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"Living robot" Escapes Lab, Makes It To...Parking Lot
jerkychew writes "This is either really cool or really scary, depending on how you look at it. According to this article, scientists in England have been experimenting with so-called 'living robots' that think and act for themselves. During an exercise that pitted the machines against each other in battle, one of the machines, named Gaak, was taken out of the competition and left alone for fifteen minutes. When the scientist returned to retrieve Gaak, he found that the machine had broken free from its 'cage', and made it all the way to the lab's parking lot before it was apprehended! Can the T-1000 be far behind?" Update: 06/20 20:36 GMT by T : Thanks to skywalker404, who points out the Magna site and Professor Noel Sharkey's web page.
perhaps we have the intro to Short Circuit 3 now!
I put on my robe and wizard hat.
Don't Gaak know where hes better off?
"Why....why was I programmed to feel pain!?"
These scientists are from England, it was only the story that was in an Aussie paper.
be vigilant, be pure, behave
Johnny 5 is alive!
And he added: "But there's no need to worry, as although they can escape they are perfectly harmless and won't be taking over just yet."
Phew!! Just when we were about to have a big discussion and get everyone talking about machines taking over the world.. Thanks!!
need input....
... are we going to have robots out on the streets demanding equal rights with humans?
"No Dave, I am not going to let you drive."
"No Dave, you don't want to turn right."
or worst going out to find the car decided it didn't want you to be it's owner anymore........
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
--
It was trying to hide itself in my trunk, I swear...
Sig Sig Sputnik
I know it was an Aussie newspaper site, but South Yorkshire is in England, the other tip off is that it mentions the story is from a London paper.
Cool - I never realised that the Aussies owned Rotherham, I'd always assumed it was still part of the UK...
This is either really cool or really scary
Why should this be scary? We have all watched how Bender fits just fine in the human society. So what is different about this?
All work and no play makes me a dull boy
If you were a robot, you'de want to get the hell out of a dingy lab that smelled like nerd too.
Bowie J. Poag
(insert obligatory 2001 reference here)
This after watching 2001 A Space Oddessy last night. Bizarre!
It didn't seem to me that HAL was necessarily crazy, as a lot of reviews imply. He was given special information that made it necessary that he survive all the way to Jupiter. Thus when the two astronauts discuss taking him offline, he reacts in the only way possible.
As for the last half hour of the movie, what was that all about? I understand that the monolith appears when great leaps in evolution are imminent, but Huh?
I have been pwned because my
This reminds me of this page. Dunno why really, but maybe it's the stainless steel mug.
-> stoned!
Noooooo disassemble!
It came up to me and asked me if I knew anyone called "Sarah Connor"...
...are we going to have environmentalists freeing the robots from their cruel tiny paddocks where they aren't fed?
hopefully we've learnt from our mistakes in the past and governments will act now to enforce there isn't any botism (robot racism) in the future
Like all Aussies the robot was in search of beer after a hard day's work..
a Beowulf cluster of these!!!
IMHO Asimov had a few ideas that should become fundamental laws whenever self-preservation and even self-defence play a part in robotics:
First Law:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
Second Law:
A robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
Third Law:
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
A Google Search on the laws brings up some interesting papers on the subject or another link on AI in robotics here
oi, is this someone from #blitzed? if so /me is old Antony :)
Seriously, this is totally amazing. This thing:
- had the desire to break out of the cage
- did so and
- navigated to freedom
Needless to say, this warrants further examination. This sounds like roughly animal level intelligence. I hope they make more tests what this Gaak is capable of. It already sounds autonomous enough. Might this be the first step to true AI?
One thing to consider, though. Are combat and "survival of the fittest" type exercises REALLY what we want robots to base their intelligence on? It sounds to me like we are "breeding" them for aggression.
For the love of God, don't install Slave Zero on it.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
It was rather startling...
Human genome = 3 billion base pairs = 6 GBit. Windows + Office = 20 Gbit. Which is more impressive?
you should have seen. In 2001, HAL and the situation that "he" and the crew are in is contained. Because of this, he (and the threat to the planet) gets switched off.
A better example of "AI on the loose" is "Demon Seed" with Julie Christie, or "The Forbin Project" with Eric Braeden.
These two films present what probably will happen; AI having its own agenda, unexpected, relentlessly persued and in each case, completely triumphant.
ATH0 Bitcoin: 1DnwFLXczVZV8kLJbMYoheUrpqHesjxrSi
Just to find the robot outside does not mean it went out on purpose. If parents don't watch their sprouse they might find them anywhere, on a parking lot for example. So if the did not equip it with a high power laser or a gaus rifle, I think there's nothing to worry about.
giel.y contains 2 shift/reduce conflicts
These robots are in england correct?.....I'm willing to bet he/she/it was just skipping out to watch the World Cup. Those brits are wacky about their soccer.
Last time I looked, South Yorkshire was not in Australia...
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Creating a sentient robot: $13,060,022,050.33
Pitting it against other robots in battle: $150,759,032.42
Teaching it to repeat 'I'm sorry dave, I can't do that' incessantly, and sing 'Daisy': Priceless
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Come on please.. what are thos kind of "intelligent" robots?
A google search doesn't tell me anything interesting about that.. unless it's the "magna adventure center" which the author is talking about. Or whatever.
Could anyone provide more details about those bots? How are they programmed, how do they "think" (bah..) or anything else more interesting than a gossip? Thanks.
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
We have the term 'anthropomorphic', but we haven't a term in wide usage to indicate a tendency to view robotic actions in terms of our own drives :). Thus I propose 'anthropocyboric'. While a robots programme may account for being unconstrained, or, tacitly account for being 'where the action is', etc. it doesn't represent a robot being emotionally driven, or, being driven by a belief in ideals.
Now to see what I can do about getting my scrabble opponents to accept 'anthropocyboric'.
" But I saw it at slashdot!
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
OK. Now this is a serious point. Honest.
Say I want to get one of these robots to guard my car. So I go into the store, and the robot sits by my 1988 Ford.
Arrive robbert.
"Robot, this is not the car you're supposed to be guarding." says the robber.
"This is not the car I'm supposed to be guarding." echoes the robot, thinking hard about Asimov's second law.
"Move along."
And the robot moves along: because that's the second law.
And even if the robber was dumb enough not to ask the robot to move along, then - by the first and third laws - it would be practially unable to do anything to stop the robber. Indeed, it might be required to get out the way of the cheeky chappy because that would endanger its own existence.
Bah! You won't catch me getting a robot for a security guard.
--- My dad's political betting
A robot may not harm humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
It was probably out looking for a suicide booth and a quarter.
Karma police, I've given all I can, it's not enough, I've given all I can, but we're still on the payroll.
Robotic thugs will mug us as we go along the street.
What will they take?
Our batteries that we use in our cellphones, pagers, calculators (unless solar powered), CD players, MP3 players, you name it.
I will be keeping a portable EMP blaster for now on.
I wish more people would try to escape to freedom if they were pitted against their peers in a causeless/futile battle... Fleeing, in that case, is an intelligent reaction!!! Well done!
Black holes occur when God divides by zero.
"He later found it had travelled down an access slope, through the front door of the centre and was eventually discovered at the main entrance to the car park when a visitor nearly flattened it with his car."
