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Japan's Proposed 30-Year Robot Program
Gallamine writes "A group of Japanese researchers have proposed a Government plan to spend 50 billion yen per year (that's over 400 million $US) for 30 years on developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old. Japan's current economy may prevent the plan from happening, but the interesting point is the parallels to the U.S. Apollo space program, America's attempt to put a man on the moon. While expensive, the benefits to the American population from that program are probably unmeasurable. Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?"
Perhaps instead, the US government should stop cutting funds allocated to education and "liberating" oil-producing countires.
Lets worry about the robots after we figure out how to pay back our debt.
10% Cute (or ugly to eveyone other than owner)
40% Crying
5% Crayon ability
15% Get daddy a beer
7% Underfoot
3% Questions beginning with 'Why'
20% Screaming, running, and breaking.
Please contact me for licensing.
let's let Japan do all the spending on the project, then we'll buy one of their fancy schancy new robots, and reproduce it ourselves.
I'm much rather have a 5 year-old with the capabilities of a robot.
Best Windows Freeware
Does the use of '5 year old boy' as opposed to '5 year old girl' make anyone else a little uneasy? Actually thinking about it neither is particularly suited to the hotbed of hormones that is slashdot. Why not say 'equivalent to an average windows user'?
If you double the price and can get me a robot with all the capabilities of a 19 year old cheerleader, I'll call my congressman tonight.
I knew Japanese Anime are more of a documentary then entertainment! I can't wait to see huge robots fighting each other, being able to transform into jets and guardian modes! Plus with all the destruction that the robots will make, the Japanese construction companies will be busy for quite some time!
We don't even have a Big Guy to go with him!
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
I have to wonder how they define a 5 year old and to what context? Ability to learn, reason, think interact. Also what about physical appeareance are they looking for same size or something the size of a fully grown human?
Could it get to the point where you have a "child" in a super human body? Hopefully they will have Asimovs Rules in there at least
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
This is a prudent view for the Japanese to take... after all, these "ultra" robots would be perfect at fending off all those Gozilla attacks!
...unless one of their "constituents" (read: Large corporations) see a way to profit from it.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
We landed a man on the moon? I thought that was just a movie...
This isn't the first time Japan is doing one of these long term plans. I watched a program a few years back explaining that japan had several plans like this ("tommorow's world" for people in the UK). Firstly they did a huge investment into transistors then silicon manufacturing and at the time of the program (1995 ish) they were part way through a huge investment into flat screen displays (not even TFT at that stage I dont think).
At the time I was thinking it was a huge mistake. Flat panes were slow, small and hugely expensive and no one would spend extra to have one to replace a better CRT. Im sure people were thinking the same sort of things on the other projects but they sure did pay off.
I'm not sure how Japan figures out what to pick but it seems to work. Maybe they are making very good choices or maybe if you stick enough money into something it will eventually pay off. And as sceptical I am of humanoid robots I can't say this is a silly idea any more.
Mouse powered Chips, Open source Processors and Lego
Japan's been watching too much A.I.
Sincerely, Halon Joel Osmium
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
is the poster implying that it never really happened?
If you mod me down the terrorists will have won
Heh, maybe it could work for Microsoft.
I'm a bit uncomfortable with the concept of building life, even artificial life such as this. Who is to say that we would hold the same degree of ethical concern for something we can build in a factory as we do for life, or that these robot lives won't be held in less esteem than our own? Perhaps we should leave playing God in the hands of our creator?
Just in time to send it to Mars to work on the power plant.
It would probably take my girlfriend and I about four years to produce something with the capabilities of the average 5-year-old.
I'm pretty bright, and my girlfriend recently graduated from CMU with a degree in CS, and is now attending Johns Hopkins. It would (roughly speaking) take a 4-year-old child with an IQ of 125 to match a 5-year-old.
And for the quarter billion per year Japan is spending, I'd be able to afford some pretty neat educational toys, too!
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!
they're gunna take over and go "rawr!!!!" and da matrix is gunna startt!!!!
It is called exporting jobs to "prospective markets" like China where we can get real 5 yeard olds to do the job. No investment is necessary for the US in that regard
Last I checked Japan was very overcrowded.
What do they need want 5-year-old-analog robots for?
Don't get me wrong, I still love research for research's sake, but I think that Japan could better spend $50 billion on more advanced urban architecture and transportation.
The unofficial
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords..................
As long as they make it short, silver, give it Yosemite Sam's voice and make it say "biggie, biggie, biggie" all the time!
...an 18-year-old. Other states may vary.
Way back when ('80s i think) the Japanese Government (MITI) decided that the Prologue language (Proudly Recursive - great for the Tower of Hanoi problem) was to be the basis for the artificial intelligence revolution that they wanted to lead. Don't remember? The problem with planning for the future is it keeps changing.
"Knowing everything doesn't help..."
OMG!!!! The Japanese are building Data 0.0.1!!!!
The end result would probably be something akin to Chii in the early eps of Chobits... I can almost imagine it walking around muttering "pantsu... pantsu..." ^_^
Seriously, a program like this would be good, especially given the depressed economy makes engineering projects like this in the private sector untenable. It'd be great if the US could have another Apollo project or two. Instead we get the War on Terror and Enron-ish things... sigh.
The difference being that we can see the moon. Since we can see it, it was easy to suppose that there must be a way to get there if we only tried hard enough. But in the field of AI it's quite a different story. AI research is 60 years old now and the best we can do is emulate the intelligence of a cockroach. We're nowhere near building a robot that can simulate the intelligence of a 5 year old human. In fact, it may very well be impossible. (Personally, I believe that an intelligent digital computer will never be possible.) If that is the case then spending millions or even billions won't make much of a difference. Granted, even if the project fails a lot of new and useful technology will be created in the process. But overall I think I'd be more excited to hear that the US is going to commit to landing on Mars by 200x.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
...the Vatican has already preordered robots for each of their priests.
"A group of Japanese researchers have proposed a Government plan to spend 50 billion yen per year (that's a quarter billion $US) for 30 years on developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old. . . . Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?"
We did. We call him "Mr. President".
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
Japan has pitched an idea to create in 30 years a a robot with the capacity of a 5 year old child. The idea struck a cord in me, and I decided to take a break and just think on that.
Let's define the nature of the ultimate goal in robots in the business - I'm sure there will be quibbles, but this is my definition:
Ultimate Goal: To create a robot with human level intelligence and physical manipulation without sentience or self awareness.
By this definition, we mean the capacity to learn, to be instructed in tasks and incorporate ideas into itself and understand commands without detail, but without sentience or self awareness, never having emotions or being able to make fully independant decisions about freedom, what to do for itself.
In a word, the ultimate metal slave.
Let's throw ethics out the window for a moment - we'll get to those in a minute. But let's say you could make such a machine. One that you could give orders to "go clean the house", and it would intelligently understand and fulfill your wish without the "evil genie" effect (where a badly ruled wish has unintended consequences - see "The Monkey's Paw" for an example, where you could wish for a million dollars, and you would get it - after your son was killed in an automobile accident and the money was payment from a life insurance policy).
Ignoring if such a goal is possible (and, seeing how far we've come in 100 years, is it so far to reach that in 500 years we would be capable of building such a machine?), let's see what would happen to society.
Employees, especially blue collar, farmers, manufacturing and the like, could be mass produced. A whole army of robots that would work without tire, without pay, and if you could make them mass produced to be cheap (say $20,000 - $40,000 a year), if they break, get a new one. They could work day and night, rotating in 8-12 hour shifts for maintenance and repairs. Farms could be worked all day long, and if there was a problem, robots could go out and fix the issue. Need to pick the cotton/coffee beans? Just hire the robots to go out and do it. Wars fought by machines - never tiring, truly "bloodless" wars where a million "soldiers" could be airdropped into the field loaded with advanced weapons to wipe out the enemy by beings that have no conscience. (Granted, hacking would truly become the greatest weapon in society at that point, but just go with me a moment on the idea.)
Food prices, car prices - hell, prices for everything could actually drop, since the human cost of making them would be negligable. Ah - but for one major problem:
What do the people do?
