talking about their work. One guy sculpted topiary, one tamed lions, one studied naked mole rats, and the fourth was Rod Brooks, the man who made robots. Brooks minted the title for the film, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, a phrase he uses to describe his philosophy for creating robots. The movie tried to suss out the essence of genius, but it makes a perfect counterpoint for the book by providing some visual evidence of Brooks' success.
One of the stars of the movie was a six-legged robot called Genghis, a collection of high-torque RC airplane servo motors that Brooks feels is the best or most fully-realized embodiment of this fast and cheap approach. The robot marches along with a surprisingly life-like gait chasing after the right kind of radiation to tickle the IR and pyro-electric sensors mounted on whiskers. If you've seen the film, it's hard to forget his gait.
Brooks says that the secret to the success of Genghis is that there is no secret. The book's appendix provides an essential exploration of the design, which is short and very simple. The soul of the machine has 57 neuron-like subroutines, or "augmented finite state machines" in academic speak. For instance, one of the AFSMs responsible for balance constantly checks the force on a motor. If it is less than 7, the AFSM does nothing and if it is greater than 11, the AFSM reduces the force by three. That's doesn't seem like very much intelligence be it artificial or real, but 57 neuron-like subroutines like this are all it takes to create a fairly good imitation of a cockroach.
Brooks calls this a "subsumption architecture" and the book is most successful describing the days that he spent with his graduate students building robots and seeing what the architecture and a handful of AFSMs could do. He half mocks the roboticists who load up their machines with big computers trying to compute complex models of the world and all that is in it. In his eyes, the lumbering old-school machines just move a few inches and then devote a gazillion cycles to creating a detailed, digital description of every plant, brick or wayward child in the field of view. After a few more gazillion cycles, the machine chooses a path and moves a few more inches. Even when they find their way, time passes them by.
There are no complex control mechanisms sucking down cycles on the machines from Brooks' lab, the source of the claim that they're "out of control". It's just AFSMs wired together. One of the robots fakes human interaction by tracking fast motion and flesh colored pixels. Brooks marvels at how a few simple rules can produce a machine that is remarkably life-like. If you're not sure, they have video tapes of lab visitors holding conversations with the machine, who apparently takes part in the conversation with the patient interest of a well-bred host. As if by magic, the AFSMs are creating enough human-like movement and visitor in the tape begins treating the robot like a human!
If you're still not sure, you might buy a "My Real Baby" doll designed by Brooks with the help of the adept mechanical geniuses in Taiwan. The story of taking a highbrow concept from MIT to the local toy store is a great part of the book. The so-called toy is filled with AFSMs that tell it when to gurgle, when to pout, when to sleep, and when to demand sustenance. Alas, the toy makers tell Brooks that the market can't stomach so much innovation. One new thing at a time.
So are these machines truly successful simulacra? Are they infused with enough of the human condition to qualify as the science-fiction-grade robots or are they just cute parlor tricks? Some readers will probably point to the AFSMs and scoff. Seeing the code is like learning the secret to a magic trick.
Brooks, on the other hand, is sure that these machines are on the right track. In a sense, he makes it easier for his robots to catch up with humans by lowering the bar. On the back of the book, Brooks ladles out the schmaltz and proclaims, "We are machines, as are our spouses, our children and our dogs... I believe myself and my children all to be mere machines." That is, we're all just a slightly more involved collection of simple neurons that don't do much more than the balance mechanism of Genghis. You may think that you're deeply in love with the City of Florence, the ideal of democratic discourse, that raven-haired beauty three rows up, puppy dogs, or rainy nights cuddled under warm blankets, but according to the Brooks paradigm, you're just a bunch of AFSMs passing numbers back and forth.
If you think this extreme position means he's a few AFSMs short of a robot professor though, don't worry. Brooks backs away from this characterization when he takes on some of the bigger questions of what it means to be a human and what it means to be a machine. The latter part of the book focuses on what we can and can't do with artificial intelligence. He is very much a realist with the ability to admit what is working and what is failing. His machines definitely capture a spark, he notes, but they also fall short.
He notes with some chagrin that his robot lawnmower leaves behind tufts of uncut grass. Why? It uses a subsumption-like algorithm that doesn't bother creating a model of the yard. The robot just bounces around until the battery runs out. Eventually the laws of random chance mean that every blade should be snipped, but the batteries aren't strong enough to reach that point at infinity. A model might help prevent random lapses, but that still won't solve the problem. Alas, the machines themselves are limited by the lack of precision. One degree of error quickly turns into several feet by the other end of the yard. A robot wouldn't be able to follow a plan, even if it could compute one.
What's missing, Brooks decides, is some secret sauce he calls "the juice". Computation and AFSMs may work with cockroaches, but we need something more to get to the next level. Faster computers can do much more, but eventually we see through the mechanism. Genghis looks cool, but learning about the 57 AFSMs spoils the trick.
