Slashdot Mirror
MIT Scientists Create Robotic Sea Life
Junior Barns writes "This
article on the BBC News site reports on the development of a robot that imitates primitive life forms. This project led by researchers from the
robotic life group at the MIT media lab is intended to study how people will try to interact with and relate to an "alien" creature that seems organic but is not anthropomorphic. Let's just hope no one tries to kill and eat it."
Who in the heck FUNDS this stuff?
As bandwidth gets more expensive, and ISP gets smarter, Slashdot may well put itself out of business.
You guys should really be working on a cache-based solution to this....the laughs are over.
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
I created sea life also, but it was just a bunch of sperm
Let's just hope no one tries to kill and eat it.
but how else will we be able to know if an "alien" creature tastes like chicken?
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Here is a working link to the story. And a working BBC link.
here is a working one instead
Chains, nails, you can chew them up with your titanium teeth and spit them out like bullets!
Sorry, this just spawned memories of my favorite SeaLab 2021
Visit
tcd004
In the past few weeks we've had a lot of stories relating to Artificial Intelligence. Yesterday we had that game characters one, we had the computer that built an oscillator, news about 'Ai' and 'Cyc', and so forth.
AI is definitely becoming a reality. Everyone was interested in AI ten or twenty years ago, but it's NOW that things are starting to really happen. The technology is here.
So why doesn't Slashdot have an 'AI' topic? I think it's time we had one here, as AI is clearly becoming a popular topic on the site.
P.S. I believe in this enough that I'm willing to burn some karma by posting this almost offtopic post, which will probably be modded down as such. Mod me up if you agree, or mod me down if you think it's a bad idea.
mogorific carpentry experiments
It ain't really life until it can repair itself and make more or less exact copies of itself. Until then, it's just an interesting simulation.
Damn guys.0 /jpg/_3 8226331_cynthia150.jpg
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/3822600
Thats one hot robot. Where can I get one?
we /.ed the BBC!
hee hee
"It moves in a serpentine motion, a very graceful motion and is covered in a silicon skin so it has a soft texture to it," said Professor Breazeal.
;)
I certainly wouldn't want any woman of mine getting SILICON implants. Silicone is a different matter.
That first robot is pretty ugly, but the one in the second picture looks great to me.
Wow, that has to be the most disturbed posting of the day.
Mod me up if you agree, or mod me down if you think it's a bad idea.
:)
Hah, that's the normal moderation standard around here.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Based on a empirical research conducted amongst 42^42 volunteering /. readers an average humanoid reacts by first looking up some words from the thesaurus continued with anthropomorphous expressions like *pause* *sigh* and *Huh!*
This being a great brakethough and all, has anyone ponderd about what effect will this really have on the sea and sealife these robots come in contact with?
I mean, imagine...suppose you are a big killer whale (Orca) and have just finished a nice dolphin (it hurts me to this about that, but so is the nature of nature) and the Orca is still feeling a bit peckish. And then he sees a strangelooking thing and decides to eat it...
What will happen?
Find out next week!
PS. No, but really, will he get fried? will he just get all sick and die? Or will he just go on living and poop the damn thing out?
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
we just slashdoted the website of one of the most widely read and well respected multimedia orginizations in the world. I am sure they will be really happy about this. Not that the BBC really has had the most efficent site/servers/bandwidth anyway, but still, there are people the world over wondering why they can't even access the BBC front page.
Maybe it is time to start working on a slashdot stored cached version of the submitted URLs.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
This is very Media Lab.
"We're going to make a robotic sea anemone in order to... to... to... look cool! And explore some blah blah blah human interaction blah blah send us money."
In a few years it will be forgotten and nothing will have been learned from it.
Hey MIT! Mother Nature already invented sea life. You're just stealing it!!
If you get 403s, try clearing your BBC cookies and going via the front page, answering yes to the are you from the uk question. Worked for me.