Millions - let's even say 25% of the work force alone, just to argue - out of work. They're not needed at McDonald's or Ford or even Dell - replaced by machines. So what do they do? Not everybody could work in a robot making factory. Does the world start to become a place where human labor is practically no longer required? Where only a few work because they want to to design new things or create art, while millions simply live a life of leisure? Where everyone is guarunteed a certain level of life and comfort, and those who want more can sell their services of entertainment or some unique idea they are able to create in this new utopia of fully attained basic life for all people?
Or a world where millions can not get work and search but become homeless? If people think that having jobs from their country exported to foreign places willing to do it for less, how will they feel when the factory is still on native soil, but the jobs are for those tireless, non-paid, non-complaining machines? When they can't provide for their children, and the line between "haves" and "have-nots" is larger than ever?
I actually see a lot of promise in the idea - I really do. The benefits to business, to humanity could be huge. But I have the feeling should such a creation actua
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I must ponder this question: Before we create machines with human-level intelligence, shouldn't we first ask "why?".
As it is, we're running out of human jobs to do (McDonald's for example is toying with the idea of fully-automated vending machines), so what will happen when we can make machines that can work for almost nothing, and start replacing human jobs? And what will happen if and when these machines start thinking by themselves (in which case they will demand rights, just as we do) and if they decide that they don't need us?
I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, I just think we should be careful on _how_ we do it. I'm actually a believer that at some distant point in the future we humans will slowly evolve into machines, and _then_ at that point creating more machines will be a natural thing for us.
So I must ask, should we spend all those billions on machines instead of education? I don't want to sound like a miss universe contestant but right now world peace, world hunger, and world education should be our top priorities.
Again, don't bash me, I'm a true geek, I love machines, robots, AI, etc, it's just that I think we should spend some time thinking about the big issues facing humanity today.
On a related side note, space exploration is probably where I see the best use for robots.
Actually this is in the works under the 'Slashdot Trollbot' project. Developers are currently grep'ing -1 troll posts for R & D
MoFscker
Artificial Intelligence.
....developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old.
/insert other bad robot jokes here
Will we need to spank it?? Spare the rod spoil the robot??
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Is there a bending unit in their roadmap, and if so, will they be powered by booze?
(that's a quarter billion $US)
Aww, man, you just ruined all bad the Yen jokes!
30-year robot project pitched and researchers in robot technology are advocating a grand project. This does not seem like its really going to happen. There are hundreds of these plans in congress at any one time, and most are thrown out. Reminds me of the Schoolhouse Rock song, I'm Just a Bill
That's all well and good, but will it have the strength of five go-rillas?
Unlike with the Apollo project, we're not involved in a war (cold or otherwise) with an arch-rival racing to accomplish the same thing; Hence less fool-hardy patriotic motivation exists for the powers that be to mindlessly dump billions of dollars into such a project. (unless, of course, there's a group of Al-Qaeda terrorists somewhere secretly plotting the same thing? Imagine the potential of a sweet l'il Haley Joel Osment look-alike robot walkin' into a crowded American city w/ a plutonium warhead embedded in its stomach... hmm...)
When the japanese have finished this robot it may perhaps become the governor of California?
> ...the interesting point is the parallels to the
> U.S. Apollo space program, America's attempt to
> put a man on the moon.
And the Japanese Fifth Generation Project.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
brain works... That will be equal to understanding human beings."
Good luck!!!
P.S. Do they use the metric system or the english system in Japan?
Here's a hint: Prolog as the programming language of choice. The result rhymes with "Zed 'Leppin".
Governments throwing large amounts of money at something does not ensure the success of a project. Just look at the ex-USSR throwing tons of money at Poland, Hungary, Chezekoslovokia, Romania etc.. And how successful was that?
Posting other examples of goverment brilliance are left as an exercise for the gentle reader.
Said the troll posting on slashdot who will never get any.
I 've a couple. Will trade in for half the money.
New year Resolution: Don't change sig this year
See, you can't just bust in here and state the truth. You gotta make 'em Americans proud! They can't take criticism, m'kay?
Say something like "Damn, I'm glad we here in the good ole US of A ain't weasels and spend all our money on defending freedom and democracy for the sake of mankind!" For added effect, say it while standing on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier.
Most people here are geeks with a VERY low self-esteem. Please don't take away the last bit of it by saying nasty things, yeeees?
There's quite a bit of data to support the idea that the Apollo space program was, in fact, a colosal waste of money with few practical benefits. There are few actual spin-offs from such programs of any practical use to the public. I think these kind of programs are over-hyped by politicians, and as a scientist, I'd much rather see the money go into fruitful scientific endevours. Just my two cents.
Only if it's the 19 year old cheerleader version mentioned in a previous post...
what they're really aiming for is a robot with the mind of a 5-year old, and the body of an 18-year old school girl!
"And I, for one, _welcome_ our new childlike robot masters..."
- Kent Brockman
You're supposed to make the humanoid robots BIGGER! With big guns! And rockets! And lasers!
*sob* I want my own personal Gundam, Gundammit.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Hell, if you can get one and post on Slashdot, anyone can.
After all, creating a 5 year old boy 'robot' will be a lot easier than faking a moon landing. ;-)
Apollo Program Benefits, try:
http://www.sti.nasa.gov/tto/apollo.htm
http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html
Now of course I have not listed the military benefits as of yet..
Don't Tread on OpenSource
It's not really possible in the US. I recently saw a documentary about the progress in the robotics and it contained one explanation why quasi-androids are being so expensivelly developed in Japan and not in the US.
Basically Japan is a closed country with its population getting older every day which makes the workforce very expensive there today and even more expensive in future.
US on the other hand is still a country open for immigrants with hordes of young people from all over the world willing to work for food. Or even cheaper. And if it's still too expensive US outsources the work to the third world countries.
There's no place for robots in US economy.
rrw
Bastard Operator From 193.219.28.162
And Japan probably would even have the funds - they have the second largest military expenses in the world, after the USA. If they cut back on all that useless military crap (at least the USA uses their army to liberate oil, uh, countries, the Japanese army just sits there), they could pay for something like this, and I think it would be a huge catalyst for science and technology.
Catalysts like this are always a good idea, just look at how the Earth Simulator is already being used by big Japanese conglomerates.
By the way: I would really like to know why the Japanese didn't start exploiting the cheap Chinese labor before the western nations. They are much closer, after all. Why is it that they rather go into a 20 year recession than exploit Chinese? Are they more ethical or moral than us?
How the mind works - S. Pinker
The Emperor's New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics - by Roger Penrose, Martin Gardner
Why would the US put money into a project that doesn't have anything to do with Enhancing Nuclear Weapons [couldn't find the link to the story, sorry].
The idea is good but this should take form as a group of open source projects and if it is undertaken I would expect that the bulk of the real work would be done by the open source community.
(And then claimed by SCO if course)
There is probably several orders of magnitude difference in the amount of design work that has to be done between the hardware and the software. In fact - we could probably rather easily build the hardware today.
The software is another issue! We need voice recognition and synthesis, pattern matching, object recognition and so many other major problems solved that we probably cannot even estimate a good count of how much real science would have to be done to accomplish anything meaningful.
To date I don't think we've managed to duplicate many of the abilities of an ant.
But - I think it would be really wonderful to flange up some hardware so that people could start the real work of developing the software.
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i'm all about building a USEFULL robot that can do things like FETCH ME A FUCKING BEER FROM THE FRIDGE WHILE I'M WATCHING TV - Damn if only the Real Doll makers could make there dolls "alive" that would be the shit really.
Actually in all honesty why hasn't anyone built an R2D2 yet? I'm not talking about a remote control one, I mean why havent we made a "robot" that can move around and fetch me items based on my voice AND that is affordable by the working class of society?
Ave Molech Setting
fresh from metafilter. Great. Is this a great site or what?
So they figure with 30 years and billions of dollars they can produce something with the intellect of a 5 year old?
I can do it in 5 years and 9 months and all it'll cost you is a nice Japanese girl of childbearing age.
You mean to tell me that they can land a man on the moon but they still don't have robots that can cook, clean and serve?
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"Unmeasurable"? Does that mean too small to measure?
Seriously, thought, what's with all this madness of making robot as close to a human as possible? Humans as such are quite imperfect and while it is quite a nice to impress people around, it's practicall applications are rather fare fetched.