The standard criticism of Brooks' machines is that they don't scale. There is no superglue juice that can save a scaffolding built of toothpicks. The AFSM may produce good cockroaches, but that's just the beginning of the game. Humans are more than that. Eventually, the AFSMs become too unwieldy to be a stable programming paradigm. In fact, Brooks sort of agrees with this premise when he suggests that Genghis is his "most satisfying robot." It was also one of the first. The later models with more AFSMs just don't rank.
But humans and other living creatures don't scale either. We may be able to run 20 miles per hour, but only for 100 yards. We may be able to troll for flames on five bulletin boards, but eventually we get our pseudonyms confused. Limits are part of life and we only survive by forgiving them. To some extent, the lifelike qualities of his robots are direct results of the self-imposed limits of the AFSMs.
Your reaction to these machines will largely depend upon how many of the limits you are willing to forgive. Stern taskmasters may never be happy with a so-called robot, but a relaxed fellow traveller may ignore enough of the glitches to interface successfully. Some will see enough of themselves to be happy with the whirring gizmos as a portrait of human and others may never find what they're looking for. That's just the nature of portraits. For me, this book is an excellent portrait of a research program and the collection of questions it tried to answer. You may look in the mirror and want something different, but it's worth taking a look at these machines.
Peter Wayner is the author of two books appearing this spring: the second edition of Disappearing Cryptography , a book about steganography, and Translucent Databases , a book about adding extra security to databases. You can purchase Flesh and Machines from Barnes & Noble. Want to see your own review here? Just read the book review guidelines, then use Slashdot's handy submission form.
Robots are fun, they a little too expensive for my tastes tho.
Until robots get to the price of a washer/dryer we won't see them much of anywhere. Look how long it is taking to get HDTV going in the states! And DVD players might overtake VCRs this year. And forget about the DVD recorders! Everytime I see or hear about a new gadget that claims it is priced near that of a luxury car I cringe. Maybe my great-great grandkids will get to play with them.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
Robots will change us into a race of fugitive creatures scheduled for liquidation, forever running from our own creations. Seriously. On August 29, 1997 this will happen.
When are they going to have the robot from lost in space?
*laughs like fool*
Danger will robinson
*laughs again*
mmmmm rooobots.
All humans are machines, built up to amazing complexity in the tools of flesh, sinew, bone and chemicals instead of steel panels, rivets and framework.
:) And we're just now beginning to find the bugs. Maybe the human race just doesn't scale well?
Oh, and humans run the single most complicated OS ever.
LV
Woot w00t w007.
the little cockroach and fly robots with tiny cameras that peek in on people.
The time to really worry is when these show up as radio shack kits in about 10 to 20 years.
No one get all paranoid now.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
"Until we understand the physics of conciousness artificial intelligence is impossible" And its 2002, Peter is right. I Remember an old maths puzzle. A Monkey climbs a pole, covering half the distance left in every step. When will it reach. The answer is of course never. And Thats what Robotics seems to be doing. Going near and near, but never reaching the Holy Grail. Well Holleywood has made much more progress!!
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Ack! If I remember correctly, there was an article about chips that could re-wire its own gates. Essentially it was self learning. Then there was a poster about that topic that mentioned a Hypercomputer (the OS learns at a fast rate).
Well, biological creatures don't scale well at all, right? We have access to the code that Rod Brooks made, right? Well, using other technology, lets evolove the code. If for some reason that doesn't work, we have most (all?) of the human genome done. How about other dna strings?
We either "evolove" the creature or we model it after the dna it came from. Anyways, score 1 for robotics.
Why is it that robots must be envisioned as humanoid? Specialized robots look very little like a human, such as industrial handling robots. A more generalized design for multi-purpose applications need not look or act anything like a human being to get it's tasks accomplished. I think a lot of fear and paranoia from the ignorant might be avoided by specifically making them NOT look humanoid. Who says that the human form is the be-all and end-all general purpose vehicle? The only "pro" for them being humanoid is they must negotiate a world build for humanoids.
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
Peter Weller made the most convincing robot ever in Robocop!
Why are all of the overpowering media conglomerates keeping these magnificent creations out of the hands of the masses?
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Don't you wish somedays you had a few robot cockroaches for a little covert reconnaissance mission?
Zorg: Take this glass for instance. Sterile. Pristine. Boring. But if it's broken...
[glass breaks and many small robots come zooming out to clean up the mess]
Now look at that, a variable ballet ensues so full of form and color!
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Biological neurons have been shown in the laboratory to grow new connections based on information learned. In a robot, what possible mechanism could guide such growth? Programming is the only answer, but keep in mind that "programming" is just shorthand for "the intelligence of the programmer". In other words, the AI itself isn't self-contained, as it were.
There is no other way for "mental" activity to be guided, thus AI will always be as unattainable as the Philosopher's Stone.