I doubt it was slashdot wot done it too, more likely someone fucked up file or CMS permissions and hasn't noticed coz of said cookie being set to "yes" on all BBC boxes.
-- Proud descendant of semi-nomadic cattle-herders.
Better yet, reply if you think it's a bad idea.
For example, I think it's a bad idea.
Mostly because AI is generally an argument topic. It'd be like having an "Evolution" topic. Whenever anyone brings up AI, you get twenty highly rated posts talking about "Why don't the researchers see that AI would be easy if only they [insert poorly thought-out idea here]". And then you get like three voices of reason explaining why none of this is groundbreaking.
Er... I just made your point. If we had an A.I. topic, then everyone with my complaint could filter out the flames....
I guess I'm just trying to say there shouldn't necessarily be *more* AI stories.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
Did they steal this idea too? ;-)
How to gain Karma on Slashdot: Always post "I'm going to probably be modded down, but..."
But the fact is that there ARE more AI stories. Hence, give AI its own section.
I wander, if it's possible to completely immitate primitive sea life, can they make the machine able to reproduce itself and possibly evolve? I bring this up here because, I believe, according to evolution theory, there was sealife before landlife.... just something that I find interesting.
The Public Anemone was recently showcased at the world's leading computer graphics conference, Siggraph, in the US.
Can anybody expound on why Siggraph? Besides that it would be full of exactly the kind of people who would want to see it.
Don't worry, as long as you say your off topic there is no way you can be modded down.
Hacker Media
MIT Scientists Create Robotic Girlfriend... story at 11.
I mean honestly ......... who fuckin cares ?
/me is scared of the thought that one day slashdot people might go out and get a life.
First officer (staring intently through the view finder): "Captain, I think we may have a slight problem."
Captain: "What is it?"
First officer (in a strangely strangled voice): "I think you had better see for yourself."
Captain (taking over the view finder): "What the hell is THAT? Is that thing trying to...?"
First officer (face now twitching almost uncontrollably): "I believe so, sir."
Captain: "But... It's humping my..."
First officer (gasping for breath): "Some of us like our bitches big, sir."
Captain (dazed): "My mission..."
First officer (now laughing outright): "We could always abort, sir."
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
let me suggest HALs eye as an icon.
how would you express AI as an icon? maybe that's why it isn't here yet.
--
making up good sigs is a hard thing to do.
After getting a look at the lovely MIT chick working on this research, I think I'm going to have to switch from CS to AI... Can't believe the good looking ladies went to a more geeky area of study than I did!
the links don't work, the layout stinks, and not even the editors can find things here. jesus what rubbish.
I misread that as researchers having created a Pubic Anemone...
I get a "Unauthorized access" on every BBC site.... anyone else?
linuggz
So they build robotic Sea Monkeys? (Note the "not anthropomorphic" bit and how the SMs were supposed to look like)
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
if i start that other browser that i never installed willingly, i can go to the bcc normally and click through. everything works fine.
it even works in it if i click on the link on the slashdot mainpage.
i visit the bcc regulary with mozilla, i never had any problems. they're not... oh no...
--
making up good sigs is a hard thing to do.
That's exactly why it should be a topic, so should RIAA/MPAA related stuff, just so I can filter it out whenever I don't want to be pissed off. Unchecking the topic box in my prefs would lower that particular signal/noise ratio.
Or did they steal it from a comic book company?
Has anyone seen that new show on the Discovery channel, Depth Charge. Its kinda like robot wars, except its under water, i've seen one episode, it was pretty cool, its a little bit slower paced than battle bots, but there seem to be less restrictions on weapons, bots last night had plasma cutting torches and bang sticks and other cool things.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Mostly I agree with you. The discussions on AI on Slashdot really haven't been of the highest quality.. but then again, neither have the stories.
