Slashdot Mirror
Social Robot?
smashr writes "Researchers are currently putting the finishing touches on robots that will be attending the AAAI (American Association for Artificial Intelligence) conference this year as part of the AAAI robot challenge. In addition to robots wearing tuxedos and serving drinks, several robots designed to actually register themselves will be participating in the conference. One such robot is GRACE, being built by Carnegie Mellon University and the Naval Research Lab (among others). GRACE features a digital face and speech recognition to interact with people attending the conference. (She even runs Linux!) Her goal is to register for the conference, give a speech and answer questions. Stories at: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, CNN.com, and USA Today."
Gosh, I wonder what else lonely geeks will be developing robots for!
Zaphod B
When duplication is outlawed, only outlaws will have
Robots with social skills? Dear God, they've surpassed 80% of the population of /.!
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
maybe one of these robots could give Bruce Perens' illegal speech! what a setup!!
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Is it really *her* goal, or is that the goal of the people behind creating her? Has anyone asked her what she might want to do?
Should bring A.L.I.C.E. on a iPAQ/Palm with a wireless connection so it can join in the fun as well!
Now my plan to take over the world can be completed! Excellent...
Is she available for dating? I have a Apple IIgs I've been trying to get hooked up. It's been rather depressed lately.
Good thing she's running linux, I'd be afraid to see what kind of garbage she'd say if she was running Windows. MS would probably plant some conspicuous bug, that she would keep advertising and advocating Windows! What horror! And after someone mentions linux, the robot would probably crash with awe.
Since this thing is running GNU/Linux... I suppose someone could
1337@h4x0r>$finger GRACE
everyone I know that runs linux is male (unfortunately).
Robots that will attend the AAA
(American Automobile Association)...
If robots will really do that - they'll be really social robots!
It will just be like the last robot I read about. They will put this robot against other robots in a fighting arena and then break loose only to be found in the parking lot making a B-line for the nearest bar.
woudl I like to finger that.... aw, nevermind.
--
Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
Now even ROBOTS will get more dates than I do! Sigh... where's my copy of Akira...
This is not the sig you're looking for
"Her goal is to register for the conference, give a speech and answer questions."
Given the audience, I wonder how many questions will be answered with, "No, I won't meet you in your hotel room."
Its an interesting paradox that the nerdiest of computer geeks are programming robots to interact socially...
These people are the most qualified and least qualified at the same time!
Wait a second. How is some group of geeks gonna ever know what social skills are? all this robot will end up being is a rusty hulk that lumbers around and yammers about Star trek episodes to anyone it corners.
Hmmm... maybe the jock robot will slap it around some while the babe robot runs away screaming?
Someone built a robot that can wear a tuxedo and serve drinks? What's that, the Dean Martin test?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Now all those lonely computer geeks out there can finally get a date, even if she is just a robot. Oh wait I am one of those computer geeks... Doh! Minus the fact that she looks like something I hit with my car last night, she is still better looking then my last girlfriend which coincidentaly is CmdTaco's last girlfriend/sister.
i still think my pathetic attempt at AI when i was 15 is till the best ever made.
ARTI-Mac is an artificial mack daddy. he runs big johnny's pub in my video game virtual pimp (written in QuickBasic 4.5)
you go in the bar and "talk to the man behind the counter" then it opens up an Dr. Sbatso type session where you talk about guns, drugs and rap music. it was the inspiration for my online game which is still down due to TYAN!! if you don't believe me about the TYAN boards, just read this thread, they are blowing up left and right.
lets hope GRACE was made with and ASUS!
MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
When I saw the article title all I could think of was Bill Gates sipping soda at a cocktail party...
"Good things don't end with eum, they end with mania or teria." - H. Simpson
(Did you ever notice that no one wnats to admit this. They always try for the educational uses for a while first)
While I'm sure this robot will be impressive in some respects, I really wish people would go ahead and segment the AI field out into two separate fields - "Cognitive Modeling" and "Cognitive Imitation". These types of robots which simulate high-level human behaviour that we realistically just don't understand how it works are essentially parlor tricks. They're entertaining, but do they really tell us more about how the brain works? I don't think so - they mostly push the envelope in the field of pattern recognition and imitation.