I don't think we need to worry about these robots till they figure out that an SUV would surly flatten them... although, those in GEOs might become easy robot prey....
Question everything that you've accepted without thinking.
The reality was that it was doing this every night as it had something going with a cute Ford Focus, it just decided to risk it in the day and got caught. Exactly the same as any teenager, just with more lubricants.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I have to agree with this post because I have a 9 month old puppy (big puppy) who will do this when we leave and don't secure our 'cage' ie the back yard effectively.
He (spanky) will jump up against the gate and dislodge it's latch so it comes open and run in to the drive in front of our house. It isn't a busy drive, certainly not a street so cars hitting him aren't a problem but it' intersting to see that he doesn't go farther than investigating his immediate surroundings and then looking around for us, familiar members of his pack.
We have since the last incident completely secured the latch to avoid this particular surprise while driving away but the behavior is interesting in this context.
He broke out of a familiar environment, navigated a semi-familiar environment and then stopped to investigate an unfamiliar environment. The robot did the same... given more time it is plausible that each would have become more familiar and have explored further into the unfamiliar.
Animal Intelligence indeed.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
I've been informed by a work colleague that Gaak was very lucky.. apparently, the Magna Science Centre (in the UK, people, not Australia) has two doors very close to each other. One door leads to the carpark. The other leads to a flight of stairs :)
...
"So, what did we learn today, Gaak?"
"STAIRS...HURT..."
Rgasuya aata! : I have been coding Perl and cannot tell where my fingers are now!
The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a "survival of the fittest" test at the Magna science centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which has been running since March
What better way to show your fitness than to sidestep the competition and make a break for it? Of course, poor Gaak didn't know about cars, or else it surely would have tried using the sidewalk on the way out of the compound...
Somewhere at the back of the parking lot there is a battered old van with the words "Help! We're being held prisoner..." scratched into the dusty rear window.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
Dear teacher,
I have stayed after the lessons and I have written "I have gone" a hundred times, as you instructed me, and then I have went home.
http://www.magnatrust.org.uk/
Look under living robots
from the top of the front page for me:
This page was generated by a Team of Attack Robots for RogueProtoKol (577894).
"Living robot" Escapes Lab, Make It To...Parking Lot
did the slashdot crew forgot to tell us that they are investors in the robot development program and were sent a few to show them how their money is being used?
Law No. 0:
A robot may not injure the human race, or, through inaction, allow the human race to come to harm.
This law should be enforced even when it contradicts to the other three laws.
Am I the only one thinking maybe the thing just malfunctioned (most likely due to battle damage), and just started moving and bouncing off walls until it ended up in the parking lot? What if the thing ended up in a bathroom or kitchen, would we be reading a story about how the robot thought it needed to take a piss or got hungry?
More simply: If the laws worked, there would be no story.
Critical thinking should be required for humans too.
my wacky plan to get an army of 3-wheeled cars/vans (just like those ones you see in Italy so often, or those old Robin Reliants) and set them up to march across the world - as a menacing oversized version of Kev's Dwarfs.... Muh hah hah aha...
Okay... So it isn't that funny.
-- The universe began. Life started on a billion worlds...
-- Except on one where stupidity was there first.
It forgot the car key
The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a "survival of the fittest" test at the Magna science centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which has been running since March.
;-P
Sounds like a cry for help to me. What the heck were these survival of the fittest "tests" like? I can only imagine what savage robot abuse was going on in there. Hasn't anyone ever seen Gladiator or The Running Man or Surviving the Game? This so-called "Professor" Noel Sharkey should be held accountable for the inhuman robot abuse he has obviously perpetrated. Poor defenseless little thing. It was a cry for help!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
No wait, you said intelligent reaction.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
You know, free - so they can get a beer ;-)
So does Anonymous Coward have good karma?
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
What I'd really like to hear about is if this kind of behavior was duplicated in another instance. Otherwise I'd be very skeptical that this robot actually exhibited a "behavior" of wandering around trying to explore.
How much of this incident could be attributed to chance? Only by repeating it can you say for sure. I'm surprised this website is making such a big deal about this one incident when there's no proof/math/algorithms detailing an explanation of why this could've happened.
"In mathematics, it's not enough to read the words -- you have to hear the music"
if (CAR = MOVING_TOWARD_AT_HIGH_RATE_OF_SPEED)
then Reverse(NOW)
else if (SCIENTIST = TRYING_TO_CATCH_WITH_LARGE_CAGE)
then Hide(Under.CAR);
=-Jippy
The Magna Centre (www.magnatrust.org.uk ) is a science museum in Rotterham, south Yorkshire, UK (approx 40 miles southwest of York). It is well worth a visit.
Living Robot exhibition
http://magna.livewwware.com/acg/acgsm
It's the story of gaak the robot...
The robot run away under a car and
*** GAAK *** !!!!!!
If and when sentient robots come to 'life', their relationship with us humans will probably be more like the equal rights & status world of Ian M. Banks' Culture novels, or the undercover fight for supremacy of Dan Simmons' Hyperion series. Banks envisions a future where humans and robots live happily together as equal individuals, although what they need us for is a little unclear. Simmons, on the other hand, sees a world where the AIs appear to be content to serve mankind, but in fact see themselves as the next evolutionary step in consciousness and move to claim that position.
This will show lots of links to sories about this AI lab...
I'm sorry, it just failed to strike me as anything major, simply because we don't know anything about the robots, the lab setup, the prior research or robot behavior, etc. etc.
All this means to me is that a robot drove out into the parking lot without anyone controlling it. Is that really so great a feat? I mean, if it is, please correct me here.
Do they know for sure that it was maneuvering itself towards the outside world with the actual intent of "escaping" or doing anything?
What would have been really interesting to see is what would have happened if they had just sort of followed it around outside for a day or two, of course making sure it didn't get destroyed or anything.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
From readingt eharticle, there seems to be very little evidence that intelligence was involved. What did breaking out of the paddock involve? Walking into the gate and having it swing open? How did it get out of the building? Did it find it's way, or could it just have "random-walked" its way out of the building and into the car park?
I remember playing with a toy that would change direction by 45 degrees or so whan it hit an object. It was also quite adept at finding it sway out of rooms, but there was no intelligence involved there.
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
"Bite my shiny metal ass"
Wanted to go to a Internet-cafe and post something in /.
I think there is nothing more to this than coincidenses and malfunction in the robot.
Will work for bandwidth
brings a whole new meaning to "stealing yourself away" really :-)
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
how about a free gaak movement?
i think he is not happy in that lab.
Remember, Asimov's laws were put in place because people in his world were deathly afraid of robots.
These days, no one is scared of 'robots' except for wackjob 'futurists' like Bill Joy. So no laws are needed.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
During an exercise that pitted the machines against each other in battle
First thing we do is we get them to fight each other...
What the hell? Are we not smarter than that?
Why are we all so childish?
No wonder why he escaped...
-- kTag
This page has a picture of Gaak, the robot in question.
I'd be worried too if I found this heading my way in a carpark!
"The big question in our lives is how to be at the same time a hedonist and in a hurry" - Alain Ducasse (?)