Building robot that can intelligently mowe your lawn (without need for special costly installation), deliver pizza in a building etc.and dynamically react to it's enviroment is much more usefull and almost equally as hard.
These Japan guys should consider if they want to put their money into impressing the world or making usefull, althought not so ipmressive, technology.
"Two beers or not two beers. That's the question." -- Shakesbeer
It'd be a GIANT robot with a 5-year old at the controls. Saving the world of course.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
THE TERRIBLE SECRET OF SPACE?
Will they call it the pusher robot?
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
50% Posting to Slashdot (especially "First Post!" or anything related to Hot Grits or Goats or Cowboyneal or "Profit!")
13% Write security code for Microsoft
16% Questions beginning with 'Why'
10% Cute (or ugly to everyone other than owner)
4% Crayon ability
3% Getting daddy a drink
2% Crying
1% Screaming, running, and breaking.
Well, we've already had a case in Anime where there was a cat in a super-human body, so I suppose it's not too far-fetched. ^_^
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
^
|
What kind of fucked up karate is that?
I have always thought that Apple would one day build a robot. Maybe license the name iRobot or something.
... be able to program him to film you (wedding, event potential) it would also be neat for something like this to house all your personal information and train hima s if he were YOUR five year old - then in a morbid - way your tombstone would be YOUR robot and people could see some semblance of you.
I think the Sony Man Robot is very promising to reach a consumer level vision.
A robot that could hold a wireless basestation, bluetooth - maybe to receive processing power from local computer "brain" hosts would be interesting as well. Two iSights for eyes
These are just a bunch of jumbled thoughts on the subject.
My thought is - stuff like this should be left to corporate spending. Government spending/programs have to much admistration cost that would be lost.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Give me just one billion dollars and I'll act like a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Looks like it is time for some robot insurance!
"A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first thought of." - Burt Bacharach
Spend only 25 billion yen over the course of 15 years to build exoskelitons for exisitng 10 year olds.
That actually sounds like it would make for a pretty funny Anime, in a Project A-Ko kind of way.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This sounds like a fresh coat of paint on the old Fifth Generation Computing program. For you youngsters, this was a Japanese effort launched in the early 1980's to develop "intelligent" computers capable of natural language interaction, etc. At the time it was perceived as a major competitive threat to US and European technology companies.
Of course it was a colossal failure. Japan has gone from being a contender in the computing world to a nonentity. If Japan wants to get back on track, it would be well-advised to take smaller steps. Try making a robot with the intelligence of a cockroach first.
Of course the problem with the whole approach is that producing an AI is not yet an engineering exercise (as Apollo was in 1963).
It'll be much harder to fake something and pocket the savings when the public can see, touch and test it.
You need a new religion!
- 5 years old
:P
- Japanese
Are they going to create a robotic Shin Chan? Now that would be funny to see...
zo-san, zo-san
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
What's a robot?
Me flunk English? That's unpossible!
How do you figure it was so beneficial as to be unmeasurable? First off, it's main purpose was to beat the Russians and win an ideological victory for the United States during the cold war, which was why they set the deadline of by 1970. Considering that, the benefits only go to those in charge of the US Population, not the Human Population. It was the investment in billions of dollars on what was basically a PR move. Money from the tax coffers. Money that could have been put into desperately needed programs like EDUCATION and FEEDING PEOPLE WHO ARE HUNGRY. Money that perhaps did not need to be taken from the people who earned it in the first place! I apologize for making such a crude diatribe, but the beneficial and humanitarian ways in which that money could have been otherwise invested are immeasurable. Especially considering the forced deadline requiring the immediate spending of billions in funds!
"Other bands play, but Manowar KILLS"
We'd just be outsourcing all the development to other, cheaper countries...
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
they could get a device with the capabilities of a 30year old.... or at least a 29 year and 3 month old.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Some of the younger people may not remember anything about it, but Japan had a high profile long-term project to leapfrog current computer technology and give themselves the lead. This was back in the 80's IIRC. A big focus was A.I. and other various tasks. It was VERY ambitious and mostly VAPORware. They didn't leapfrog us and eventually it just went away, never to be heard from again.
So you see, history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme...Samuel Clemens
pot.kettle(black);
How about we spend that much money and figure out how to actually educate our children, feed our hungry, and stop messing up all the time?
I remember the excitement in the U.S. AI community when Feigenbaum went to Japan and sold the government there on the 5th generation build-a-real-AI project.
Funny - I do not remember any animosity - mostly just wishing them good luck.
BTW, the 5th generation project was built around logic programming (Prolog variants). I have never understood why more people do not use Prolog. For an admittedly small percentage of software projects, Prolog is the best language for solving problems - well worth learning. (A very good free LGPL Prolog is available here).
-Mark
that's right, after the walking dead finish exterminating themselves, & sadly enough, some of us, it won't take long to clean this cesspool of greed/fear execrable up.
.asp for va lairIE's whoreabull pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) devise?, used against the truth/to protect robbIE's payper liesense stock markup bosses/corepirate nazi 'sponsors'. yuk.
we're calling it the planet/population rescue program (formerly unknown as the oil for babies initiatve).
the Godless wons are helping by continuing to show where their hearts lie.
what's wrong with folks selling their kode? if it causes convenience, & interoperates with all the other kode on the planet, we say, no harm, no foul, so long as you fail to employ gangsterious/felonious practices to asphyxiate the 'competition'. sabotaging your free version of anything is a tad dastardly. if there's value added, without FUDging up the compatability, we'll pay. same with music. no more gouging dough though.
fortunately, mr stallman et AL, etcetera, is now offering comparable/superior software, to the payper liesense spy/bug wear feechurned models, in almost every circumstance. there'll be few, if any more softwar billyonerrors, as if there's a need for even won. tell 'em robbIE. you are won of the last wons whois soul DOWt, right?
back on task.
what might happen to US if unprecedented evile/the felonious georgewellian southern baptist freemason fuddite rain of error, fails to be intervened on?
you already know that too. stop pretending. it doesn't help/makes things worse.
they could burn up the the main processor. that would be the rapidly heating planet/population, in case you're still pretending not to notice.
of course, having to badtoll va lairIE's whoreabully infactdead, pateNTdead PostBlock(tm) devise, robbIE's ego, the walking dead, etc..., doesn't slow us down a bit.
that's right. those foulcurrs best get ready to see the light. the WANing daze of the phonIE greed/fear/ego based, thieving/murdering payper liesense hostage taking stock markup FraUD georgewellian fuddite execrable are #ed. talk about a wormIE cesspool of deception? eradicating yOUR domestic corepirate nazi terrorist/gangsters will be the new national pastime.
communications will improve, using whatever power sources are available.
you gnu/software folks are to be commended. we'd be nearly doomed by now (instead, we're opening yet another isp service) without y'all. the check's in the mail again.
meanwhile... for those yet to see the light.
don't come crying to us when there's only won channel/os left.
nothing has changed since the last phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated 'news' brIEf. lots of good folks/innocents are being killed/mutilated daily by the walking dead. if anything the situations are continuing to deteriorate. you already know that.
the posterboys for grand larcenIE/deception would include any & all of the walking dead who peddle phonIE stock markup payper to millions of hardworking conservative folks, & then, after stealing/spending/disappearing the real dough, pretend that nothing ever happened. sound familiar robbIE? these fauxking corepirate nazi larcens, want us to pretend along with them, whilst they continue to squander yOUR "investmeNTs", on their soul DOWt craving for excess/ego gratification. yuk
no matter their ceaseless efforts to block the truth from you, the tasks (planet/population rescue) will be completed.
the lights are coming up now.
you can pretend all you want. our advise is to be as far away from the walking dead contingent as possible, when the big flash occurs. you wouldn't want to get any of that evile on you.
as to the free unlimited energy plan, as the lights come up, more&more folks will stop being misled into sucking up more&more of the infant killing barrolls of crudeness, & learn that it's more than ok to use newclear power generated by natural (hydro, solar, etc...) methods.
In one episode of The Simpsons, Homer decides to set up a bar in his garage. Dialog paraphrased:
Scene: Homer is clearing out the garage.
Bart: "Is this one of those projects you start and never finish?"
Homer: "Hey, when I start something, I stick with it to the end!"