Back in the 50's, people dreamed feverishly of flying cars and robot maids, of amazing advances in science over the next decade. But what we're moving towards, ever so slowly, is more along the lines of "the kitchen that cooks meals by itself" - an integrated system where computers are so tightly woven into the construction of appliances that the appliances themselves become intelligent and teachable. (Programmable, teachable, use your own word or metaphor here.)
The human element can't be ignored in favor of fully robotic solutions. People enjoy feeling involved in what it is they're doing. Personally I'm all for having an entire race of robot slaves that do all the work for everyone, leaving people free to create Art, Science, and Music (and giving *me* time to finish Final Fantasy 10).. but I don't see it happening any time soon.
Flying cars would rock. Talking cars that remember your favorite radio stations, seat settings, A/C settings, and possibly directions to drive to your parent's house are far more likely.
Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!
I'd agree with your contention that a DVD would be a welcome addition; last year some time I saw a documentary on robotic cockroaches - probably the self-same bugs referenced herein - and I was astonished by how such apparently complex behaviour could be achieved with so few rules. You've got to see them scurrying to believe them.
As for the 'non-scaling' criticism: to quote Dogbert, 'Pah!' They do what they're supposed to do. I never criticised my Spectrum because it didn't have dolby sound; I wouldn't criticise my roaches because they don't write operas.
Slashdot and Pr0n in one easy to swallow pill.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Think about it.
Much of what you do each and every day occurs in spite of the ability I just asked of you. Your brain is not responsible for thinking about how to walk (at least not after you learn how). You peripheral nervous system handles such actions.
When humans create a robot in the fashion of Rod Brook, they are training a system analogous to our own peripheral nervous system. Why force the machine to learn to walk when we can tell it how to walk from our own experience (knowledge of physics, etc).
The exact implementation Brook uses may not scale, but analogous programming options exist that could scale, and IMHO, approaches addressing immediate actions/reactions should be built into robots as described.
From the interview it seems Brook admits the need for serious processing power to reach the "next level", but shrewdly points to the fact that spending all of your time thinking and not doing is not a good way to get anything done.
If you can't walk and chew gum at the same time...
Regarding costs, I really dont think the cost of a robot matters, if the product is significantly more advanced than anything today, price will automagically come down due to interest. case in point is the personal computer... it was just a matter of time before the whole thing went down to $300...
Part of human nature is to associate with what is closest to us. Think religion, beliefs, ideals. Why shouldnt this be applied to our development of machines. After all, what are machines and robots but the next stage of human interaction? In some respects, this is almost our playing god, creating man(robots) in our image. We are most comfortable with what we percieve to be like us. I guess on a lighter note think of the last time you were physically attracted to a chimpanzee. Organically similar, but not human. Creating humanoid robots is our way of asserting our power over our environment.
all my
We must never forgive him for choosing to appear in the excrement-laden Robocop 2.
Great leaps in technology are sometimes followed by falling on your face.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
Robots have taken countless assembly/factory jobs
Robots are supposed to kill us all anyway
There's no machine I've ever heard of nor seen that could generate a truely random number the way humans can. While this is a "simple" operation, it often plays into our lives without us realizing it at the most critical conjunctions such as split-second decisions between two equal alternatives.
Possibly this point is moot if pseudo-random based on some external element that is more or less random in nature is an acceptable alternative to internally generating a random number.
I choose 156 -- why? Dunno. It sounded good at the time
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Combine everything thats going on into the soup of the future: robotics, quantum technology, biotechnology, high speed wireless internet, satellite communications...
I believe the robots are going to be us, except for advanced machinery in manufacturing the "happening" thing will be integration and interfacing of electronics and biocircuitry with ourselves. You will think and your interface will retrieve data from storage attached to you.
Electronics can monitor your bloodstream for diseases, lack of resources, and the like, and synthesize whatever is required. Good for anyone with a genetic defect or an illness. Good for your general health & wellbeing.
The advantages are so enormous these technologies will be used in that manner. You will probably want to have it. But you'll also realize that at that moment you are not only vulnerable to hackers that try to access your biosystems, also those that create the hardware and software within you are potentially able to upgrade software and firmware that has essentially become a part of your being.
So who will controls that, us, intimately? Open Source at least insures that we will have insight into if not control over who we are developing into...
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Intelligence:
The capacity to acquire and apply knowledge.
The faculty of thought and reason.
According to the above AFSM's are the exact principle behind intelligence. Think about how any analysis of the world happens. We don't consider the entire world when we try to catch a ball, we consider the position of the ball and where it will be. We don't take the position of a bird in relation to the ball, or something far away, all that matters is the ball.
Slightly more complex would be hit detection, is there anything close to me? Yes or no...that easy, you'd have a range that it's ok for an object to be in, a range where we should slow down and a range where we fire thrusters to stop.
Simple actions put together equal complex life form.
internet like monkeys'
I better get my insurance updated.
...with a manically depressed robot?
What are you supposed to do if you ARE a manically depressed robot?
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Instead you drop your clothes and soap into a box and give some instructions (turn indicator knob). No human labor involved. Sounds like just as much of a robot as the other items mentioned above
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Maybe not at the insect size range, but perhaps at the dog/dolphin/avian level.