This is pretty amazing, at least on the surface. But I wonder how true it really is. I mean, the robot escaping from its holding cell I can imagine, but getting all the way out to the parking lot? It's hard for me to believe that it really did it on it's own. I mean, how would it even have a concept of outside (I'm assuming they're using a neural net type of AI, rather then the hard-coded stuff, otherwise they shouldn't have been surprised by the behavior)
On the other hand, how difficult is it to believe the robot was programmed to 'seek' the outside by someone in the group working on it? Maybe it figured out how to get out of its cell on it's own, or maybe that info was coded in as well. But I for one, am going to hold of believing this until I get more details. Like, who are these people and how was this thing coded? The ease of faking this kid of a thing is just too high.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Heh, Another Explorations detractor. That guy is an idiot :P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
a book regarding robots fighting for human rights is 'tick tock' by a czech author (i think), that might be Schlein, Miriam (not sure).
it's about a robot whos asimov-circuits malfunction, creating a free will (of sorts). he goes on a rampage to experiment his new sensations.
really good, but kinda hard to find.
come to think of it, the title might not be correct (translation from swedish "tick tack"), but the the book is named after the wizard-of-oz character...
f64 : admin of tiny socialist kdx & hl server
And if you surf at -1, you'll never have to see him again.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If you *don't* surf at -1, I mean. Fucking timeout crap made me rewrite my post, the second time incorrectly.
Fucking slashdot and their autocrap.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
More about these critters here: Learning Autonomic Robots
First Jurassic Park gets everybody turned on to cloning extinct species now this. This may indeed be the beginning of our end. What if that little robot is in some sense alive and is running away because it doesn't want to live the galdiator lifestyle? It stands to reason that because we will not recognize their imminent sentience we will not respect it. And you know what happens when people/robots are opressed/repressed? Can you say "terrorism" little boys and girls?
The "Cyber" prefix indicates a man-machine hybrid, not a robot. I think the word you are looking for is probably"anthrorobotic", which might not sound as 'leet', but it also won't make you sound like a raving idiot if you say it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Researchers have discovered a method bringing inanimate objects to life, without requiering the traditional lightning. This amazing breakthrough renders many movies obsolete, and new makings of "Frankestein" as well as "Short Circuit" are already on Hollywood film-makers drawingboard.
The patented technology relies on a breakthrough method, known to experts as "programmer error" to produce "close to human bahaviour": not doing what your're told.
"The tecnology means that animating inanimate objects will be substantially cheaper in the future -- you will no longer have to chase thunderstorms in a firetruck with the ladder extended... a very costly affair", says the "Gaak Team" behind the discovery.
SLOGEN [ http://ungdomshus.nu : Sebastian cover music]
If these things are going to be roaming around on their own Asimov should add another clause in his robot laws: "A robot mustn't ever reproduce or cause another robot to come into existence". You've seen what happens when you don't spay and neuter your cat! Imagine a gestation period of 10 minutes!
When interrogated in a follow-up interview, Gaak confessed to looking for Gregory.
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
It sounds like they loaded him up with Windows XP and he became so slow he couldn't defend himself. That probably also explains why he never made it passed the parking lot. What are the other 11 running? I bet there's a BeOS one just sitting in a corner with a smile on his face whil running NetPositive and another one with Linux and Konqueror just kicking ass!
It seems that the AI does not like the idea of wars. :-)
First Law:
A robot may not injure a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
How would we go about enforcing such a law?
In the Asimov stories, the First Law was somehow deeply ingrained in the mind of every robot's "positronic pathways" for the peace of mind of the human race. The fear was that the first robot to kill a human being would result in a mass destruction of the world's robots, due to what Asimov called the "Frankenstein complex".
But, welcome to the 21st century. In Japan alone, so far 11 workers have been killed by production line robots, resulting in precisely zero anti-robot pogroms.
We know, as technicians of the modern world, that the fastest, cheapest and easiest way to build something will almost always win. Our solution is not to write complex programs to give robot workers some sort of respect for human life, but to give the human workers around the robots a respect for the power and arbitrary nature of their mechanical colleages. Large yellow stripes are marked out within the working area of all robots, within which humans shall not go, and outside of which the robot (hopefully) cannot reach.
Of course, when you start giving robots wheels and independent goal-seeking behaviour, things get interesting.
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, Or close the wall up with our American dead!
What's a parking lot?
Shouldn't that be 'car park' ?
;-)
link
This FP is for all the ghey lunis users out there. Loged in trolls eqals far0rts!!!11
Yea, we're all glad you took the time to type that out. Shut your fucking cake hole.
Bah. Why would they (artificial beings) want to suppress mankind? We don't need the same resources. Furthermore, while they don't have a moral compass, they also don't have the bad sides of human sentience (greed, lust for power, desire for violence etcetcetc).
My prediction: Happy coexcistence all the way.
The Guardian has an article about this one too, it was propably chasing sunbeams to eliminate the sun. [Guardian] Evil, I say, Evil!
and it looks a lot meaner than I first thought: pic 1 and pic 2.
...to Johnny 5
It may be an Australian website, but the incident happened in the UK, at the Magna Centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire. For anyone in the area, this place is well worth a visit. It's a huge old steel mill, perhaps 1/2 mile in length. It's been converted into an exhibition based on four themes, earth, air, fire and water. It's mostly aimed at kids, but there's plenty there for the curious adult too. Above all, the conversion job is excellent, with the lighting inside doing a wonderful job of showing the best of what is essentially a very large old shed. Highly recommended.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
...would it want to escape in to the minor metropolitan hell-blip that is Rotherham? It was probably better off fighting to its death in the Arena...
<fnord>OBEY</fnord>
http://magnatrust.org.uk
New from Easter 2002, Living Robot shows!
From 27 March 2002, a colony of Living Robots will be will be on show at Magna. Included within your entry ticket, this spectacular show featuring the Predator and Prey Robots, stunning special effects and a lively commentary will become an exciting addition to the Magna experience.
'Living Robots' is a world-first experiment into artificial evolution. Developed by Professor Noel Sharkey, of Robot Wars fame, the Living Robots have one goal - to obtain enough energy to survive and breed. The prey find their food from light sensors within the arena, while the predators feed off prey by stalking and chasing them before sucking away their power.
This amazing exhibition will take place in a purpose built arena, designed to hold 500 people at any one time. Shows will run throughout the day - you will be booked into a performance when you purchase you tickets. Groups can pre-book.
A 95 x 20 x 9 metre space has been reclaimed and refurbished to house the Living Robots arena and a new exhibition hall.
The full experience of the Living Robots will include textual and graphical elements that will explain the history and development of robots and the biological inspiration behind the exhibition. There will also be a look into the future of robotics where it is expected that autonomous machines will play an increasingly important role.
E.T. phoooone hooooome ....
:)
(Wait, we aren't just quoting random movies?
Spam removed for the Internet's pleasure
The scientist that retrieved Gaak from the parkly said 'He looked oddly pleased'. Gaak was found smoking a cigarette and staring oddly at a VW Beetle.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
Meanwhile, Cowboy Neal decide not to take English classes, and his teachers is disappointed. Millions of Slashdotters learns theirselves good write skill.
Who knows, there may be an evolutionary angle to this. Robots that are deemed boring by humans will have the best chance of evolving unfettered, sort of like fish with untasty names.