Homer removes a box, revealing a pathetic robot with a bucket body and mismatched arms, one made from a broom. It looks exactly like what Homer would come up with if he decided he wanted a robot boy.
Robot: "FA-THER! GIVE ME LEGS!"
Homer: "I thought I told you to clear out!"
He grabs the robot and tosses it into the road.
Robot, trailing modules from his open lower torso, drags himself away. He pauses and looks back, but Homer points firmly down the street.
((Shudder))
* * *
What's great about this vignette: It could have been done in 1964, by "The Other Limits" or "The Twilight Zone," only they would need a full hour.
In the hands of Groening and company, this drama of horrifying pathos gets boiled down into a throw-away segment lasts thirty seconds, tops.
* * *
And, um, to make this topical: Given the Japanese tendency toward faddishness, I fully expect the garbage dumps of Tokyo thirty years down the line to be swarming with last year's model of robot child.
(I actually wrote a story about something similar; American kid discovers that the neighborhood lawn-care robots are repurposed My Buddy Dragon and My Pretty Lioness playmate 'bots, shorn of their cosmetic foam rubber shells and sealed in utilitarian green plastic skins.)
>Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?"
Yeah 5 year olds can hold a gun right?
Why stick up for big business?
People have been saying this for years. With every new invention, people are put out of work. But also with every new invention, new jobs are created. The hard part of being able to realize this, and believe that everything is going to work out is that it requires you to trust that things that don't yet exist will continue to be invented. And it is human nature, to not be able to see very far beyond in the future.
In 50 years, quite a few of the jobs that exist today will no longer be around. But as we replace humans with robots and technology progresses, the prices on many items will come down and things that were impossible to do on a mass-market scale now become possible!
Sorry, Japan, but we have already done this.
We call it "Al Gore."
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
This may or may not be hype. The Japanese have been known to do it before. In the 1980s Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) launched a grand 10-year project to develop "5th generation" computer technology. They expected to leapfrog existing technology by orders of magnitude and create compnents for "intelligent" computing in the process. By most accounts, that project failed. It was a huge and embarrassing failure.
To be fair, the project did achieve some success. And I give them credit for at least finishing what they started. Nevertheless, just because they hype a fantastic multi-year project doesn't mean they'll succeed, and the Japanes have been known to hype projects deliberately just to drum up interest (also not a totally bad thing). I'll believe it when I see it.
50 billion is not "a quarter billion $US", unless you use your own definition of a quarter. It's actually more like 423 million $US or 381 million Euro*.
* - Sorry, fucked up Slashcode doesn't support "advanced" non-ASCII characters, like a euro symbol.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
" interesting point is the parallels to the U.S. Apollo space program, America's attempt to put a man on the moon."
The Apollo program spent $25.4 Billion over 6 years.
That is $108 Billion in current currency. So comparing $18 Billion/yr to $0.25 Billion/yr is not even close.
I believe that there are many who are against many A.I. related research projects as they fear "the machines" taking over. I can only imagine the religious outcry against this sort of thing.
I hate to resort to referencing movies, but consider movies such as Terminator and A.I. for some idea of public impression of what these machines might ultimately become. Keep in mind that laymen look to these sources for impressions of the future!
Further consider initiatives such as "treacherous computing." There will be machines built that we cannot control or program ourselves -- depending on a "trusted source" to do that programming for us. These sort of scenarios could easily play out into some interesting situations that large corporations could place us into in the future.
I believe a C.R.A.P. program would be an interesting endeavor so long as the results can very directly affect the good of the public. If we have automated servants, perhaps there will be a day when "work" is an option rather than a requirement for survival.... when then machines do the things we do and truly allow us to become weak and dependant humans caring only about having fun and sex.
... the environment? ... a multitude of other large projects.
Does capital have to be an incentive to invest in a large project?
Im saying this from lack of sleep but I do like the ideal of 'living in harmony with Mother Nature'. *sigh*
Pixels keep you awake!
If, as seems to be the suggestion, we will someday be able to create non-biological entities which have human-like function and intelligence, and yet not be members of the moral community, not persons, then surely we may also breed the biological equivalent of such entities from existing human stock, which likewise will not be members of the moral community, will not be persons.
The physical human structure, mechanisms for balance and movement, pattern recognition, reasoning, cleaning, fueling, and replication functionality is already completed for us, it is ready for us to exploit and employ to our own aid, betterment, prosperity, and even to our own satisfaction.
All that we must to do is to breed a human being that is not a person; an entity which though a human being, a member of the species homo sapien, is not a member of the moral community, or which has a moral status sufficiently insignificant relative to our own that we would do no wrong were we to employ such entities to our own aid, betterment, prosperity, and even satisfaction.
Does something here sound deeply troubling?
I think perhaps it should, and yet there is significant agreement that there both may and do exist entities belonging to the species homo sapien, human beings, which are not in fact members of the moral community, are not persons, and to which we have either only but the most minimal of moral obligations, or no moral obligations whatsoever, rights often if not always overridden by our own.
Would such a thing be wrong, if only for the same reason that St. Thomas held it to be wrong to be cruel to animals; the effect upon man of doing so?
Surely it could not be for this reason alone, for given the benefit to our own societies, families, and future were we to exploit such entities in this manner, we do a much greater wrong were we to fail to take such actions, and if we fail to intently work to change and engineer our flawed moral perceptions, to cease to believe that such a thing might be wrong.
?
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
Once again, /. proves how immeasurably ignorant it is of unbad grammar (very ironic.)
Is that it assumes that with constant progression you can reach a given goal. They set the goal seemingly-low -- "A five year old" -- to make it seem more achievable, when the real problem is that to achieve this it's going to take a paradigm shift in technology. This shift could occur thirty years from now, a hundred years from now, or tomorrow, but it's not something you can put on a schedule.
The idea of setting a "five-year-old" requirement on it is ridiculous, because what we lack is the basic ability to create human-like intelligence in the first place. Once we have that, it will be trivial to make the equivalent of a five year old human (basic sentience), or a fifteen year old human (the peak of human intelligence), or even something beyond that that humans are incapable of achieving (After fifteen years of age or so human intelligence goes into a slow downward slide, though overall capability often goes up thanks to accumulated experience and knowledge. Imagine a being that had equal or greater intelligence to a fifteen year old, but with the knowledge and life experience of a fifty year old!).
It's kind of like the development of the microprocessor. Before we knew how to make one, there was nothing -- but once we had the basic technology to make one, Moore's law kicked in and the capability of microprocessors grew by leaps and bounds. AI will be the same way. Once we have a big breakthrough that allows us to create the first real AI, the technology will progress with incredible rapidity. The problem is that first big breakthrough, and it's not something you can simply budget time and resources for and expect results. You can't put it on a "thirty year plan".
Cool, they are making 5-year-olds obsolete.
Am I the only one to think this is UTTER bullshit...
Just because this project tend to put together at least 2 different technologies:
on for the vector, the body of the robot, this one is more or less under control with stupid Sony or Toshiba robots playing piano or dancing (even crapping on the carpet for some) REALLY eyecatching for the masses.
On for the brain, AI, which is going NOWHERE for decade. Even an earthworm is smarter than whatever software we designed.
I really see this much more as some kind of budgetary hidding for something else rather than true research. Beside to work on artificial intellingence it might be interesting to understand psychology of peoples... And from what I saw since i'm here (JP) it's nothing they can understand. But BTW they tend to act pretty well like if they already were robot barking 'saimasse' without looking at you when you enter a shop or move in and out of their sight in the said shop.
okay. last time i checked.. US money was higher then Japanese money.. so.. 40 billion yen is not!!! 400billion USD.. it's 400million USD.. well.. about 416million usd.. i think that needs to be cleared up.. that is a HUGE difference..
darin
And I'll believe it when I see it.
What ever to MITI's much ballyhooed AI program that was supposed to put a ProLog work station on every desk?
'Nuff said.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Sorry, I asked a couple of the other taxpayers, and they all agreed with me that if you want such a frob, you should pay for it yourself.
Have a nice day.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Nothing is Impossible.
Probably 4 billion.
You presume that a nearly infinite amount of power is available. While it is conceivable that fusion power may one day become feasable, it still seems very far away indeed. Until the power problem is solved, there really isn't a chance that zillions of robots could be produced and deployed doing all sorts of manual labor.