*whup* "Get along, little electrons. Heeyah!"
Sure, life is unfair. Wah wah wah. I just always go nuts when I hear anything by this guy. "One day we'll sell millions of tiny robots in a jar, and they'll clean your TV screen." "Robots are going to change the world." I don't see it, Rod, much as I'd genuinely love to. We need to stay grounded at least a little bit.
Thanks for putting up with my whining. ;) Let the flaming begin.
The streets shall flow with the blood of the Guberminky.
Or more importantly: Why am I still vacuuming the floors and mowing the lawn by myself?
Whether or not the book actually discusses that, it's a point kind of disturbs me. Honestly, vacuuming floors and mowing the lawn are not that hard. Having to look after yourself also gives you a sense of responsiblity, IMHO. I'm not sure I'd want a robot doing these things for me.
While tools have become more and more comprehensive in helping humans solve tasks (and humans have come to depend more on those tools), humans are still usually the ones directly in control. You push or steer the lawnmower, you move the vacuum where you want to clean, etc. If I had a robot do these things, all of a sudden it's the robot deciding when and how these things are done, and not me. On the other hand, there are also people who may not have the time or ability to take care of chores like these themselves, and having a robot do them might mean the difference between still being able to live at home, and having to live in a nursing home.
slashdot!=valid HTML
I can see where this would be true on a large scale (ie a human), but what about animals that function mostly on instinct (insects, fish, etc)?
I'll bet it's possible to create a cybernetic "animal" that functions on 95% instinct and 5% learning. The recursion problem could therefore be contained and studied.
Such a thing won't be "HAL" or "C3PO" by any stretch of the imagination, but it'll be a start.
If there were robots similar to the Haley Joel Osment character there wouldn't be the scandal making the news regarding Catholic priests "molesting" young boys. A smart move would be to manufacture various types of robots with the innocent eyes and the unblemished skin of pre-teen youth for the carnal pleasures of frustrated men-of-god.
Myself and a few other entreprenaurial fellows are investigating a patenting of such a boy-robot which we call the NAMBLAbot. The rough drafts call for a Haley Joel Osment, a young Fred Savage, and the entire trio of Hanson circa 1997.
I listened to Brooks present the semi-academic version of his talk at Duke. The really fascinating thing about this robot/experiment is that making the robot react to simple cues from the human makes the robot act much more intelligent than it actually is. It may be easier to make a robot that behaves intelligently around humans than it is to make one that intelligently explores mars.
By giving the robot the ability to recognize eyes and where the human is looking, it can pick up cues as to what aspects of the environment are important. By making it maintain a proper conversational distance from the human, it prevents collisions and makes talking to it much more comfortable.
Because the robot responds to its environment, the environment shapes the robot's behavior. If that enviroment is alive and intelligent, the robot's behavior becomes more intelligent than it would normally be. We give off hundreds of little cues that allow us to respond intelligently to each other, and Brooks' work has opened the door to letting robots bootstrap themselves to a higher level of interaction.
I bet this guy will be moving very soon.
Penrose's lawn mower robot doesn't mow his lawn properly because he forgot to design it to WANT to mow his lawn properly.
Seriously! To properly want something, you need a means to know that that desire is or is not satisfied, and a means to move closer to achieving your desire - just like Genghis' leg muscles.
His mower robot needs a laser scanner to light up stalks that stick up too high, a sensor to detect stalks being lit up within maybe 10 feet, a desire to go to spots where that light is seen, and a desire to wander and seek out lit spots if it doesn't see any nearby.
A bit more is needed to handle edge conditions (literally the edges of the lawn and objects in it). It needs the ability to learn where it can't go, and the ability to slowly forget that learning so if it makes a mistake about not being able to get somewhere it can eventually correct itself.
There's no machine I've ever heard of nor seen that could generate a truely random number
It's true that no computational algorithm can generate truly random numbers, without input from some random physical process. The real test would be whether you could look at the history of numbers generated and predict the next number. This would mean inferring the state bits of the algorithm and deducing its inputs, if any. Cryptographic hashes are algorithms specifically designed to make that difficult.
In physics, you don't get real randomness without quantum effects, but statistical processes can give you highly unpredictable numbers, unless you're prepared to do faster-than-real-time molecular dynamics on 10^23 particles.
Here's a random bit generator suitable for use with a crypto hash algorithm to make good random bits: http://willware.net:8080/hw-rng.html
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Take an assembly-line robot, for example. It so happens that a human configuration for an arm (A fairly mobile shoulder, a somewhat limited elbow, a fully-functional wrist, and some sort of manipulator at the end) is very useful. With a system like that you can reach any part of a design. Could you add another joint and achieve more flexibility? Or perhaps give the elbow more degrees of freedom? Naturally, and people have in fact done these things. However, there are a number of good reasons to mimic human design.