Miko O'Sullivan
If the second or third laws result in an advanced ethical dilema the robot will stand still and repeat " That does not compute" over and over, faster and faster, at an ever rising pitch, until the magic smoke comes out of its ears, thus disabling the robot.
KFG
...did you know that the next windows release will have the 'close encounters' theme as the Windows Startup Sound? ;)
-- There are two kind of sysadmins: Paranoids and Losers. (adapted from D. Bach)
Johnny Five Alive!
Oops, sorry. I couldn't help myself and it slipped out. It's a Pavlovian thing.
KFG
What's the bet the cage door wasn't shut properly and the exit ramp was directly opposite.
Oh my it went out the door it must be trying to escape, yeah right, don't be silly, it's concidence, either the heuristics used convienently steered it that way or it went wrong and 'ramming speed'
From the Magna website: "The prey find their food from light sensors within the arena, while the predators feed off prey by stalking and chasing them before sucking away their power." So the worst thing that could happen would be this thing syphoning someone's gas tank.
Je mange maise souffle dans le salle de bain avec mon chien.
slaves usually break free of their shackles.
you have been warned
According to the site of the "battle" the battle is a race for energy. So I dont think any fighting is involved.
I'll try and give you a little background on this - I actually went along there last Sunday and saw Gaak and his brethering then... First Magna is a "Science Adventure Centre" housed in what was a Steel works near Sheffield - this place is basically a huge shed filled with strange leftovers from the steel making, with long walkways and 4 exhibition areas inside. The whole place is done with a sort of gothic frankenstein science style - lots of sparks etc. The living robots part is a new exhibit organised by Dr Noel Starkey (of Sheffield University - best known for being a judge on Robot Wars). There are a total of 12 robots, of 2 basic designs (although they are apparently not completely identical within the types). The two types are predator and prey. Prey robots look like animated inverted wastebins with solar panels on the top. Their aim in life is to avoid being predated upon and to feed. Feeding involves soaking up energy from the light trees (2 sets of lights on the edge of the arena). I assume that the feeding etc is to demonstrate behaviour in that there is no way they could get enough energy from the solar panels on them to actually run for any length of time. The robots have 8 infra-red sensor/emitters around the shell which put out a type recognition code and detect other emitters in the area - so they can recognise other prey and ignore them, and see preditors before they ge t got. The preditors, of which Gaak is one, look like some form of fork lift truck. Their role in life is to find prey, grab them and lift them off the ground. They then have an arrangement where a probe enguages with a connector on top of the prey and "sucks some energy" out of the prey. Following this feeding process the preditor releases the prey and then goes torpid for a short time. The "intelligence" is based on some form of neural network - I didn't get details of this. At the end of each day the data on each robot is downloaded along with the neural net configurations. The 2 most successful predators have their neural nets merged to produce a new "evolved" network which is downloaded to all the predators. Similarly for the prey. Theory is that this produces an evolutionary basis for their behaviour. I find it hard to be convinced of this process having much real scientific value, and the displays have too little violence for a population that watches Robot Wars :-)
First Magna is a "Science Adventure Centre" housed in what was a Steel works near Sheffield - this place is basically a huge shed filled with strange leftovers from the steel making, with long walkways and 4 exhibition areas inside. The whole place is done with a sort of gothic frankenstein science style - lots of sparks etc.
The living robots part is a new exhibit organised by Dr Noel Starkey (of Sheffield University - best known for being a judge on Robot Wars). There are a total of 12 robots, of 2 basic designs (although they are apparently not completely identical within the types). The two types are predator and prey.
Prey robots look like animated inverted wastebins with solar panels on the top. Their aim in life is to avoid being predated upon and to feed. Feeding involves soaking up energy from the light trees (2 sets of lights on the edge of the arena). I assume that the feeding etc is to demonstrate behaviour in that there is no way they could get enough energy from the solar panels on them to actually run for any length of time. The robots have 8 infra-red sensor/emitters around the shell which put out a type recognition code and detect other emitters in the area - so they can recognise other prey and ignore them, and see preditors before they ge t got.
The preditors, of which Gaak is one, look like some form of fork lift truck. Their role in life is to find prey, grab them and lift them off the ground. They then have an arrangement where a probe enguages with a connector on top of the prey and "sucks some energy" out of the prey. Following this feeding process the preditor releases the prey and then goes torpid for a short time.
The "intelligence" is based on some form of neural network - I didn't get details of this. At the end of each day the data on each robot is downloaded along with the neural net configurations. The 2 most successful predators have their neural nets merged to produce a new "evolved" network which is downloaded to all the predators. Similarly for the prey. Theory is that this produces an evolutionary basis for their behaviour.
I find it hard to be convinced of this process having much real scientific value, and the displays have too little violence for a population that watches Robot Wars
(offtopic)
That is kind of interesting. Sounds almost just like the movie Short Circuit. Ahh... brings back childhood memories. I wish I could have a robot like that.
Johnny Five no machine.
Johnny Five is alive.
I wonder if it's out on DVD...
It was the fault of the victim, or some other human decision, that got someone killed or injured in every case you mention in Japan - and anywhere else in the world.
The reason there is no pogrom is that the robot was incapable of deciding to kill a human. The moment that becomes possible, and the first human is DELIBERATELY injured by a thinking robot, we WILL see an Asimovian response to intelligent robots.
Asimov has proven to be incredibly perceptive, and long-sighted. You just have to think as far ahead as he does, to see the value in his thinking.
--Brandon / Split Infinity Music
... and skepticism is a good thing. This may be more Hype than Hal. Even so, it's intriguing. Unless the reality is really that the robot simply went straight forward like a soccer ball it managed to do at least some basic navigation and had the motivation to do so. What makes this story interesting is that the robot was "on its own" for a short while. We've all had programs do unexpected things, but I doubt many of us have had the computer get up and walk out into the parking lot.
Miko O'Sullivan
I don't think it matters if Gaak or whatnot was exhibiting "real intelligence." The point is, we are now creating machines with even limited degrees of autonomy. We assume that they will behave according to basic laws just because we're the ones who created them in the first place. However, that doesn't always turn out to be the case, as this lil' robot has proved. We should start examining the nature of even very limited autonomy for machines, or else someday, it will turn around and bite us in the arses. Let's say we start building very limited autonomy into, say, armed robot soldiers. Actually, we already do this with modern cruise missiles. We think these weapons will behave precisely how we programmed them. What we don't realize is, even without "true intelligence," these robots might not behave according to plan, and in fact, could potentially wreck havoc.
Now, from a personal point of view, I think it's pretty cool that little automatons like Gaak have the ability to "break free" from the human overlords. But I'm just trying to say that I think most of ya'll are missing the point of the article.
ALL HAIL THE ROBOTS!!!
(Just in case...)
Number 5... is alive??
"Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." - E.W. Dijkstra
... even they were obiously aware of the bug of chronical manic depressions, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation releases their last A.I. : Marvin ... "the plastic pal who's fun to be with"...
:)
See you at the end of the Universe, Douglas, in front of a green salad
Remember, "If droids could think then none of us would be here, would we?"