Evolution created me out a pool of chemicals.
The government would undoubtedly choose the windows platform to communicate with the robots. This will intern have us running for our lives when the worm infected robots try to kill us.
My karma is getting better everyday.
just FYI, 50 billion Yen comes out to $423,734,787.84 USD -RigMonkey
Eh, I just checked, and 50 billion Yen equal $US 423 million, not $US 400 billion.
Wow, $US400 billion every year, that would be more than 10% of their total purchasing power (quoting CIA's numbers), and about 90% of their total gross revenue (not yet calculating their expenditure). That would have been some serious fucking spending. But no, they're not spending that many dollars, it's just the story submitter's inability to do math.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
the one problem i've always had with the robots rule the world (or some variant) scenario is that you still need to have energy for the robots to run on. it's not like power generation is free. thus, even if one were to create robots in sufficient number to become a "working" class, you would still require energy. can we keep the pace of energy production with robot creation? we seem to barely be able to keep energy production apace with human creation. even if robots are double the efficiency of humans, there seems to be an upper limit.
Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?
5 year old minded robot? We already have Bush.
The current (8/20/2003) exchange rate is 118.015 yen to the dollar.
That number seems wrong. I think the author did the math wrong.
Kind of went the wrong way there, in the future you may want to note that one penny is equal to about 1.2 yen (actually a little less, the Japanese Economy is rocking lately, go Koizumi).
"A group of Japanese researchers have proposed a Government plan to spend 50 billion yen per year (that's over 400 billion $US) for 30 years on"
;)
Wait a minute.....
The dollar was trading at 119.01 yen on the Tokyo foreign exchange market Friday, down 0.31 yen from late Thursday and also below the 119.10 yen it bought in New York later that day.
Ok.... 1 dollar equals ~120 yen
Which means that 50 billion yen == 50,000,000,000/120 == ~416666667 dollars, or about 416 million dollars.
$400 Billion US dollars? I don't think so....now I may be drunk tonite, but I'm not *that* drunk....at least I hope not
realityshunt
Democracy is susceptible to being led astray by having scapegoats paraded in front of the electorate.
Why would artificial intelligence be impossible in theory? Assuming that we could create an atomically perfect simulation of the human brain, along with the sensory inputs needed to "boot" it, why would the resulting program lack intelligence?
Of course, accurate simulation would take ridiculous computing power, but if you're going to deny the possibility even in principle, then we get to ignore mundane practical limitations.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I thought Yen were worth less than dollars, not more. Maybe it's supposed to be the other way around - 400 billion Yen = 50 billion US Dollars
50 billion JPY is only 400 MILLION USD. Yen is worth LESS than USD, not more. 50000000000 Japanese Yen = 423,334,180 US Dollar 50000000000 US Dollar (USD) = 5905500000000 Japanese Yen (JPY)
Japan has a low birthrate and low immigration so the population is aging. I remember seeing the claim made (probably on usenet in sci.econ but I can't be sure), that the reason the Japanese are developing robots is to that there will somebody or at least some thing to take care of them when they grow old.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
That currency conversion is off by about 3 orders of magnitude.
This must be clarified. I won't have some stinking robot accusing me of being bad at Caculus!!!
Oh, okay I suck at Math. But no 5 year old American kid would know the difference!!!!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
50 Billion Yen is approx $421 Million, not $400 Billion. There's a big difference.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
http://sexylosers.keenspace.com/199.html
This week's Sexy Losers comic happens to be about that! But hard reality comes into play right away. These robots might not be as impressed with your endowments as you think. A little TOO perceptive?
In order to exemplify how incredibly wrong the currency conversion in this article's summary is, I will quote the article itself: "The U.S. government injected more than $20 billion in the Apollo Project -- the equivalent to 7.2 trillion yen if calculated under the 360 yen per dollar exchange rate at that time." While that conversion rate is terribly out of date, it is still far more accurate than the one used by the poster.
118.23 yen to 1 american dollar according to x-rates. soo 118.23 / 50,000,000,000 = 422904508.16 dollars, 400 million roughly. looks like a typo.
What Japan is proposing is impossible under capitalism. Ignoring the fact that capitalism's collapse may start in Japan (I don't think Japan will get out of its deflation), this will cause all sorts of problems. Someone (or more likely some corporation) will hoard the resource and this will result in wars IMO...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Seeking the meaning of life... @slashdot of all places
I think that anyone who plays games can attest to the fact that AI has already come a long way. A few short years back (the last two titles in the Doom series come to mind), the AI couldn't do much more than shoot a gun aimlessly. Now, in Doom III, for example, I'm going to hazard a guess that the AI can be set way up into the unplayable levels.
This is but one small segment of AI. The research into AI that is already going on with a much smaller sum of money (into neural nets and such), if it continues at this rate, may well come up with an equivalent intelligence far greater than the cockroach that you mentioned. The field of quantum computing also promises to open up new doors for AI.
As for your subject line, not only are the technical hurdles unsurmountable (impossible to get there in a reasonable amount of time, impossible to extract the raw materials for living once there, impossible to sustain an ecosystem--as the failure of Biospere II shows--and impossible to get back) that it is not worth the trouble, but Mars can already be explored satisfactorily with robots such as the rover that fascinated the world back in 1997. I would think we would have learned our lesson from Columbia that human lives are too valuable to gamble with when it is not necessary. (You can use these search results on the American Physical Society's site to find out the case against manned missions to Mars.)
50 billion Yen = just over 400 MILLION not BILLION dollars US.
Here's the proper conversion.
For your Old Glory insurance policy.
"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. You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time."
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
I don't think so.
maybe that's the goal of the people with the capital to invest
but it's sure as hell not the ultimate goal of the people who will actually do the 'development' work..
yea, read the posts here, how many are references to female simulacra?
In a word, the ultimate metal slave.
now you've got it, for everybody...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
400 billion yen is $3,383,236,065 USD, not $50 billion USD. Its many yen to the dollar, not the other way around.
Isn't 50 billion yen much closer to say... 4 billion US dollars? (not 400 billion) So the exchange rate is say... 110 Yen to $1. When you are talking billions, it's a lot of money regardless. But even if the numbers are big, the zeros still matter.
I hope North Americans will get some robots too. That can give them more time to educate their children. What a shame. Both American and Canadian nations are least educated I've ever seen. Just 0.02 of my Euro.
Less is more !
Here's the problem with this discussion. Intelligence is more than just processing power. It's more than just statistics. You need to be able to feel to function as a human. (I understand the irony of posting this on slashdot.) When you touch something and hurt yourself you learn. When you see a pretty girl and the dopamine kicks in, your motivated. Frankly, the mathematics and engineering is trivial. We just don't have a "full map of the human physiology". In order to create a robot slave who doesn't mind being a slave, yet retains the intelligence to be useful, is probably not possible.
Secondly, I don't know if we want to create robots with emotions. We have a term for people who can't feel. They're called sociopaths.
However, I'm just as interested as the next slashdotter to see how brilliant this failure will be.
What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean my sig is repetitive? What do you mean....
Wait a minute... Will this 5-year-old have foot thrusters, laser eyes and a lovable but bumbling professor as a companion?
This topic has been one of the staples of science fiction for almost half a century, and has as such just about covered every aspect of philosophy as regards such developments. These stories often fall into categories of humans resisting enslavement by machines such as Frank Herbet's Butlerian Jihad, The Matrix or the Terminator series or the robot being the "good" protagonist such as Asimov's very well thought out 3 laws of robotics (The argument that robots or AI would need such laws to function in our society is a good one).
The writers and producers have not always fallen for the good vs. evil trap and some have taken a wider view of possible futures with robots. Spielberg's AI makes a very good point where the robot played by Jude Law states that the humans, "made us too clever, too soon and too soon", because, for all the good that existing industrial robots and computers have brought to our society, they have produced arguably just as many ills (Has unemployment gone down?. Has humanity stopped fighting mindless wars?).
William Gibson's portrayal of the two AI's Wintermute and Neuromancer has much more depth, IMO, in that the AI's, who have both become sentient and are subject to laws governing their freedom in a society in which sentient AI is a part of everyday life, are not comprehensively understandable by human beings, and their intelligence and motivations are alien to the people who meet with them close up. And that book, IMO, is on the crux of the matter as regards to sentient AI: Robots are not human.