First of all, we are innately familiar with the operation of an arm. We have no trouble visualizing just how an arm like our own would move around something - For those who are good with math, this can translate into an easy understanding of the math involved.
Second, lots more work has gone into human-similar models. This means you can draw upon the accumulated design experience of hundreds and thousands of other people even inside the field of robotics.
Finally: Adding more joints/making more capable joints costs more money. In most systems which need to be versatile, the human-mimic system is the most efficient from a cost:capability standpoint.
Robots are like humans where they need to be. When we can make them identical to humans, no doubt some will, while others will feel that that is some sort of travesty. We all know that the big application in robots is the self-mobile realdoll, though, and that's an attempt to make something as much like a person as possible.
You might as well argue that giving birth is creating a portrait, since there is such variation in humanity - And there is still MORE variation between robots.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sorry, couldn't help it.
I agree with this post.
HOT GRITS
I didn't mean humans inherently choose random numbers, I simply meant they are capably of making random choices that do not follow a calculatable progression. Also, without thinking, a person is highly unlikly to choose the same sequence of 100 random numbers given the "same" test conditions of environment or whatever you might consider a 'seed'.
With computers, you can insert a 'seed value' and every time the computer generates 'random' numbers with the same seed value you can predict with 100% accuracy what the next number will be - it's not random. Some algorithms use external factors that are highly unlikely to be the same from one moment to the next (such as the number of milliseconds (or nanoseconds depending on your required granularity) that have passed since 1970. However, it's more likely to be able to re-create the precise conditions that a computer used to generated it's seed value than it is a human due to our much more complex brains. Think about the amount of different factors that can affect why we choose one number over another: something we just saw on TV, levels of chemicals in our brain, amount of oxygen we are receiving, seeming random neuron impluses triggering chain reactions leading to memories associated with one particular number, audio signals from sounds we hear that distract our thoughts temporarily, and so on.
I'm not saying humans don't do predicable things - that would be silly. Humans are VERY predicable. However, we have the capacity for unpredicability (what some people call insanity or irrational behavior or creative insight) and that is so complex that we cannot hope to accurately imitate it in computer A.I.
"More Human Than Human, that's our motto." - Eldon Tyrell
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
If it's likely, it will start with utilitarian promises,
then explode into entertainment. To be big it must be
entertaining, deadly, powerful, or some combination
of those three.
Mom
That doesn't mean there are more DVD players than VCRs, but in new unit sales, DVDs are now officially in the lead.
To simple say that machine intelligence will be eventually asymptotic to human intelligence is meangingless - it need only be close enough that we are unable to tell the difference by any discernable means. Scale matters in all things human - your asymptote argument doesn't hold. We don't live on a graph.
(instrumental)
"When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong."
- Arthur C. Clarke
Life is like surrealism: if you have to have it explained to you, you can't afford it.
I have the feeling that this notion works well for simple robots, including lower life forms such as insects. Like Genghis, they simple do "simple" stuff based on simple neural computers that hardly warrant the name. But where Brooks' work falls short, as you can see in the review, is where neurons are clumped into serious computers that do model the world. The worst offenders, of course, are humans. The problem is that have no idea how to wire a robot to do that, and a lot of the behaviors we really want from robots rely on it.
AI still has a long, hard road ahead of it. But we will succeed, eventually, simply by virtue of reverse engineering if nothing else.
I've heard interviews with comedy writers who talk about trying to work out which number sounds 'funniest'. How could 37 be funnier than 36? Who knows
Perhaps primes are funnier because they can't be broken down into tiny prime factors (2*2*3*3). Is it somehow related to the geometric mean of the prime factors?
Will I retire or break 10K?
shouldnt the topic be "upgrades" not "hardware"?
I studied robotics and Brooks' work for a couple of years in graduate school. I built several robots using some of his ideas with some pretty spectacular results (I was impressed anyway) considering that they were able to navigate around and perform some very simple tasks using less code than your average mouse driver. Brooks turned the whole notion of robotic intelligence upside down and started from the bottom up, keeping things simple.
/. and get back to work. Let me know when you make the breakthrough, I'll buy you a six pack.
Its pretty striking to me how different an engineer's life can be depending on his area of interest. There are some topics where we are essentially on the "right track". Some genius has made the initial breakthrough in thinking. Steady progress can be made by moderately intelligent people such as myself by following the premise to its logical conclusions. While I was studying robotics, the Web was really taking off. Ideas spread like wild fire and advances are still being made fairly rapidly.
Other areas of study stagnate for years with random dispersed periods of growth and euphoria followed by periods of disappointment and disillusionment. In AI/machine intelligence, we have had several small breakthroughs that allow us to progress a little before hitting the brick wall again. We're all waiting for someone to make the leap in thought that will allow us to progress.
My opinion now is that we have some fairly specialized approaches that work well in specific circumstances but we are all essentially still on the wrong track.
Rodney Brooks caused quite a bit of excitement in the early '90's with Ghengis and some of his other robots but it wasn't that breakthrough that
we are all waiting for.