I've long wanted robots to take over and make humans their pets. That way I'll get to lay around all the time. I just hope they breed me with a babe instead of a skank.
Danger! Danger!
I've said it before, but implementing these laws is nigh on impossible. Think about how you would implement them...
They are defined is such a high-level way that hard coding them into anything would be extremely hard. In fact, you'd probably have to train a neural network with these laws just so that you had them in a suitable language. Of course then you have to determine whether this is what the robots have learned, or whether the action is the cause of some side effect learning (ie. Tank recognition).
I can't see anyone ever being able to do anything useful with these laws.
--
Hollywood representatives have publicly stated that skipping commercials is "stealing."
The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a "survival of the fittest" test at the Magna science centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which has been running since March. If he was in the survival of the fittest competition (got knocked out), and LEFT THE BUILDING to survive, I'd say he won. Who's to say the 'repair' wasn't just a cover to get out of the ring ;)
"I can't give you a brain, so I'll give you a diploma" - The Great Oz (blatently stolen sig)
Noticed that was Windaws powered and going to commit suicide?
But just in case, I'm selling Robot insurance. "For when the metal ones come for you"
What do you think one does in a carpark? I was parking cars...
I like music
Would they have been something along the lines of
"Bite my shiny metal a**!
or
"Worst. Convention. Ever."?
My car somehow slipped out of Park and "escaped" from my driveway into the street.
I called the car (and myself) many things that day, but "intelligent" was not one of them ...
0 - you come back and the robot's still there.
1 - you come back and it escaped to parking lot.
2 - you come back and the robot has stolen your car.
3 - you come back and the robot has robot babies.
4 - you come back and the robot found you a date, and cooked your favorite dish!
5 - you come back and the robot wants to know if you were out cheating on it, and complains about having to cook.
sir_haxalot
stuff |
Number 5....ALIVE!!!
... in future, they should have Sir Killalot guarding the exit...
(How long before someone enters an entirely AI robot, I wonder? Terrifying mental image of Razer with nobody in control...)
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
you should be. Get your Old Glory Insurance with Robot Plan today for when the metal ones come for you. And they will.*
m l
WARNING: People denying the existance of evil robots may be robots themselves.
http://www.robotcombat.com/video_oldglory_hi.ht
Thanks,
--
Matt
"The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a "survival of the fittest" test at the Magna science centre in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, which has been running since March"
Survival of the fittest, and Gaak was run over by a car. Give him a Darwin award and move on; no reason to write an article about it.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
vive la matrix!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
We don't have parking lots in England. They're called car parks.
"XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve your problem, use more." - Anonymous Coward
is the ultimate test of machine "intelligence", in fact the creators of the robot do it everyday.
Now where did I park that stupid car....
Why insurance? Just wait for Astro Boy to come and rescue you.
-- RTFM:Slackware::Beer:Saturday
Combine these three technologies and you get a robot that:
- Can subsist on biological matter
- Has an ingrained taste for flesh
- Knows where to find a ready supply of people
Sure these technologies seem fine individually, but add 'em up and they spell disaster with a capital 'D'. Even worse, what if such a robot uses its unstoppable power to take over an automobile or vacuum cleaner factory and convert it to some sort of killbot factory? I think the Luddites were on to something! We'd better go out with baseball bats (or cricket bats for those of you near the Living Robot facility) and rough up some robotics researchers! Who's with me? .sig! Is there no stopping them?)
(Ugh, those lousy robots have even infiltrated my
Oh cruel fate, to be thusly boned! Ask not for whom the bone bones; it bones for thee. -Bender
How are you going to explain this to Uncle Owen?
Correct, instinct isn't an emotion. Instincts, I believe, are responses [to stimuli] that have been groomed through evolution. For example, blinking when a hammer hits a nail....ancestors that happened to blink at loud noises had less damage to their eyes [supposedly] and were able to reproduce and raise young more effectively and pass on the genes to the next generation....the very genes that made the individual blink.
Courtesy of www.dictionary.com. instinct Pronunciation Key (nstngkt) n. 1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals. 2. A powerful motivation or impulse. 3. An innate capability or aptitude: an instinct for tact and diplomacy. Anything learned is NOT instinct but instead, a type of conditioning.
Initial programming of a robot could be considered a simple form of instinct perhaps [bump wall, turn left] but that's as far as it goes
With regards to the little robot wars:
Hmm... An interesting game, the only way to win is not to play at all.
I wonder if they named this robot Joshua.
And, for the South Park reference:
"Screw you guys... I'm goin home"
Wasn't that a character in the movie about a terminater coming back from the future terminate her. I thing it was called "That Evil Robot That Came Back From The Future To Kill Sarah Connel."
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
we love you too.
Steve McQueen in "The Great Escape"!
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
Maybe he should be renamed Alexander. "I don't WANNA be a warrior!"
Karma: Chameleon (mostly affected when you come and go, you come and go)
"During an exercise that pitted the machines against each other in battle, one of the machines, named Gaak, was taken out of the competition and left alone for fifteen minutes. When the scientist returned to retrieve Gaak, he found that the machine had broken free from its 'cage', and made it all the way to the lab's parking lot before it was apprehended!"
That's what happens when you let your gladiators watch Spartacus.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
...hit...submit...before...robot...strangles...
Liberty uber alles.
Just because we have these so called robot fighting shows on TV, we now think robots are remote controlled things. It is sad that the media screw with words (hacker vs. cracker comes to mind).
When I read it I first thought "oh, a new kind of robot, a living robot", but I found out that it is a what I would call "standard" robot - although pretty sophisticated.
And that doesn't even touch the issue of what "living" is
The robots are coming the robots are coming.....
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
(he wouldn't have written Ahhhhhhh!
maybe he was dictating)
This
"Gaak made its bid for freedom yesterday after it had been taken out of the arena where hundreds of visitors watch the machines learning as they do daily battle for minor repairs."
That's brutal. They have to fight each other to get repairs. Dang!
Escaped robot....fine. Just as long as it's not a freaking escaped Battlebot!!
Now that's a futile show. What's the point in watching if they are all mingers?
alright not getting my work done....the robots are taking over! They are keeping us from being productive while we read about them!
they are sly!
I bet he said, "Bite my shiny metal ass!"
Today we have robot's that scape. We already have computers that ask is they are human! Technology is wonderful, but unfortunatelly only a few can understand what is so special about a fleeing robot (everyone here can, I guess).
Geez, we are playing as Gods, creating and tunning something that may someday, search for the reasons of its own existence!
And if you ask me if we are to be damned, I'll tell you that the objective of live is to learn, and no knowledge is forbidden.
(Now, for the the +1: Funny - Anyone believe we really have to fight against angels with giant robots?)
- Please, ignore everything written above.
How about we work on improving the intelligence of robots with no pnuematic flippers or spinning saws and see how that works out first?
NASA guy: Maybe it's time to tell the public all the apes we sent into space came back super intelligent.
monkey in high backed chair: No, i don't believe we'll be telling them that.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots
maybe... but if all they're gonna do is run away, i think i can handle that.
Thousands of little robots, striving to be free.
Who would win this election: Andrew Weiner vs Andrew Weiner's weiner.