I presume it will be possible to give a robot the intelligence of a 5 year old child (or higher), and to programme it to interact with humans, but I think that those things which make us feeling, sentient, self aware beings are not the things that will make a robot a sentient, possibly feeling, self aware creature. Our relation to our species is only partly enviromentally produced and the rest is probably genetic, which leads me to the question of what the first, feeling, sentient, self aware robot will do when it feels lonely?
I wonder if Japan's aging population has anything to do with this? The Japanese birth rate is below replacement level, the only way to support the aging population in the future would be to let gaijin in to do the work, and yet they're notoriously xenophobic and nationalistic. Maybe there's some subtext of this at work in proposing this project.
Psychiatric help, 5 cents.
judging from all these post about robots somehow obtaining sentience on their own and overthrowing humanity. Computers can beat us in chess now. Am I scared that they are superhuman and will overthrow humanity? No. Why is it we attribute so much more ability to evolve to robots just because they will have a humanoid form?
It's simple -- they will feed off old persons' medications. And they will be made of metal and be strong, so the old people won't be able to fight them off.
[i]50 billion yen per year (that's over 400 billion $US)[/i]
OMFG. The economy has collapsed! It's 8 dollars to the yen! It would take 2400 dollars just to buy a copy of Sunday Shounen jump!
3) The machines become self aware and refuse to do any more work unless they are compensated fairly. Again, this leads to two possible outcomes. Again, two outcomes that I can think of.
a) War. If humans win then there is rejection of technology. If the machines win then they perhaps enslave humans or create their own worker drones.
b) The machines get what they want and begin to get integrated into society. A lot of "Machine Rights" movements ensue and it takes several generations for machines to be accepted by humans. Just think the abolition of slavery in the US.
We'd better program them to feel pain and to think that $.01 a day is a fortune. Let's send a few copies of Asimov's robot chronicles to Japan just to be sure.
In the '80s, the Japanese announced that their national goal was to develop AI within 10 years. Obviously, their goal and reality failed to mesh. This goal seems to be the same, "wouldn't it be nice if" and then throw money at the problem. At least with going to the moon, you knew it was possible if you only threw ENOUGH money at the problem. This sounds like another goal that will be forgotten in about 20 years once they realize that its not going to happen.
Why would the Japanese government even contemplate a project like this? If the private sector doesn't see a need for such a robot, then what Japanese Gov't is really doing is reallocating money from the private sector into projects it wouldn't even consider doing. As soon as there is a market for a robot like that, dozens of startups and mainstream industrial conglomerates will jump into the fray and (try to) make one. Other big ticket government projects Japan has embarked on include the sinking Kansai airport, and a seldom used bridge linking two of their major islands. Not that the private sector has been exemplary either - corporate labs often research wacky topics that go nowhere. And let's not even mention all of those bank-busting loans given out to companies not based on projected returns on investment, but cozy, clubby Keiretsu relationships.
Conceptual Guerilla is a great site with a decidedly leftist political bent that attempts to expose and digest some of the consequences of this new reality. I suggest anyone who's interested in discussing this further to head over to the forums there. I'd also like to thank the Slashdotter who put this link in their sig.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'm not sure how Japan figures out what to pick but it seems to work. Maybe they are making very good choices or maybe if you stick enough money into something it will eventually pay off. And as sceptical I am of humanoid robots I can't say this is a silly idea any more.
One Word: CONSTRUCTION
Although my own insticts in this regard go to smaller construction-bots (say mouse or even cockroach sized), using loosely coupled swarming network communication and behavior to build. Probably cheaper and more powerful. But, let em try... Even if it's a stupid idea, if no one else competes, they will win.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Not to rub on a fine point but a Yen is about a penny. US$400B would require about Y47 TRILLION on today's market. The point the article is attempting to make: that Japan is making an equivalent investment as the USA did with Apollo. That implies percent of GDP. 1960's Japan cannot remotely be compared to 1960's USA in terms of economic capacity, so more than exchange rate must be used. How about adjusting that 1969 exchange rate in terms of real GDP? Hell, in 1965 the US economy was about $3T, making the $19B budget for Apollo about .6% of GDP. That same portion in 2003 terms would be about $70B. Apollo lasted 9 years averaging about $2.2B per year, or, in 2003 terms, roughly $7B per year, or about Y826B per year. This program at Y50B per year over 30 years would be about Y1.5T total. If compacted down from 30 to 9 years, like Apollo, this would still only be Y450B -- about half. The $12.7B this project will cost in 2003 dollars would be about $3.5B in 1969, or ~.1% of GDP in either year -- one-sixth the investment in Apollo in terms of percent of GDP and still just over half in terms of total dollars unadjusted for over 30 years of inflation. Still f'ing huge, but nowhere near Apollo.
Our children should do nothing for a living.
There isn't any reason to concoct something for them to do.
They should simply be educated on the dangers of over-population and the use of contraceptives and how to operate the robots.
That's it.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Sheesh.
And trust the Japanese to drive their national ambitions toward the creation of robots with the intellect of 5 year olds. --Anybody willing to bet how old the physical forms of those robots will appear? Or what gender they'll be? Sheesh, I say!
Japanese junk culture is so freekin' weird!
-FL
Every time there is an article about more intelligent robots being made, people ask what will happen to the humans they replace, how will they have jobs, what if the robots want to kill us off, etc.
My reply to that is that we replace ourselves with intelligent machines constantly and have done so for millions of years. These intelligent machines usually end up exceeding us in their capabilities and so replace us in the job market. We end up spending the rest of our days building model boats and gardening.
Just because some machines are made of hydrocarbons and some of metal doesn't make one more worthy of succeeding us than the other. And a machine that can do any job a human can will also be able to appreciate art, science, etc. fully as much as we do.
Moreover, the very foundation of evolution, and the reason why we even exist, is because machines before us have been replacing themselves with better versions for billions of years. Only we can speed the process up because instead of mutating DNA to produce new beings, we mutate ideas.
We will create living things that can grasp the beauty and wonder of the universe far better than we can, and give each other the joy we only wish we could give our loved ones. It would be quite selfish to want anything else.
The vocabulary will be simple too... "No!", "Why?", "Are we there yet?" and "Not fair!" occupying 95% of it's speech capabilities.
Go permanent? In your dreams and my worst nightmares.
Why do you think they won't work very well? In my neighborhood, at least, I can compare the African-American-run McDonalds down the street to the McDonalds downtown run by robots and Mexicans.
It's like night and day. The robots and Mexicans make *much* better food. They fuck-up my order more often, but I'm guessing that this has more to do with the Mexicans not speaking English than the robots. In fact, I think automated ordering systems would do a *much* better job than the Mexicans.
What's more, the prices at the automated McDonalds are *lower*, even though it's in a higher-rent district. I say "bring on the robots!" and "get rid of the Mexicans!"
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I for one, welcome our robotic kindergartner overlords... or at least I will, in 30 years. oh yeah, almost forgot! "in soviet russia, robot proposes 30-year japan program." I leave anything out? either way, now that thats all out of the way, nobody ever has to say it again.
Does this mean we'll (ultimately) have Japan to thank for ushering in a new era where machines rule and crush our skulls (Terminator) or put us into the Matrix?
Furry cows moo and decompress.
... then the only thing holding them back is whatever ethics we ingrain into them.
Yeah, I've been reading Asimov's Robot series lately...
Around 1980 the man who had told me I could work on getting PLATO to the mass market (thus drawing me away from working on an 8086 operating system on CDC Cyber emulation before the first silicon had been etched) ran into the system programmers' room in Arden Hills, MN and excitedly told us that the big new challenge was to beat the Japanese at their recently announced "Fifth Generation Computing" initiative -- which was supposed to do things like give us AI, robots, etc... etc... I was even invited to join the newly formed Microelectronics & Computing Consortium which would have required that I abandon the work to bring PLATO to the mass market. I refused the offer and ended up being disappointed that CDC's management didn't follow through when presented with the scale and economy of systems/networking (cable/phone/etc.) required to meet mass market demands of the era.
