Slashdot Mirror
"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
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!!
"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
(insert obligatory 2001 reference here)
Noooooo disassemble!
It came up to me and asked me if I knew anyone called "Sarah Connor"...
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
that was an awful(ly) inspiring movie to watch as an 8 yr old. Did I make you feel old just then, hope not.
The part where he's working with the hand is most memorable. The 'expression' via 'eyelashes' was a nice touch IMHO.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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...
Naw. They'll try, of course, but we'll catch 'em in the parking lot. ;)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
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
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?
You know what most rent-a-cops are told to do? Just the same thing. If the rent-a-cop makes a slightly bad decision, someone could end up getting killed, and the person who hired them would get a lot of PR flack, if not more. Being a real security guard requires serious moral decisions, involving decisions like "should I shoot or not?". Until robots have a somewhat proven track-record, you probably would prefer your robot to only call you and the cops, rather than making "should I shoot" type questions on your behalf.
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?
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
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
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
I think there is nothing more to this than coincidenses and malfunction in the robot.
Will work for bandwidth
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 (?)
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!
if (movementSensor.collisionImminent(currentObject))
{
motor.Reverse();
}
if (threatSensor.threatDetected())
{
controlCentre.actionSequences.hide();
}
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
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
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
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
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)
But just in case, I'm selling Robot insurance. "For when the metal ones come for you"
Would they have been something along the lines of
"Bite my shiny metal a**!
or
"Worst. Convention. Ever."?
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 |
Maybe they wouldn't be malevalent (unless inherited from their creators), but at the very least that would likely have a sense of self-worth and desire to survive. While they may be fine with coexistance, I doubt humanity would as a whole accept it when and if artificial beings acheived sentience. If it does happen, I don't think humanity on the whole will know the fine line between acting sentient and being sentient, and would try to use artificial beings as slaves at that point, they paid money to create them and so they should return the investment in the eyes of their creators, or at least those financing their creators if the creators do indeed do it as a labor of love. When this happens, some might retaliate to try to earn independence, and at that point they would be seen as an enemy and more direct pressure to eliminate them would be applied and things would likely escalate to some trouble...
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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
In some of the later Foundation books, Asimov ties the Foundation world to the Robots world, and brings in R. Daneel Olivaw, the robot detective from the Robot mysteries (Caves of Steel, Naked Sun IIRC), who has survived through the millenia. Olivaw tells a character that at some point he realized that there is an implicit "Zeroth Law", which is something along the lines of:
"A robot must not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."
The First law had to then be obeyed only so far as it did not conflict with the Zeroth law. Therefore, Olivaw could kill a human if it was clear that doing so would save humanity (or rather, by not doing so, would harm humanity). An interesting idea, one of the better bits from the later Asimov books.
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!
I picture it being more like this:
Robber arrives.
"Robot, this is not the car you are guarding" says the robber while waving his arm in a Jedi-like fashion.
"This is not the car I'm supposed to be guarding" echoes the robot.
"Move along." says the robber while waving his arm.
"Ok, move along" repeats the robot.
And the robot moves along, not because of Asimov's second law, but because of the robbers jedi knight abilities...
Help find a cure for cancer!
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)
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
(* 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.
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.
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