From what I understand, if you have read his papers and publications through the years then this book doesn't offer much new information. If you aren't familiar with his work and are interested in the subject then definitely read the book. Even if Brooks doesn't turn out to be the genius who makes the breakthrough, his work has definitely contributed to the field and brings us a little closer.
In the mean time I guess I'll just have to wait for the big breakthrough by building some more little robots to keep me busy. I've been thinking about a little robot with a single board Linux computer for a controller and a WIFI adapter. That way I can sit at my desk or laptop and watch what is going on a tune code and develop behaviors from the comfort of my couch instead of having to track the little bugger down and stick a serial cable in its ass to upload new programs and download data. I was also thinking that I could then give real time performance feedback and let some genetic algorithms and/or neural networks tune the parameters. That should keep me preoccupied for a while while the geniuses work on the really heady stuff.
If you are one of those geniuses, quit screwing around reading
Rather than robots, I predict intelligent ape-servants will be the household helpers of the future, always resentful of their subservience to man leading to a revolt where the apes conquer the humans.
Robot[N]: Your plastic pall who is fun to be with.
A great movie! I was the web designer who made the official website for the movie (hey, be nice, it was done a LONG time ago) and so got to see the movie before it came out. I watched it 3 times, and made others come watch it. It's so very random and disconnected, and then you start to just see it all coming together.
Very good movie, and Rodney Brooks is fun to watch. I highly suggest you rent it...just be prepared to be barraged with non-sequitor scene after non-sequitor scene, without a plot but four intermixed lives revealed.
"I Remember an old maths puzzle. A Monkey climbs a pole, covering half the distance left in every step. When will it reach. The answer is of course never."
No, the monkey will fall on Xeno's head and kill him. Now what will we do with all our Thetans? His courage was to change the world!
graspee
classical allusion: 1
classical allusion is not funny: -1
bizarro segue: 2
lame Xena reference: -1
total: 1
graspee
...a variable ballet ensues so full of form and color!
I think you are looking for veritable, not variable
Unlike the people who do all those jobs now. If I could only get a robot to perform minimally sufficient babysitting....that would be the cat's ass!
So we can make mobile suits and giant robots w/ guns w/ em. anthromorphic combat ! w/ guns and laser swords ala. gundam
drift hard
Man you need to turn off Cartoon Network and go out side for a while, or even better, read a book!
It seems like the ASFM's could be modeled to more closely correspond to our involuntary reflexes/controls like blinking, breathing, balance, etc. While we can occasionally exert conscious control over these activities, we spend far more time letting them happen automatically.
These things do not make us sentient or intelligent, but letting them be controlled at the hardware level (as it were) leaves our cpu's free to perform those all important higher level functions ("Mmmm, doughhhhnuuuttsss").
I like the idea of simple designs which may have the ability to evolve on their own, if in a somewhat accelerated (by design) manner, far more than simply designing a machine that performs a human task so well but not much else, such as expert machines.
/. a year or so ago...(sorry, I couln't find it)
Not that expert machines don't have their place in the world, for the most part they have improved things in the world. But I think it's dangerous to design human-like machines when the intent is to enslave them.
I mean, isn't the ultimate goal of AI research to create Intelligence? Do we really plan to enslave that intelligence as well?
I wrote an email to Ray Kurzweil once posing this question to him and he agreed that unfortunately, it's still called Artificial Intelligence but I would assume this is because people are so hard to convince. As for enslaving them I think it's a matter of funding.
People are willing to spend money on machines who will do all of their work for them but would be less likely to fork it over if they were told the machines would just be, and not work for the man.
That's why I like Brooks. Why try and replicate the design of the most complicated peice of machinery evolution ever invented when you can create simpler beings? Lower the bar a little and I bet we could create truly amazing machines that aren't human in any way.
Kind of like that agent program that was featured in
These programs were given the ability to post to an IRC channel and also retrieve the messages without any human intervention. They started communicating with each other (there were 4 I beleive) in a way that the designers could not interpret at all!
I say design a machine with the BIOS to control itself (say RAM, HDD, Limbs, sensors etc...) and a few protocol stacks at it's disposal for developing communication abilities. The CPU could be a neural-net or series of FPGAs, something that could alter itself based on evolutionary algorithms and the instruction set could be...nothing!
Let it figure itself out the way human babies do! Sure, several will destroy themselves in some way but I think eventually, one would start to figure things out on it's own.
I don't know, just another crazy, crack-induced dream I guess...
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
A washing machine is not a robot. It does not sense its environment and adjust itself to it. It cannot modify its own behavior. It does not make any decisions. A washing machine blindly obeys the timing cycles built into it. Furthermore, those timing cycles are typically hard wired. You want a longer spin cycle, you have to replace a physical part.
A robot must be able to sense and respond to its environment. A robot needs to be able to decide between different possible behaviours, and a robot's behaviour set must not be hard wired.