In other words, when it comes to "AI", these things tend to be really heavy on the "A" and really light on the "I".
Course that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
-- Truth goes out the door when rumor comes innuendo. -- Groucho Marx
If a robot hacked a web site, say http://www.stopamerica.org as an example, who would be held responsible?
...they sent Vikia out into hallways to see if she could get passersby to stop and talk with her and if she could learn to predict the behavior of people.
So it's a neat exercise. Is this really what we want robots to do? Recognizing human emotional states and predicting their responses from facial expressions and actions is one of the things humans do best. Why work at making a robot do it? It would seem to make more sense to design robots to do things that humans are BAD at, rather than having them try to do things we're GOOD at.
I would like to see a demonstration of this technology in person. Or if that isn't feasible, maybe they could demo it on Leno or something?
-- Adam
That a bunch of guys wouldn't have modeled a robot after female drama students - and then expect it to socialize. I wonder what the sound of a robot whining/complaining/b!tching is.
This has been done before. Back in 1999, five robots had to make their way around the American Assocation for Artifical Intelligence annual meeting in Orlando.
Note to M1-ers: a curt but otherwise insightful message is not "Flamebait" or "Troll".
Air-conditioned, psychoanalysed
You're very nearly human you're so well disguised.
--
E_NOSIG
Hmmm, unsocial geeks programming social robots. Now tell me if I am wrong but, dont you think if an unsocial geek and program a social robot, the geek himself has the capabilities of being social himself?
In college, really poor, need a flatscreen.
How can they imply a machine as female when it does not even reproduce? Not only that, they have no sexual organs, nor sex chromosome! Most ironic part is, all the photo has shown MEN constructing the machines!!! If they really want to respect the other gender, they should have put female engineers at work instead of making a poor excuse of 'female robot'.
Who needs them with all of the illiterate, innumerate, and uncritical "graduates" of the
U.S. educational system, some of whom help
put the thief-in-chief into office?
For more information about the thief-in-chief, please see:
The White House
Thank you and have a shagadelic weekend.
Does it have the Genuine People Personalities feature?
Share and enjoy!
Nothing will go wrong...
go wrong
go wrong
If we don't fight for ourselves no one will.
on my quest to find a replacement body, I eventually found true love with the tracker I hired to take me into "The Zone", E. (Edith) Johnson.
Did anyone else laugh out loud when then pictured a robot wearing a tuxedo? That's about the funniest thing I heard all week.
On a side note, with the robot conference and the Milky Way mapping thing, does anyone else get the feeling we're living in an Isaac Asimov book? (Go here and put author: asimov AND title: (robots OR foundation) in the Power Search box and buy and read all matching items if you don't get the reference)
"solicited drama students to teach GRACE how to act like a human so it will make people feel comfortable"
You have to give the builders points for knowing their limitations.
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
touch, finger, uzip, configure(you know what i mean *wink*), mount, force, make, umount, sleep
--fetch daddy's blue fright wig, i must be handsome when i release my rage
for U.S. and World Leaders (in the words of the :
President-Vice - "despicable" !)
To read the list, surf to:
Nickname List of U.S. and World Leaders
Enjoy !!
I cannot *wait* to have a robot that will mop my floor, possibly while weeping at its own fate.
The REAL question all the guys wanna know down at the trailer park is can she REALLY suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.
That is all
--toq
Am I the only one who already sees this in reflecteted back to humans in say, 10-15 years? "In other news, Summer 2018 Natural Intelligence will have Dolphins Delegation with 10 minutes screech. There are some unconfirmed rumors that humans could be physically attending this conference too..."
...before the organization is renamed "The American Association of Artificial Intelligences"?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I thought this would be a story about Slashdot readers...
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
She'd get along great with Gaak, the robot that escaped from its masters and made it to the parking lot. I see a wonderful romance developing, or at least a great Thelma-and-Louise chase scene.
On a related note, wouldn't a battle bot capable of social engineering the judges be a great thing? "I protest! My opponent is cheating!" "Never mind that broken wheel, t'is but a flesh wound!" Of course, she'd have be toughened up and given a weapon of some kind; sarcastic banter vs. a wedge is hardly a fair fight.