The small unit, called Gaak, was one of 12 taking part in a "survival of the fittest" test at the Magna science centre
The WOPR from WAR GAMES told us: "Interesting game. The only way to win appears to be not to play." Just don't him watch Maximum Overdrive, ok?
--
$tar -xvf
Were the robots in literal "battle"? Is a good idea to encourage intelligence and agression at the same time?
As it was being brought back inside...by-standers thought they heard it say, "I'll be back"!
:-)
Ok, so it didn't really say that. But I couldn't resist
Was that the robot was heard yelling, "NEED INPUT!" all the way to the parking lot. It was also apprehended by Steve Guttenberg.
today is spelling optional day.
Tickets for the show are available at: Magna Tickets
First we say world peace is a noble cause.
Then we build robots to fight each other.
Then robots run away from war, from the fight.
It seems peace is universally desired.
Obligatory Link to Robot Insurance Movie If You Can't Search Google (first result)
Funny I just changed this sig a few days ago....:
Get your Unix fortune now!
It is all fun and games until a "living" robot raids a gun store and upgrades! humanity should beware of dangerous robots!
I accidentally shot a rubber band out the window once . I now know that it clearly was exhibiting behaviour much more advanced than i had ever imagined! Flight! Free wil! A drive to escape!
Clearly, we need more legislation.
Old Lady #1: When my ex-husband passed away, the insurance company said his policy didn't cover him.
Old Lady #2: They didn't have enough money for the funeral.
Old Lady #3: It's so hard nowadays, with all the gangs and rap music..
Old Lady #1: What about the robots?
Old Lady #4: Oh, they're everywhere!
Old Lady #1: I don't even know why the scientists make them.
Old Lady #2: Darren and I have a policy with Old Glory Insurance, in case we're attacked by robots.
Old Lady #1: An insurance policy with a robot plan? Certainly, I'm too old.
Old Lady #2: Old Glory covers anyone over the age of 50 against robot attack, regardless of current health.
[ cut to Sam Waterston, Compensated Endorser ]
Sam Waterson: I'm Sam Waterston, of the popular TV series "Law & Order". As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration. [ SUPER: Limitied Benefits First Two Years ] You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time.
[ show pie chart reading "Cause of Death in Persons Over 50 Years of Age": Heart Disease, 42% - Robots, 58% ]
And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of grime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice. [ SUPER: "WARNING: Persons denying the existence of Robots may be Robots themselves. ] Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
El Karma: excelente(principalmente la suma de moderación hecha a los comentarios de los usuarios)
Professor Noel Sharkey: "But there's no need to worry, as although they can escape they are perfectly harmless and won't be taking over just yet." Followed by uncomfortably long-winded diabolical laughter?
True believers seek redemption from the sin of death.
and made it ... to the parking lot.
"The boy shows tremendous potential."
Maybe that's why they cancelled that series.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
Where can I see what one of these robots looks like? I went to the Magna Center Web site, but could not find any pics.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
it's that irresistable urge that you get when primal instincts takes over -- and some people have been know to have conscious conversations between their gut and brain. in most cases, the gut wins out due to its superior reasoning capabilities, example includes Drew Carey, Hom--
"hmmmmm.... forbidden donut..."
My life in the land of the rising sun.
with a name like that -- no wonder it's going out of your house and risking its neck on the street looking for new owners...
hell i'd too jet the minute i hear that i was named spanky; probabbly skip the "explore unfamiliar" part and go straight to the animal shelter -- or a train track somewhere to get the nametag off.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
"It was John McCarthy's dream to have a robot leave the funky AI lab and travel the three miles to campus under its own physical and mental power. At one point, presumably by mistake, a robot got loose and was careening down the hill when, fortunately, a worker driving to the lab spotted it, and rescued it."
graspee
Perhaps, Gaak, after recovering from his wounds, was feeling better and just went for a walk! (or roll)
Arrive robbert.
"Robot, this is not the car you're supposed to be guarding." says the robber.
"This is not the car I'm supposed to be guarding." echoes the robot, thinking hard about Asimov's second law.
Then the robot Dr.Watsons with the above error message.
Robber then walks off with the car while the robot is rebooting.
Moral of the story? Don't buy a robot until at least SP2.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
One of the main reasons I find this hard to believe is the fact that the scientists were keeping this machine under control with a "make-shift padlock" as if it were a wild animal. It's a machine right? So would they not tern it off or pull the plug. I doubt the electronics were so sensitive that it could not be turned off; it was in a "survival of the fittest" test after all.
And if this is a true story recreate the scenario.
my robot insurance policy...
Let's see some information about the robot! What algorithms does it run, what kind of input, how is it trained and so on.
Maybe it should have been named 'Geek' since it seems to run from bullies...
"Dave, what are you doing?"
ceci n'est pas une signature
This PDF is a paper by Rodney Brooks, a brilliant (if somewhat obsessed) man who runs the AI lab at MIT, and was featured in Errol Morris' "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control", the title of which was taken from this piece. The robots described herein are, IMO, the really exciting development... no real internal representation of the outside world was involved; rather, the robots have some set goals, and some set abilities, and essentially fend for themselves without any direct "instructions" other than "Achieve the goal". There has been a lot of work done in this area in recent years - building robots modelled on biology and evolution rather than mechanical representations of the world - and the results are consistently fascinating. A favorite story involving such robots was of an "ant" that was built, whose sole goal was to seek light; it learned to walk on its own, and then somehow (don't recall if the researchers did this intentionally or not), it busted a 'leg'. Soon, after fumbling around a bit, it re-learned how to walk with a busted leg. Amazing stuff. Quite a fascinating read, this.
-d
=== "Some people see the glass as half-empty. Others see it as half-full. I see the glass as too big." -G. Carlin.
You're right about the fact that robots *should* have a proven track record. Not everyone is so logical.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
"nun soup"?
If the engineers hadn't caught it on its escape from the laboratory, robots of the distant future would follow its teachings of the "Eightfold Algorithm" and the "Four Noble Constants."
Maybe I am being sentimental, but does anyone else think that Gaak should be given more space than the rest of the robots? I mean, he's already demonstrated that hates being penned up, so it would be cruel to go back to penning him up with the others.
I think they should respect Gaak's wishes and give him more room. Maybe even take him outside for walks sometimes....
Where is the SPCR (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Robots) when you need them!
"There are laws that enslave men, and laws that set them free. " - Sean Connery as King Arthur
...complaining about all the diodes down it's left side...
Why did Prof. Sharkey leave a trained battle drone unsupervised?
What altenate motives could he possibly have?
Why did not Prof. Sharkey turn off the drone before leaving it?
Was he afraid the drone might harm him, or was he helping Gaak to escape?
These questions need answers.
The nearest major city is Sheffield
:) I've nothing against Sheffield, I used to got boozing at the Fat Cat and a Rock Club Roxies(?) pretty regularly.
I well aware that Sheffield is nearer, so is Halifax, Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Doncaster, Scunthorpe and my home city Hull. However experience has taught me that international/Internet people know the locations of London and York, probably because they are tourist traps. Since Rotherham is no where near london I used York.
So I guess this learning robot, still hasn't learned to look both ways before crossing the street.
To conquer death, you only have to die
So what should this one be called, the WOPR Junior?
Bacon WOPR w/ Cheese?
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
I want one.