A washing machine fails on all three counts.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
"Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher.
"So that the room will be empty."
At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.
I may seem a bit foolish here for asking, but what does this mean? I don't understand. Is it that Sussman learned to start with all 0s instead of random inputs? Or that cutting out all preconceptions is only counterproductive?
Remember "Bring 'em on"? *sigh
This problem is too big to solve in one big step.
The incremental approach is precisely why we don't yet have a HAL-like intelligent machine. That's the approach that's been used up to now by the GOFAI community and it has failed miserably. If the goal of an AI researcher is to understand human cognition, the problem is indeed too big. The interconnectedness of human cognition is so astronomically complex as to be intractable to formal solutions. This problem is too big for any approach, incremental or otherwise. Therefore the goal of the sensible AI researcher is not to develop a theory of cognition, but to discover the fundamental principles that govern the emergence of intelligence. Let's get the damn thing to learn first. We can worry about what it's thinking later. We need an overarching theory of the brain. We don't need limited, isolated bits of cognition.
Surely by definition a robot is just a time/labour saving device. Same as you being a cyborg because you wear a watch that enhances you supposed time keeping abilities.
Because some sci-fi writer has made your brain think that if it's not humanoid then it's not a robot doesn't make you dishwasher less of a time/labour saving device that performs a laborious task on your behalf aka a robot.
I think everyone has forgotten one very problematic aspect of robots: They eat old people's medicine for fuel.
I need a blowjob bot goddamn it. Actually I think its already been done. Suck it, bitch!
See, the problem is that your "Robot Washer/Dryer" has ceased to become merely a Washer/Dryer. It is an integrated Laundry Basket/Clothing Refresher and Managment System. No more of a "robot" than a washer and dryer, it just has more features.
It just goes to show, robots are machines. I think that is what the author was saying: These little automated tools with a few rules to guide them act remarkably life-like. One might extrapolate that we humans are merely machines with more rules, and more features.
Luckly, we have the ability to save what we know, and pass it on to future generations, and we are also blessed with a certain amount of random noise that our mind filters into something useful sometimes.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
I would never want a robot exactly like a human. Why?:
1. Humans are pretty much useless. All we do is think.
2. Humans try to do as little as possible.
3. Making a tool (which is what a "robot" is, a tool that does work for us) that strives to do as little as possible is pointless.
qed
What is the human use of humans? What are we good for? Really, all we do is live, then die. The best thing we could do is create a lot of robots that are exactly like us, but can't die, and then let them replace us and do the living for us. There is no point for us to continue to exist when something superior comes along who will work for the same goals in the universe as we do. But, since WE are not sure what the goal of our existance is, we can never create a robot that will attempt to fulfill these goals.
I guess the point is that there is no point. So we should work on extending the human life, since all we are trying to do is have more time to do "something else". We will eventually all get bored and depressed because the robots will do everything. Even today, you see the effects manifest themselves. Depressed people, millions. And so what do we do? Give them drugs to turn them into robots themselves. Everyone will be that one day.
So I say: Down with technology. It will be the end of us. Or maybe not. But, a good question, yes?
Cool! Amazing Toys.
The world you envision would be a world of insanity. I'm amused to death with entertainment as it is. There is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Don't get me wrong; I think that we work TOO much nowadays (40 hours a week is too much, because of all the extraneous culture crap involved in labor these days. You have to get up, make yourself look a certain way, which takes an hour, ignoring the additional time it takes to have clean clothes, etc., then you drive to work for 30 minutes, get there, work your 8 or 9 hours, come home (30 minutes), make dinner, and then get ready to sleep. Shit, being a "normal" human is a full time job, because we make it that way. Society makes it that way.), but robots wouldn't save us work. Our work would just be something else. And it would still suck just as much.
If you want a robot, take an ordinary human, get them to take 300-500mg of Prozac per day so they will be happy doing whatever they are doing, and then give them tasks to do as you see fit.
Oh wait, we already do that.
Cool! Amazing Toys.
Thank you sire (or should I say, Your Majesty). Proper grammer eludes me on occasion. :-)
It's been real, and it's been fun, but it hasn't all been really fun
...and that's the way the cookie crumbles.
| Brooks, on the other hand, is sure that these machines are on the
| right track. In a sense, he makes it easier for his robots to catch up
| with humans by lowering the bar. On the back of the book, Brooks
| ladles out the schmaltz and proclaims, "We are machines, as are our
| spouses, our children and our dogs... I believe myself and my children
| all to be mere machines." That is, we're all just a slightly more
| involved collection of simple neurons that don't do much more than the
| balance mechanism of Genghis. You may think that you're deeply in love
| with the City of Florence, the ideal of democratic discourse, that
| raven-haired beauty three rows up, puppy dogs, or rainy nights cuddled
| under warm blankets, but according to the Brooks paradigm, you're just
| a bunch of AFSMs passing numbers back and forth.
in combating the concept of free will. The germs of all the relevant
arguments are to be found as early as Spinoza. All that he brought forward
in clear and simple language against the idea of freedom has since been
repeated times without number, but as a rule enveloped in the most
hair-splitting theoretical doctrines, so that it is difficult to recognize
the straightforward train of thought which is all that matters. Spinoza
writes in a letter of October or November, 1674:
I call a thing free which exists and acts from the pure necessity
of its nature, and I call that unfree, of which the being and
action are precisely and fixedly determined by something else.