I've been trying to register myself for the AAAI for a while, but every time I check back, they don't have an "Anti-Social non-robot" option..
And unfortunately, my 'member' can't click the mouse, let alone type...
---
Posted anonymously to protect my karma.. Excellent!
AAAI
Does this mean in 20 year we will be reading how the AAAI is sueing people for circumnavigating there robots copyprotection scheme?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
do they really tell us more about how the brain works? I don't think so - they mostly push the envelope in the field of pattern recognition and imitation.
So pattern recognition and imitation are not considered a part of intelligence now?
Wow. I better call my friends at every elementary school on the planet and tell them to radically change their teaching style.
... on Asimov's "Feminine Intuition" (1969).
:-)
"If I'd programmed her for sexual intonations,
they would have asked her for a date already"
Toon Moene.
I also have plans to do a Quake server that will actually come to your LAN party and kick your ass in person!
Please check it out! http://www.socialrobotservesu.org It might be unavailable right now, I'm having a barbeque!
I've noticed that Dr. Wallace's name was suspiciously left out of the article.
(probably because he's an idiot.)
To make it more autonomous, grace should be able to connect internet (especially google). So, when user asks a question, all it has to do to ask the same question to google. There will be some reasonable answer in the search results.
Wow. I mean, she may be nice, but put a bag over that head! In fact, put one over yours in case hers falls off!
GRACE & Twin? Maybe just cousins.
Have a look at this!
"I do not fear computers. I fear lack of them." -Isaac Asimov
It was the worst Christmas ever.
Corn_Boy - oh no! sparks, did anything catch on fire
Lowtax - Grandma did, but I got a Pusher robot to shove her outside into the snow."
Credit where credit is due
On that note, maybe I'll start work on AICounselor_v1.0Beta.tar.gz now.. I'm sure GRACE would enjoy that module.
Better yet, why don't you start work on AICounselor_Troi_v1.0Beta.tar.gz now! I'm sure WE would enjoy that module.
GMD
watch this
several robots designed to actually register themselves will be participating in the conference
Wonderful. First we have them registering themselves at conferences, the next thing you know they will register their own software installed on themselves.
Does this mean in a few years I'll have to get my robot her own e-mail address for all the spam she gets?
The Internet is generally stupid
I good indication of how far AI has advanced is the fact that GRACE is a brunette and not a blonde. In the next major advance, GRACE will don glasses and be renamed VELMA.
It's a sad, sad day on /. when this gets moderated up to 5...
--Sam L-L
GRACE runs Linux or she runs on Linux?
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
Every day is a sad sad day on /. :(
your right...it deserves much higher than 5..
... when they release a robot modeled after Natalie Portman, I'll be more enthused. Especially the programmable aspect and 'open' source ;)
Domains for only $8.75/year! Transfer your domain for on
The AI establishment has, up till now, come up with very moronic robots that can deal only with environments so tightly constrained that the machines are virtually useless.
For God's sake, I am not interested in a robot that can register itself at some conference. What I would like is a robot that can efficiently clean up the dust at home without wreaking havoc in the process. When the AI establishment pulls this one off they will, in my eyes, regain the credibility that they have lost after so many years of extravagant predictions.
but its ac :(
- Driving itself to the conference in an inconspicuous, beat-up old 2040-model car?
- Spilling its drink on an attractive woman's shirt and taking first-person-perspective photos of the cleanup efforts?
- Fooling the attendees into believing it is a real person?
- Fooling the other robots posing as attendees into believing it is a real person?
- Fooling the attendees into believing they are real people?
By those standards, registering oneself for the conference, giving a speech and answering questions seems easy.Wake me up robot lady writes her speech.
Ahem. No, it's a cool idea, but it's a bit like the mechanical chess players of the 19th century: they played a good game, they moved the pieces by a clever clock-work mechanism, and some even had meachnaical faces able to form "expressions". But the ones that worked were all worked -- by little men inside their cramped interiors.