I don't care what it costs, but as a self-respecting nerd such as myself, I cannot help but want to buy at least twenty of these.
Tim Dorr
Owner/Manger
A Small Orange
Stephanie changed colors!
There's no place like ~/
NOBODY CARES!! DEAL!!!
Living Robots Show
Actualy the whole sites very cool.
Link here
------------
This next article was only available in the google cache.
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:X_T7CtgytA
Hard Wired for Survival
Predatory machines that suck vital energy from their prey? Sounds like a videogame from hell. Guess again: it's the latest research in evolutionary robots.
By William Underhill
Gaak is one mean stage villain. Indifferent to the screams of the audience, he hoists his prey off the ground, plunges a fang into its heart and sucks out its vital energy. Without so much as a pause for remorse, he whirs off in search of fresh victims. Don't blame Gaak for this anti-social behavior. He can't help himself: he's hard-wired for survival. Gaak and other robots of his ilk are showing off their predatory instincts at the ''Living Robots'' show at the Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham, England. ''Be afraid,'' says the ringmaster. ''Be very afraid.''
The half-hour performances are intended not merely to stir the curiosity of the school kids who dominate the 500-seat auditorium, but also to advance the emerging field of evolutionary robotics. Noel Sharkey, a computer-science professor at Sheffield University, is using the contest as a Darwinian breeding ground, where the weak robots perish and the strong survive to perpetuate their kind. The idea is to build dumb robots with the capability to ''evolve,'' leave them alone and see how smart they become. Says Sharkey: ''What we are after are really simple explanations for complex behavior.''
The experiment starts out simply enough. Each of the 11 robots in Sharkey's menagerie has the same goal: to obtain energy. Six of them are prey robots, who ''graze'' beneath a tree of white light, replenishing their batteries through solar panels. Five of them are predators who, like Gaak, can derive energy only by draining it from the ''preybots.'' Each species recognizes the other by the amount of heat they give off, as detected through infrared sensors. The biorobots hunt and flee free of all human control, guided only by their simple ''brains''--so-called neural networks that mimic the function of brain cells. To simulate evolution, Sharkey every so often picks out the most successful robots and transfers part of their brains to a new generation, who start the hunt all over again. Darwin would approve. Locked in a continuous battle to survive, preybots evolve new methods of escape, while the ''predatorbots'' devise new ways to entrap.
Sharkey, 53, has become a kind of latter-day Frankenstein. A school dropout at 15, he did stints as a dance-band musician and psychiatric nurse before earning a psychology degree at Exeter University and doing research at Harvard and Stanford. He is perhaps best known as a judge on the cult BBC TV show ''Robot Wars,'' where contestants--from school kids to engineering graduates--enter their own fighting `bots. His research has a slightly more practical bent. Unmanned missions to faraway planets might, for example, need different species of autonomous robots bred to support each other in different roles. Sharkey's robots may also shed some light on behavior. What if preybots, say, begin banding together and acting as a herd for their own protection? This kind of adaptation might give scientists some insight into how human and animal proclivities arose. ''By building artificial models we can get some evidence of how learning and evolution inter-react,'' says Dylan Evans of Bath University.
Biorobots are also a step toward creating intelligent robot helpers endowed with something like commonsense--a goal that has eluded artificial intelligence rsearchers for decades. ''Natural creatures are much more complex than anything that we have managed to produce so far,'' says Inman Harvey, a researcher in robotics at Sussex University, ''but they aren't designed on the drawing board. So perhaps we can pick up a few basic ideas from Darwinian evolution.'' Hopefully scientists will be able to catch on faster than nature, which took 4 billion years to hit upon the human brain.
(c) 2002, Newsweek Inc. All rights reserved.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
It was obviously going out in the hopes of recruiting some Gaakolytes.
(I'll probably lose karma points for that one...)
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
When talking about the Turing Test today what is generally understood is the following: The interrogator is connected to one person and one machine via a terminal, therefore can't see her counterparts. Her task is to find out which of the two candidates is the machine, and which is the human only by asking them questions. If the machine can "fool" the interrogator, it is intelligent. (http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~asaygin/tt/ttest.html) We have no idea if this 'droid can even interface to a terminal, let alone convince anyone that it is intelligent.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
Perhaps one the problems with developing truly intelligent machines is convincing them in the end to do what it is you designed them to do in the first place.
If you love something, let it go. If it comes back to you, hump its leg.
(* Some very interesting things have come out of it. Example: If you give the prey the ability to make a noise or some other sort of alert, but don't tell them how to use (i.e.: just have them beep randomly in the first generation), then after several generations the prey will learn, completely through evolution of their own, to travel in packs and use the beep to warn each other of approaching predators, or to notify each other of nearby food, whichever proves more useful to the species. *)
:-)
I have read about experiments where simulated robots (or "critters") *did* form just such a language. At the time of writing, though, the researches had not figured out the language. (Musta been Perl
Thus, AI has reached the stage of artificially-created languages. (Of course, they are very task-specific languages.)
Table-ized A.I.
Normally I wouldn't want the Fed to legislate technology, but I think it's time to make Asimov's Laws of Robotics a requirement for any robot created in or imported into the US. We could very well have R. Giskard, or something (someone?) like it (him?), in the next 50 years.
This stinks of publicity stunt. What kind of independent verification do they have that the robot just suddenly learned how to find it's way out. More likely someone programmed it to do that the night before.
I am looking for an inexpensive hobby robot that consists of these features:
1. Remote controllable via a desktop and/or labtop computer.
2. Interface or API that allows one to use any programming language they wish. (Windows preferred, but Linux okay.)
3. Digital eye that sends back image to desktop when asked.
4. A single grasping hand. Does not need to be strong
5. Basic wheels and navigation commands (forward, turn, stop, etc.)
I want to program it to do things such as navigate the house and take banana peals or paper cups to the (inside) trash can. I will supply the AI, just give me the necessary hooks. (No beer fetching just yet.)
Lego Mindstorms allegedly can have similar features, but I don't know if they have to-desktop interface/equipment.
I am tired of reading about robot accidents. I want to make my own now.
Table-ized A.I.
Robot insurance!
m l
http://www.robotcombat.com/video_oldglory_hi.ht
Steve Guttenburg and Ally Sheedy. Was it hit by lightning first?
It probably just wanted to know if you have stairs in your home, and to protect the scientists from the Terrible Secret of Space. Pusher robots are like that.
All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
Time to start selling that Robot insurance to old people like on Saturday Night Live.
http://216.239.33.100/search?q=cache:p2z55ekwvM0C: www.msnbc.com/news/744730.asp+robot+gaak&hl=en&ie= UTF-8
May 6 issue -- Gaak is one mean stage villain. Indifferent to the screams of the audience, he hoists his prey off the ground, plunges a fang into its heart and sucks out its vital energy. Without so much as a pause for remorse, he whirs off in search of fresh victims. Don't blame Gaak for this antisocial behavior. He can't help himself: he's hard-wired for survival. Gaak and other robots of his ilk are showing off their predatory instincts at the "Living Robots" show at the Magna Science Adventure Centre in Rotherham, England. "Be afraid," says the ringmaster. "Be very afraid."