Thus, for example, God, though necessary, is free because he
exists only through the necessity of his own nature. Similarly,
God cognizes himself and all else freely, because it follows
solely from the necessity of his nature that he cognizes all. You
see, therefore, that for me freedom consists not in free decision,
but in free necessity.
But let us come down to created things which are all
determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and
definite manner. To perceive this more clearly, let us imagine
a perfectly simple case. A stone, for example, receives from an
external cause acting upon it a certan quantity of motion, by
reason of which it necessarily continues to move, after the
impact of the external cause has ceased. The continued motion
of the stone is due to compulsion, not to the necessity of its
own nature, because it requires to be defined by the thrust of
an external cause. What is true here for the stone is true also
for every other particular thing, however complicated and
many-sided it may be, namely, that everything is necessarily
determined by external causes to exist and to act in a fixed and
definite manner.
Now, please, suppose that this stone during its motion thinks and
knows that it is striving to the best of its ability to continue in
motion. This stone, which is conscious only of its striving and is
by no neans indifferent, will believe that it is absolutely free, and
that it continues in motion for no other reason than its own will to
continue. But this is just the human freedom that everybody claims
to possess and which consists in nothing but this, that men are
conscious of their desires, but ignorant of the causes by which they
are determined. Thus the child believes that he desires milk of
his own free will, the angry boy regards his desire for vengeance
as free, and the coward his desire for flight. Again, the drunken
man believes that he says of his own free will what, sober
again, he would fain have left unsaid, and as this prejudice is
innate in all men, it is difficult to free oneself from it. For,
although experience teaches us often enough that man least of
all can temper his desires, and that, moved by conflicting passions,
he sees the better and pursues the worse, yet he considers
himself free because there are some things which he desires
less strongly, and some desires which he can easily inhibit
through the recollection of something else which it is often
possible to recall.
Because this view is so clearly and definitely expressed it is easy to
detect the fundamental error that it contains. The same necessity by which
a stone makes a definite movement as the result of an impact, is said to
compel a man to carry out an action when impelled thereto by any reason.
It is only because man is conscious of his action that he thinks himself
to be its originator. But in doing so he overlooks the fact that he is
driven by a cause which he cannot help obeying. The error in this train of
thought is soon discovered. Spinoza, and all who think like him, overlook
the fact that man not only is conscious of his action, but also may become
conscious of the causes which guide him. Nobody will deny that the child
is unfree when he desires milk, or the drunken man when he says things
which he later regrets. Neither knows anything of the causes, working in
the depths of their organisms, which exercise irresistible control over
them. But is it justifiable to lump together actions of this kind with
those in which a man is conscious not only of his actions but also of the
reasons which cause him to act? Are the actions of men really all of one
kind? Should the act of a soldier on the field of battle, of the
scientific researcher in his laboratory, of the statesman in the most
complicated diplomatic negotiations, be placed scientifically on the same
level with that of the child when it desires milk: It is no doubt true
that it is best to seek the solution of a problem where the conditions are
sinmplest. But inability to discrinminate has before now caused endless
confusion. There is, after all, a profound difference between knowing why
I am acting and not knowing it. At first sight this seems a self-evident
truth. And yet the opponents of freedom never ask themselves whether a
motive of action which I recognize and see through, is to be regarded as
compulsory for me in the same sense as the organic process which causes
the child to cry for milk...
(Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Freedom, Chapter 1, 1895)
Materialism can never offer a satisfactory explanation of the world. For
every attempt at an explanation must begin with the formation of thoughts
about the phenomena of the world. Materialism thus begins with the thought
of matter or material processes. But, in doing so, it is already
confronted by two different sets of facts: the material world, and the
thoughts about it. The materialist seeks to make these latter intelligible
by regarding them as purely material processes. He believes that thinking
takes place in the brain, much in the same way that digestion takes place
in the animal organs. Just as he attributes mechanical and organic effects
to matter, so he credits matter in certain circumstances with the capacity
to think. He overlooks that, in doing so, he is merely shifting the
problem from one place to another. He ascribes the power of thinking to
matter instead of to himself. And thus he is back again at his starting
point. How does matter come to think about its own nature? Why is it not
simply satisfied with itself and content just to exist? The materialist
has turned his attention away from the definite subject, his own I, and
has arrived at an image of something quite vague and indefinite. Here the
old riddle meets him again. The materialistic conception cannot solve the
problem; it can only shift it from one place to another.
(Ibid, Chapter 2)
five elements five rings five continents five ? this is the #?