I do believe, however, that AI is experiencing exponential growth at the moment, and that AI is becoming what people twenty years dreamt of. Sure, we have no HAL yet (another ten years, I bet ya) but there are going to be enough stories coming along that are directly related to AI that I think a designated topic would be useful.
Then again, I also believe topics like 'PHP', 'Perl' and 'C++' should also be culled, and instead use 'Programming'.. but hey.
And anyway.. how comes there's no area on Slashdot where we can actually discuss the workings of Slashdot? A 'MetaSlash', if you will? Journals are good, but there are none that are particularly popular for this type of discussion.
Suggestions?
mogorific carpentry experiments
These guys will build a comlpex widget with sensors and motors that works underwater for extended periods. Why not make it do something clever, useful, unexpected? I know, I know, that's AI, and we don't do no stinkin AI no more. But it would impress me a lot more.
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
Look at the economy. Technology is dead. Nothing will ever change, so stop trying to make it change. We will never have robots. Go watch sports and work as nursing home aides you damn nerds. That's all you're good for. OP.
For one thing, I think this story has more to do with psychology than AI. The goal is to study how people will react. The technology to model the behaviour of basic life forms has existed and been used for quite some time now. A cool, more AI-ish project would be to see how (if) these artificial life forms could adapt with changes to environments; i.e. the emergence of unexpected behaviours.
I saw a rather informative article on MIT's research. You see what you want to see sometimes, I guess...
Yawn - more comic, AI Lusrs; the equipment... of course, but it must be grant-writing time for the non-tenured faculty.
Looks like some bloke's hand in a sock to me
well... we could make a zillion robotic fish that swim to your shores and blow up... or take pictures... or kill all your fish... or ... then you'll care...
i don't that would work, due to the sheer number of advances in technology that could easily be catagorized into "AI".
would GTA3 be in the same catagory as alicebot? you could catagorize both of those under "AI", however, i would think gta3 more appropriately belongs in games and alicebot in the CS section.
"AI" is just too loose of a term to make a category out of; why not just make a category called "Computer Technology" and bundle all the articles under that banner?
The Public Anemone was presented at SIGGRAPH '02 in San Antonio, about a month ago - that's where the pictures in the article were taken. The exhibit was in the Emerging Technologies area. I visited the exhibit almost daily (reactive robotics is an area of interest), and spent some time observing both the exhibit and people's reactions.
The Media Lab students explained that it was an experiment in social interaction - but how people react with something that doesn't have a face, or a voice. In a way, it's easier to create a creature that doesn't have to synthesize speech, etc. At the same time, it's much more difficult to elicit a reaction from people when they can't interact the same way that they do with other humans.
The Public Anemone had two main forms of reaction that I could make out - shrinking back from people who reached out toward it, and tracking faces. (With the assistance of dual stereo cameras in the back wall.) The exhibit was more like a terrarium than an aquarium (as the BBC article mentions), but the creature had a silicone skin which allowed it to play in the small pond and waterfall without shorting. During the day cycle, the anemone interacts with guests. During the night mode, the anemone goes to sleep and guests can interact with other fiber-optic anemones (that also shrink away) and drum on gemstones embedded in the surface of the exhibit. The exhibit certainly looked cool, with fiber optics, a soundtrack, and changing colored stones (using ColorKinetics lights), but the interaction left something to be desired. Almost all the people I observed in the exhibit did the typical museum "Oh, that's nice, let's look at it for a few minutes." Almost no-one tried to interact unless prompted to by the media lab representative that was standing there, describing what was going on. Nobody that I saw tried to play with the face tracking abilities of the robot.
Cynthia Brazeal(the person in the second pic) is more commonly known for her work on Cog & Kismet. (Pic)
IMHO, The coolest project in this area is Doc Beardsley, by the Entertainment Technology program at Carnegie Mellon. Here's an article at Discover Magazine. Interaction with Doc emphasizes fun over artificial intelligence.