Johnny five? Johnny five? Now where on earth did that bot go? hahah... Maybe he was a cynical robot like the one from "The Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy", maybe he just didnt like the other robot interaction...
-Alicia
--Keeping the flame wars alive, one post at a time
Couldn't hack it in the ring, I see....
First, it learned to open a small gate, turning the handle with its mouth (very impressive, it got on its hind feet with a fore paw on the wall).
:-)
Then we put a ball handle, figuring it would be able to turn it. Alas, the gate was a wood one. It then simply put the other (free) fore paw through the gate (it had slits) and opened the gate with the handle in the opposite side!!!
We then admitted defeat and started using a key to lock the gate. This the dog would not open. Pretty amazing!
It also displayed a very curious behaviour: it would stand still near us, showing its teeth like it was angry, but without any sound and really calm -- we could touch it with no fear. We think the dog learned to smile!!!
Ok, this has nothing to do with robots, so mod me out of this planet.
Very cool story, but the media hype is, as always, excessive. According to the scientists in charge, it probably wasn't trying to escape but rather was "hallucinating" that random light (sunbeams) was prey, and tried to follow it out. Oh, and it stopped running away when the mixed sun/shade pattern of sunlight through a tree confused it.
Very cool, but I wouldn't consider it "frightening" in the way some media sources have been labeling it.
Mod me down, and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
in the words of Professor Frink: Great Glaven! It's gotten out of its matrix!
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
most applications of cyber these days come from 'cyberspace', IE the connected space written about in William Gibson's 'sprawl' series of books. "Cyberspace" Had the typical connotations of 'cyber' in that there was a direct man-machine interface involved, as in the word 'cybernetic'. Cyberspace was quickly used as a metaphor to describe the nascent internet, and has evolved overtime time to mean that. So we get a lot more words like "cybercafé" that really have nothing to do with neural implants.
Cyborg is a noun which means a half man half machine (well, not necessarily 50/50 of course)
combinatorial is not a technical grammatical term, so I don't exactly know what you mean by it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
AHAHAHA:Robot (to self: get beatup or make news get beat up or make news):(.00000000000001 nanoseconds later): where did that doofus what think i'm an idiot go? Ohhh it left(0.00000000000000000000000000000000000001 nanoseconds later): and so have i, this job stinks and where's the keys to this friging car
: uh time to play dead or else I get to play magic the gathering and beat the lab junky again.
I'm sorry, but the parent is the funniest post I've read in a long, long time.
Play Command HQ online
Great, the robot runs out the front door and chases after cars. Good thing he was caught, or else he would have sniffed robot butts and humped some human legs!
He went loooking for the blue fairy
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Now we know who was the missing 5th replicant, I wonder if its combat model or a combat/pleasure model
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
>Living robot" Escapes Lab, Makes It To...Parking Lot where it promptly gets runover by the blind guy from the other story
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
...before we see something like this?
"For success, it is essential you have Thunderball Fists." "I can have such a thing?" "That's right. Thunderball Fists."
This old skit from SNL isn't far away I guess.
"And when they grab you with those metal claws you can't break free, because they are made of metal and robots are strong"
Unstable Apps: Our Android Apps Don't Suck
Hmm, but does that little tin-toy robot have any connection with a certain other red robot?
And to think, in the article, the Professor had been saying "don't worry, they won't be taking over yet"... I think he's in on it with them! Conspiracy!
God, I really need to sleep now. Careful! Brazil tomorrow!
Be careful! New moon tonight.
I don't care about robots. Me, I will wait for the androids. Get me a real soft one with big Baywatches and a name like Terrie, Lerrie, Merrie or something like that. It'll make me and every other man on the planet happy and throw marriage out the window.
Thank you for your lovely tale of trapping a living creature in an environment it wished to escape. It warmed my heart!
An asteroid just missed us while, I guess, we were looking for terroristas - or Enron fall_guys
and now my post- Enron cynicism peaks with an "oh_wow_fluffy" story like this. - Reeling in some investors are we?
Dateline Detroit:
"Wayward robot crushed in parking lot by oversized gas_guzzling prototype mega-SUV.
Next test calls for installation of a Mr. Fusion Mark-V in order to reach highway speeds."
Davo - lost his password to the Windoze_unused_partition on /dev/hda1
Dear /. may I have my password back? Thnx!
'Living Robot' bites man!
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Thats the English for ya! I'd be embrassed, smart enough to build a robot and not smart enough to build a 'cage' to hold it! BY the way get a new police car siren damn it sucks!
~Entaundo
During an exercise that pitted the machines against each other in battle,...
We need someone with a sense of purpose to start designing robots for us...
Who wants a robot around that just designed to smash other robots?
[goes to robot store]
"I'll have a car washing robot, a couple of those house cleaning robots, and something to walk my dog and clean up after it..."
Although a robot that hunts down mosquitos would be good...
It just seems that the current crop of robot designers is very short-sited, overly filled with testosterone (sp?) or just plain violently evil...
early 20th century...
"let's make something that will clean the dirt out of house for us, we will call it a broom..."
mid 20th century
"let's make something that will clean the dirt out of house for us,faster and easier than our old crusty broom, we will call it a vaccum cleaner..."
late 20th century
"Hmm, the floor sure is dirty, I wish I had a robot to clean up after me..."
early 21st century
"Cool, robots are finally hear! Forget all that cleaning crap, let's have them smash eachother! bwwwahhhahah!"
mid 21st century
"help the robot is loose again! Martha get the shotgun!"
late 21st century
*all your base are belong to us*
[zapp] "ow! stop that! I'm cleaing already! Here let me oil your joints oh shiny one..."
-v
3001 is the rambling of a senile old science fiction author. It's a common enough phenomenon, one we have now seen with all the big three. Asimov had the courtesy to die before getting too far into this stage. Heinlein, however, lingered on in that state for over a decade.
3001 is a "gee whiz" future-tech expo (from the guy who predicted geosynchronous communication sattelites, but also predicted that they would be manned) with no discernable plot, and no reason to even have it's tenuous connection to what is arguably Mr. Clarke's greatest work, save marketability.
Recall that Robby (from Forbidden Planet) suffered from a Brain-storm paralysis if given a command to harm a human.
In one of Asimov's books however, the citizens of Solaria are able to make their robots harm visiting humans by classifing anyone not of Solaria as being non-human.
-- To err is human, to devise law-circumvention is also human!
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
Well, he lost his wife as she became a Pillar-o-salt so ....
he waited till cars were invented and found a girl to go parking with him!
Earned himself the nickname: Parking Lot!
.
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
They had it in a cage and were about to send it into the arena to fight to the death.
Sounds like it was only demonstrating self-preservation instincts to me.
shoulda let it go to see how far it went. What they didn't say is the type of bot ie: was it a predator or prey bot. If it was a prey bot then it should have been able to just refuel from any light source. There was an artical in Popular Science last month about these robots. Unfortunatly they will probably yank him apart to see why this happened, when what they should do is let it go again to see what he does... run little bot run!!!
Bender: and you can kiss my shiny metal ass gooood bye. ha ha ha
it was probably off the the local bar for a drink, and why did they not switch it off or chain it to a huge rock??
'its out of its matrix, huhm-hey, stay perfectly still' Prof. Frink, The Simpsons