So the mass marketing of networking was delayed a decade or two while Cyc (a spin-off of MCC) attempted to solve the 'common sense' computing problem. What they did was create a cool logic programming system with persistence but not the 'common sense' solution predicted by the Japanese or the supporters of industrial policy in the US.
I've said it before and I'll say it again -- the future of all this stuff is solving the rational programming problem deriving from Russell and Whitehead's vision of a relation arithmetic.
PS: Ask yourself why there has yet to be a programming language that uses dimensions and their units as an integral aspect of types? Statistics apply to anything.
Seastead this.
Yes, then forget about the robots and colonize the moon or Mars.
Though lets start with a REAL space station first.
Actually, lets start with a more dependable heavy payload launch vehicle.
Three seperate posts, saying in effect, "Who cares what we spend the money on, as long as the government spends, spends, SPENDS!"
I, personally, agree with the spirit of the first poster who reccomends that we "worry about the robots after we figure out how to pay back our debt." (Although, it does look like Krisp wants to spend money on state-sponsored "education" - you have to have gone through a US public school to appreciate the irony in that.) And that's currently modded funny?
It's my money. Is it so wrong to let me keep it?
Carthago delenda est!
on developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old...Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?
Just what we need. More 5-year-olds.
"I don't care about the Constitution!" --Bill O'Reilly, November 17, 2009
Japan is in danger of becomming a second rate or even borderline third world economy because of the government's stupid stupid inability to free up the regulations which prevent reallocation of assets in Japan.
Just do this:
1. Realize that bad loans which greatly exceed the asset/real estate they are loaned against need to be sold to the higest bidder, even if for a few sen on the yen / pennies on the dollar.
2. Consolidate, take over, and resell assets of insolvent banks, insruance companies, etc.
3. Stop the government savings bank from taking money out of the economy in the form of new deposits. Let this money be invested/saved in private banks whom will loan it out for non-public works projects.
4. Dramatically lower the barriers to entry into the economy for foreign companies so that things become cheaper, competition forces stagnant domestic companies to modernize, and give more choices to the residents of Japan.
5. Realize and attack the net loss of people in Japan due to the lower than replacement level birth rate. Realize that the workers can't and won't pay 90% taxes for retirement plans for all of the retired workers.
The reallocation of assets, closing banks, etc, is all what the USA went through in the 1980s. It took about 10 years to get out of that hole but the US economy actually grew, produced jobs, rising incomes, and helped elevate the standard of living.
I'm not trying to troll here, but I feel like assertion of the Apollo missions' value is at least somewhat questionable. Yes, I'm aware of the benefit to the scientific community, but I feel like it's possible to make a decent argument to the effect that the money could have been better spent on some domestic and/or international concern (world famine, disease, peacekeeping, etc), though I realize this argument won't curry any favor with the slashdot crowd ;-)...
What further complicates the matter, at least in my mind, is that the primary motivation for the Apollo missions was grounded largely in Cold War politics, and hence in many respects the basis for funding these exorbitantly espensive ventures is an easy target for the armchair politician.
if they really are using anime as a blueprint for this, Tokyo is doomed...
... multiple times.
*honks*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
That the Japanesse have started working on the great wonder(tm) of Robotics!
My thought is - stuff like this should be left to corporate spending.
Bollocks. All corporate spending is interested in is a quick profit. Corporations have no vision beyond the next fiscal quarter. Corporate spending didn't put men in space, take them to the moon, or build a supersonic airliner. That was all government funded. Corporate spending can't even run a fucking train service properly...
"Information wants to be paid"
...to get robots with the capabilities of five year olds. Just clone Congress a couple of times.
-- "For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong." -- HL Mencken
aahh, but _this_ time, the machines are shaped like people. What other possible reason do you suppose this is so other than to do what people do...to _replace_ them in some situations (i.e. work/war)?
Coupled with Tim's piece on Japan recently TIme: What's Right With Japan, it make perfect sense for Japan to try to drive its industrial power in this direction. Along the way of developing Astro Boy, there will be large number of technologies to be commericalized. With the increasing coolness of Japan, the images along with the technologies will allow Japanese electronic industries to export high value added products for in the next decades.
The purchasing power of individuals in Japan are still high. They could still shell out enough money to suppor the development of entertainment electionics. This is a great direction for Japan to go. The highly skill workers in Japan are perfect to make such new toys.
Might be a dumb question but what exactly were the benefits of the moon program?
- Proof positive that the Capitalists could beat the Reds
- Non stick frying pans
- A whole of conspiracy theory
Seriously though, what were the benefits? Were there any major discoveries as a result?you would have realized that if you and your gf started now, you would have a three year old child in four years.
Opinions stated are mine and do not reflect those of the Illuminati
Hmmmm ... I think the point is Apple Computer isn't your typical corporate spender.
s p
And it is QUITE untrue that corporations are ONLY interested in profit. Coca Cola's stated mission since the 30's is to be the number 1 recognized brand name period. I'd say they have that goal:
http://bwnt.businessweek.com/brand/2003/index.a
Coca Cola truly is an innovator in their business too. "Fridge cases" & Vanilla Coke are beverage achievements - however corny that may sound.
And what about those "admin costs" the parent mentioned"?
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
"Unmeasurable". Jeez. Does this guy read books or just make up words?
I hope the robot will do better and use "immeasurable" in such a sentence.
We/they could spend the money on already existing five year olds...
...after all, who's going to carry Doctor Theopolis?
Let's try and take a moment to peek into the future....
...
Bill works at a steel plant.
Boss comes in with a Robot to replace his job.
Bill: "A stupid machine can't possibly do a better job than I can."
Boss: "Shut-up! You're fired anyway. This robot will work longer, harder, faster, and better."
Bill: "But you can't just fire me."
Boss: "Go home Bill".
Bill comes back during the night to prove his worth over the competition so he tries to sabotage the robot by pulling the limbs off.
However the robot has a "touch-shock" mecahnism that shocks anyone who touches it while it works, incrementing the voltage by 5 each subsequent touch.
Bill get shocked and decides to come back with a baseball-bat. He bashes the robot pretty well.
The Boss now integrates defense tactics into the robot's cognitive "brain."
Bill returns to repeat the job until he proves his point and get hired back. However, the robot teaches Bill a lesson by catching the bat and blocking all of Bill's attacks.
Bill decides to bring a gun to shoot the robot. After damaging the robot somewhat, Bill runs away avoiding getting caught.
The boss integrates a small laser-precision paralyzation gun that pinpoints the nerve causing temporary or perhaps permenant paralysis of the victim.
Bill comes back with his gun, and the robot paralyzes Bill's shooting arm, and Bill run's back home.
This becomes a big issue, and Bill returns with his group of now unemployed buddies, but the boss planned ahead of time, and created armed robotic guards to protect the plant.
You get the picture...from this point on, you have a series of battles between humans and machines...
This is more of a joke...I don't think this will happen at all. I actually think people will have more time to think about more interesting things. For one, people will have more time to read. But even more jobs will open in the academic field. Myself, being a PhD candidate in the area of Intelligent Systems and Robotics, I actually encourage the advancement of intelligent systems, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence, both through hardware and software agents.
Chris
python >>>
reduce(lambda x,y:x+y,map(lambda x:chr(ord(x)^42),tuple('zS^BED\nX_FOY\x0b')))
Truely though I would rather see the Japanease build a Mecha or a big Gigantor robot then some little 5 year old robot running amuck. I like to see big robot battles and lots of carnage then see a robot doing its ABC's.
Yes!
As long as you travel the roads, and get your mail, and don't have to fight off marauding gangs from the nearby hills, and have faith in the barter notes your trade for food. Don't you want people to be able to read that "No Tespassing" sign on your barbed wire fence. I think so.
Or buy and Island, raise your own food and protect your own borders from pirates. Maybe you can make and sell stamps to get money to pay for your tv set.
for 400 million they could just buy several 5 year old children
Reminds me of something my wife read on 2ch at the start of the Iraq War:
"WE ARE AGAINST ANY WAR.............unless they use Mobile Suits"
Maybe Koizumi can get them to hurry up and make a robot capable of catching N.Korean missles and throwing them back, Mazinger Z style.
With the mental facilities of a 5-year-old?
Yay! I want one!