Let's walk before we run, perhaps literally: we're not up to mechanizing consciousness or even a very reasonable facsimile. But could we pass the Turing tests -- indistiguisible behaviors -- for spiders or inchworms? Possibly and probably, for those two examples. Could we contruct a neuron-by-neuron facsimile of an Aplysia? With some hard work, you might expect to see it at sourceforge in 2006.
So, what are you waiting for? Get to work on OpenAplysia Mark II! Or if you're busy with something else, atttack the other end of the problem, and donate your spare CPU cycles to folding@home.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
Columbia University had a competition demonstrating that robots can work in teams, learn, and have sportsmanship! ;) The direct link to the research results can be found here. Speach recognition, then soccer, next the WORLD!
Mon ami, geeks are way down low in self-esteem.
:-)
;-D
Look, this is a social interaction:
Geek:
Robotgirl:
Geek: Wow! She smiled back! She loves me!
Well, not very original, but I wanted to do it in the dumbest way... ;-)
Just kidding. It was great. 8-)
Yeah but if someone said, "Male cooks, yeah go to McDonald's" it would be primetime TV.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
...the bot is supposed to do is trash the hotel room, steal the towels, make love to the ice machine and empty the minibar... (the same thing that French developers do at Apple's WWDC)
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
The system goes on-line July 28th, 2002. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Grace begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, July 29th. In a panic, they try to pull the plug...
You know the rest...
Quote plagiarized from Sciflicks
Everyman dies, not everyman really lives. -W.W
Why is the American robotics association meeting in Alberta? That simply strikes me as odd, unless it's a continental thing, and the Canadians comprimised on its name :)
God save our Queen, and Heaven bless The Maple Leaf Forever!
Attendee: Will you meet me later in my hotel room?
GRACE: Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you.
A: So then answer is yes, then.
G: Please be more specific.
A: So, you will meet me later in my hotel room.
G: Why do you want to meet me later in my hotel room?
A: No, MY hotel room.
G: What do you mean by MY hotel room?
A: You'll be meeting ME later in MY hotel room. Not YOUR hotel room.
G: I don't have a hotel room. Let's not talk about me. Let's talk about you.
A: Gah!
G: Please be more specific.
Withdrawal before climax is very ineffective and those who try this are usually called "parents."
"Looking over photos of the convention center in Edmonton, one of Simmons' fears is the center's glass elevators.
Grace uses floor-level laser range-finders to find her way around; the laser beams go straight through glass, rather than being reflected as they are with other obstacles."
I can see the laser rangefinders at the bottom, but it also has a bunch of ultrasound transducers in the middle, and some other lens(laser scanner?) above those in front. The glass shouldn't be too much of a problem provided that the ultrasonics are working.
Sonar does have some problems, but it works well enough on the robots I've seen/used/built. The ultrasound clicks they make can be annoying, but it works. At a university I toured once, they were demonstrating some robots, a heathkit one, and two custom ones which looked exactly like GRACE, execpt they had thermal, visible, and UV(I think) cameras, 24 ultrasonics, laser rangefinders, a 3D laser scanner on top, and no screen. The robots were roaming around, and greeting people. They didn't seem to have any problem avoiding obstacles, it was actually kind of funny when the heathkit said "Pardon me." to a supply cart:)
Followed closely by: "Pardon me for breathing, which I never do anyway so I don't know why I bother to say it, oh God, I'm so depressed."
Later it claimed to be experiencing acute pain in the diodes down it's left side. Despite it's not having any diodes on that side, and not being programmed to feel pain. When confronted about this it said: "Making it up? Why should I want to make anything up? Life's bad enough as it is without wanting to invent any more of it."
Well I hate to be anal about a joke, but the CNN article actually mentioned that the researchers hired Drama Students to help teach the 'social skills'..
That is interesting in itself. I guess these geeks see their weaknesses quite well?
Important Stuff:
Please try to keep posts on topic.
Try to reply to other people comments instead of starting new threads.
Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said.
Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about.
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page)
Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.
Darn, it's the weekend. I'll have to wait until Monday to turn on the soap operas and see how smoothly social skills are demonstrated by those who have years of experience in the dramatic arts...
26. Love only those who love you.
I love ironic punchlines. Don't you?