I have more pics of the Anemone from Siggraph. If anyone wants to post them somewhere where they can stand the slashdotting, send email to mistermund@yahoo.com
I would love to see a /. "AI" topic.
/. editors see this, and act on it.
Here's to hoping
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
This little flubbery anemone thing isn't AI any more than a Tamagotchi is. It really has nothing to do with intelligence, artificial or otherwise. It's just an animatronic plant, putting on a show so MIT researchers can watch how people react to it. Not a lot of difference between this and the Plastic Daisies that Wear Sunglasses and Dance When You Clap.
I do like the idea of having an icon for stories that really do deal with some aspect of AI, though. The HAL eye sounds like a good icon.
He who refuses to do arithmetic is doomed to talk nonsense.
I do not think this word means what you think it means. Anthropomorphism is humans attributing human-like feelings toward non-human thing. E.g., "That tree looks depressed."
I saw this thing at Siggraph in the Emerging Technologies exhibit. I really didn't find this to be that interesting of a project. The hardware was cool to look at, but the behavior was weak in my opinion. Basically it just exhibited a few "canned" movements in response to different stimuli. So if someone moved fast near it, it would shrink back. Otherwise it would just move to water the plant. Overall I must say that of all the Emerging Technologies exhibits this one does not deserve its own slashdot post.
Their best known product is My Real Baby, manufactured by Hasbro around 1999-2000. It's basically a baby doll with Furby-type software. Rated "Worst Idea of the Year" by the Alliance for Childhood. It's not even that original; Baby Think it Over, the anti-teen-pregnancy doll from hell ("requires real care on the part of the student, including feeding, burping, rocking, and changing diapers"), has been around for years, but at a price well above the toy level.
This whole direction is way too much like Eliza. Much of the AI field, having failed at tasks that actually require doing something successfully without human assistance, now seems to be focused more on faking it. You've all seen Ask Jeeves, and obnoxious "virtual customer support reps". Those are pathetic.
There's some good work going on, but this isn't it.
I saw the "MIT anemone" at SIGGRAPH this year, and the actual AI was rather limited, if even that. The anemone seemed to just have a motion sensor, and if you tripped it, the robot would play a canned animation of 'fear' by drawing into the far corner and shaking. Of course, if you tried to put your hand in that corner, the robot would run right into you (and the MIT people would give you a dirty look). The robot was also on a schedule, so that it would water some flowers or go to sleep every ten minutes. All canned animations, no actual AI. The robot certainly wasn't using any revolutionary new programming. I think the whole deal was just to see if people could be fooled into thinkning it was more complex than it really was, and to see how they would react to an atypical robot. Of course, come to think of it, I never interact with sea anemone in real life, so there's no way to judge how real MIT's robot was. (definatly not as cool as the virtual swordfighting).
Am I the only person who thinks the Media Labs are just a bunch of frauds who do mickey-mouse science in order to generate stories in the New Scientist and Scientific American Frontiers (which in turn bring more funding)? I mean, this fish thing isn't their lamest project (these are the same guys who pay big bucks to research dog training over the internet), but if this same research were coming out of some considerably less prominent school than MIT, people would look at it and say "hey kids, stop fucking around already and make something important."
nanobots inside silicon eggs could, theoretically make and evolve a new creature. or like a mammal. the point is, we could send out such creatures to planets and moons, etc. sooner or later they will develop intelligence this way.
Does anyone else think that these things are quite sexy, or is it just me ?
Now I know why it's called the MIT Media Lab... Get a hot chick to create something stoopid but arguably "edgy" and make noise with it in the media. A fundraiser's delight.
A hit toy can return hundreds of millions in profit. The trend is toward more "active" toys. A.I.-bots are likely candidates whether they are on the screen or mechanical.
Just keep Ted Nugent away from the tank, and all will be well, I think.
Just like shooting little electronic fish in a barrel!
So, will they be making robotic...
Ali
Ph33r m3!!!