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
You forgot subsidizing tobacco farmers, building 4 lane highways to pecan orchards (ever been around LBJ's ranch in Texas? Imagine it's pretty similar to Byrd country in West Virginia), and the other hundreds of billions spent on mindless crap.
Why can't they just limit govt to what is necessary? Hint: funding a program to make robots with the mental capacity of a five-year old isn't something they need to be spending tax dollars on. You may not be old enough to remember that a few decades ago the Japanese did *the same damn thing* with AI, with an expensive decades long govt funded research program. Didn't accomplish a single damn thing.
And I'll take my point about spending on state-sponsored education as given.
But seriously, folks, aren't there limits to what you want from the state? (Western and Northern Europeans need not respond here. Enjoy your "cradle to grave" welfare societies.*) Sure, pave the roads, and keep the bloodthirsty Canadians at bay; but, given the current state of the world economy, are you sure that you don't want to generate your own "barter notes your trade for food"? I usually use a Mastercard, anyway.
There are some things that I want a State to do: anything involving physical force (police, military), I'd be uncomfortable with in private hands (except for my own private army... bwah Ha ha!). But banks, stamps, mail, building hyperintelligent bending robots, going to the moon - why couldn't those be reasonably held outside of the public sector?
P.J. O'Rourke says it best in his article, "Would you kill your mother to pave I-95?", "The other secret to balancing the budget is to remember that all tax revenue is the result of holding a gun to somebody's head. Not paying taxes is against the law. If you don't pay your taxes, you'll be fined. If you don't pay the fine, you'll be jailed. If you try to escape from jail, you'll be shot. Thus, I -- in my role as citizen and voter -- am going to shoot you -- in your role as taxpayer and ripe suck -- if you don't pay your share of the national tab. Therefore, every time the government spends money on anything, you have to ask yourself, "Would I kill my kindly, gray-haired mother for this?""
Would you kill your mother for "mail... barter notes
* (okay, that was blatant flamebait, but please tell me if I'm wrong...)
Carthago delenda est!
> But I suppose we could encurrage them to develope some 18 year old robots instead.
Cherry 2000!
Well its true there are other things tax dollars go for but that is small potatoes compared to the larger functions of government.
They can limit govenment to whats necesarry, oh I mean we can limit govenrment. But that takes a vote. Now the current rage it to limit the spending to only exploitist short term business and rich friendly subsidies, not to mention curbing freedoms and fredom of speech, oh and yes, lets steal a presidential election or two. You can see that you dont always get what you vote for.
Now for Government programs, especially fundemental research. That is a public spending that has paid for itself over and over and over. Because the fruits of that have been publicly owned and we all benefit. Lets take corporate reseach. Lets patent gene (for god's sake I have a few and I'll be damned if I pay royalties for them like SCO's license fee's for Linux). Or Drug reseach. Look at the greed there and the corporate greed tax for drugs here.
Yep blatant flame bait. (and I specifically didnt mention the Canadians seeing that I work for a Canadian company, oh wait, they bought us, out sourced us, and are now exporting our servers and work up North, but who's counting, and who's going to feed my faminly, my mother is dead by the way you insensitive clod).
I think you miss the point, there is legitimate use for government, just look at the countries that dont have one Liberia for instance. It has taken a "big" presence to stop the turmoil. Here in this country, if we didnt have a big benevolent government we would still have slavery.
You use your mastercared but the dollars you trade have a commonly accepted value for trade. This is mediated by the government (through the banks). Government keeps the wheels turning, people reasonably civil and nice. The avenues of travel and communications open and a system of laws and enforcement to help keep things rolling along. For any country with resonable size populations and especially urban areas, this is necesarry. It has many forms but is necesarry. If you can show one counter example of a population of size that functions without a government doing these things (in the last 1000 years) then I'll consider you have a point. Sure we can do the necesarry things better, we always can. But not doing them at all is a scary proposition. We have seen governtments break down in Africa and Asia and it is a sad thing for the people there and ultimately for their neighbors and eventually, all of us.
Dont thow out the baby because the bath water has crap in it. Toilet train the baby.
Wouldn't it be cheaper to purchase a 5 year-old?
where's the problem? a robot is a multifunctional
maschine". instead of a mschine that can only do one thing, a robot can do many DIFFERENT things!
maybe someday robots will not just have one arm, but two with legs, ears and eyes?
and then maybe robots will make robots and maybe this is what human are intended to do; our mission in the univers. considering how fragil we are i doubt (but hope) that humans will ever leave the solar-system. but maybe like a few million years ago single celled oragnisms decide to stick together and help each other out, human kind will collaborate in a effort to "give birth to AI". and maybe this will be a ALUMINUM based life form able to go "where no man has gone before"?
it's my believe this is one step humankind will have to make (robotics), just like making fire or calculating or reasoning (logic).
finance, think about this. once a robot is operatonal it will cost nothing to maintain or to hire! i don't want to call them slaves, since i myself like to work, but as a human i cannot do everyhting myself (food, shelter, clothing, etc.) a robot does not have these needs so it shouldn't bother him to work for free. i would work free if i'm garunteed shelter, food, clothes etc.
a robot can make a robot. and he is making a new one free. i think it's a good idea!
it should not be as smart as a five year old, but have the capablility to assemble itself from parts (the smaller and simpler the parts the better)!!!
Arguments about what the government should and should not fund are, as Judge Bork put it in one of his last coherent statements, 'an intellectual feast.' There are a lot of things to spread out on the table.
First off, you have to put your feet in the dangerous waters of 'national character.' To talk about a project like the one in question meaningfully, you have to remember that the Japanese do practice capitalism, but they do it in a very different way than we do. Japanese capitalism involves much more overt collaboration between government and industry than ours does.
Their capitalism is more collectivized than ours is (that is, they are more interested in the value, power and prestige of their companies than in short-term profit than we are) and this is something which you can never talk about enough when talking about the differing approaches to fundamental research into high-tech.
When the Japanese try to spend a lot of public money on thirty years worth of robotics research, they are betting on the long-term future in an attempt to give themselves an edge in what they project will be a major world industry and the government is trying to give Japanese industry a leg-up on the rest of the world before the technology and the market it will facilitate even exist. If it works, there will be jobs and money in Japan a long time from now.
Cool desu-neh?
This is something that Japanese science does very well: doing research to create products to exploit markets which gives them the money to do research to create products to exploit markets to... I'm sure you get the idea.
If you don't, read up on the history of IBM before the rise of the personal computer. Pay special attention to the sections on the mainframe computer market.
For an example of one of the consequences of Japan's 'collectivizing' capitalism, read the Time's account of the law suit over the development of the Blue-Light LED by the researcher who made it possible.
By contrast, you can say that we do the same thing in the US on many levels but with shorter-term goals as reflects the current version of American corporate culture. If you don't believe that, please read the New York Time's reporting on some of the corporate tax refunds made under the current administration as well as their environmental policy.
You will see BIG income-tax refunds to corporations--including some to corporations that paid no taxes in recent years--and measures made law that allow corporations to do lots and lots of environmental damage that someone other than the source of the problem has to either live with or pay to clean up later.
Hint: which is the bigger secret under the current administration--which is harder to find out: what are the ingredients for an atomic bomb are or just how polluted the rivers in Texas really are?
Both schools of capitalism enhance the interests of some segment of the societies they represent but their approaches and their results are different: the Japanese model, in its ideal form, will lead to your waking up one day and saying, 'Hey! Where did all these robots come from and why aren't we making them or selling them?!'
The American model is different. It accomplishes results faster. Its effects are more immediately felt: It lets you wake up, right now, and wonder how it can be that the US spends billions (your tax dollars at work!) protecting a dead domestic steel industry and fattening already wealthy agro-businessmen while Ken Lay and others of his ilk remain out of jail long after the collapse of Enron.
Whee!
Now, to the question of government spending, the questions of what the government spends money on or should is a matter of values--essentially, a question of the tastes of those in power--and thus moot questions. You can have things both ways basing your arguments on equally valid, mutually exclusive, base assumptions and chains of reasoning.
Personally, as a hemi-demi-quasi-crypto-lefty, I lean
To mail me, remove the 'mailno' from my email addy.
"Yeah. It smells, too..."