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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.
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!!
It was trying to hide itself in my trunk, I swear...
Sig Sig Sputnik
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.
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)
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!
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?
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
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
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!
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
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
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."?
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
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)
(* 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.