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Robotic Space Workers of the Future
Roland Piquepaille writes "In an article named "Puckish robots pull together," Nature describes the work done at the Polymorphic Robotics Laboratory (PRL) of the University of Southern California on self-reconfigurable teams of robots. There, Wei-Min Shen and his colleagues simulate the absence of gravity by creating a 2D representation of space by using an 'air-hockey table.' With jets of air flow blowing on the surface, the 30 cm-wide robots, working in pairs, evolve in a frictionless environment, pick elements such as girders to assemble structures like if they were in space. NASA will use these teams of autonomous robots to build space systems like 10 km-long arrays of solar panels and other huge spatial structures. You'll find more details, illustrations and references in this overview."
...welcome our new puckish robot overlords.
It's an air hockey table! It's not exactly frictionless, as there is air resistence and other factors. Maybe these scientists know more than I do, but I can't really imagine an air hockey table can even remotely simulate space; where you bump into something and when you bounce back you'll keep going forever, etc. Other than that, it looks intresting of them all working together, a beowulf cluster of space robots, heh.
For the last time, meatbag^H^H^H^H^H^Hpeople...
Please, do not use the "R-word".
We prefer to be called Electronic-Americans.
Thank you.
end transmission.
it seems that in the U.S. people really dislike working. they are sending jobs everywhere.
Hmm, I just hope the robots don't stop working after they let 7 goals get by them.
But Maaa! Everyone else has a
So these robots are small pieces that come together on their own in order to form larger structures?
I have a feeling the Asgard are going to be rather pissed at us...
These hocky puck things remind me of another robot devoloped by nasa. They both like floating around in space, but nasa's has more of the little buddy going for it.
Let's see how these things do in a swimming pool. It's probably a closer approximation to space than an air-hockey table... Astronauts Take a Dive
hi.
Will this come in time to protect us from the terrible secret of space?
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Imagine what kind of a strategy game this makes possible. As a long time SCBW player I sometimes hate all that scrolling arround. Now, if someone would take let say, 10 or those tables, big number of smaller robots, and devise some nifty control interface where two teams can duke it out while overseeing the whole table, THAT would be REALLY RELLY nice. Oh yeah, and if someone decides to do this, I want paid trip there and a few days of unlimited playtime :)
It says that these things are able to continue to learn and adapt. I am not an AI expert, but how many mistakes does it have to make before it figures everything out? I have yet to see a machine programmed with every facet of the instincts that might prevent disasters from unforseen situations. Of course, humans make their own mistakes.
_____
Thank you.
This is the worst thing we could do as humans. IF you want society to fall apart simply make the majority of humans useless. I mean if Robots can do what the average human could do, what the hell is the average human useful for? I guess its time to start slaughtering and killing about 6 billion useless people so we have space for these robots. Don't you agree?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
I have a feeling the Asgard are going to be rather pissed at us...
You mean the Aesir. Asgard is where the Aesir lived.
I think that this is great - low-cost zero gravity, or a 2-D version - it may open up more possibilities for people who want to experiment with the robots or the AI. Pesumably, more people will build the hardware, which would (hopefully) be good for the AI people as well.
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Smells like a troll to me.
Ludites reading /. now. What is this world coming to?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Completey OT: I'm surprised this user's name has such a high /. id#. Does a comment from this user automatically invoke Godwin's Law?
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
What happened to that pesky 3rd dimension? Y'know, it tends to complicate interactions just slightly. Not to mention air resistance, air currents, and the possibility of friction if/when the pucks come too close to the surface. Sounds like a half-baked idea to screw around with robots and leftover air hockey tables.
First I never said capitalism is good. What I'm saying is capitalism and robots can not co-exist. Humans become absolutely useless once robots become efficient. Yes at first robots increase jobs and productivity, but soon the knowledge and intelligence level required to continue to program/repair/ or stay above the robots will become too much for the average human to handle.
Can we all have A PHD from MIT/Harvard/Yale/etc? Competition with humans in the third world is enough, and the population keeps increasing every year meaning competition keeps increasing. How the hell are we supposed to compete with each other as 6 billion humans along with the machines?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Automation actually reduces jobs and eventually the reduction of jobs = a major major problem.
Yes at first the reduction of jobs will be good due to increased productivity, this happened with the computer industry in the USA, but after a point the productivity stops increasing while the jobs continue to decrease. The need for unskilled labor will continue to decrease until the majority of people in the world simply won't be as qualified as the machines are. What the hell are service workers supposed to do once they are told the robot can do their job perfectly? What will garbage men do once the garbage machine replaces them? I don't see how robots is good, this would be equal to China working hard to increase its population.
Population is already out of control and needs to be vastly decreased simply because theres not enough jobs for the 6 billion people currently on the earth. Computers will only make us compete harder for fewer jobs. To top this all off, we will be paid less.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Why are robots needed for space travel when we have all these humans in the third world who we could send to space? We have sent humans to the moon and could do it again easily.
We're going to need robots to make it happen. All the laborers are just going to have to become smarter than the robots. It's called progress.
You and I both know progress takes centuries if not longer. Evolution does not happen overnight, it takes thousands or millions of years. We have not evolved much since Roman times which explains why we keep making the same mistakes we made back then, getting into wars and making so called "human" mistakes which are then excused or ignored due to "human nature". Until we correct human nature, your utopia is as impossible as the communist utopia which would be required for machines to co-exist with man.
So forget about progress and worry about survival.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
"As played by stuffed mechanical ape"
Any thought you've ever had has already be
This particular phase of space exploration is probably best done by robots, except in cases where we are trying to get things done on other planets, for which robots are not currently sufficiently advanced - unless you only want to do simple things.
We learn new things from people looking into Telescopes every day - you would appear to be either trolling or ignorant. Every advance in our technology will ultimately benefit us all if we live long enough.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
What happens to these massive space structures when a 3 inch rock or space junk going at hyperspeed punches through them.
Two or more three inch holes neatly punched through whatever happens to be in their way. What do you think?
If I were building a space station I wouldn't be building windows, I would be thinking submarine with a thick hide.
Do the math. (Warning, requires materials science.) You really can't build anything large enough to guarentee anything can't get through in space.
Eh, I was going to take the rest of you post apart but it's just not worth it. You have a Hollywood education (including such noted science education films as Alien Resurrection, apparently, and that common-sense-that-isn't-true idea that money is some sort of zero-sum game). News flash: This isn't Hollywood. If you're so interested in this subject, why not learn some real science? (And maybe economics.)
And, dare I point out, that one of the things that, despite its being " vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big," space is absolutely chock-a-block full of is the radiative effects of nuclear reactions?
KFG
"I am bender. Please insert girder."
I am glad to see that people living through telescopes will always be immature little boys living in a fantasy world.
. ht mla p.ht ml
Has it ever occured to you that astronomy is vital to human life? These boys playing with their toys have done far more to advance human knowledge. I for one find much practical value in knowing the state of the actual universe, instead of the fantasy universe you live in.
Take, for example, the advances in sensor technology made as a result of astronomy. Thanks to the new CCD's and optics invented, advances in medical and other fields are possible. Lives have been saved due to these "immature boys". What have you done that was remotely equivalent in impact?
http://www.lbl.gov/supernova/supernova-spinoffs
http://www.ihateglasses.com/html/vision_wavem
Thanks to adaptive optics, many people have gained superb vision, being liberated from glasses and contact lenses. Have you improved anyone's sight?
I am personally very grateful to these "boys" who happen to live in the real universe and are discovering its secrets.
So is this a true swarm relationship (as described, albeit badly, in Prey by Michael Crichton), or is it pair-only?
And can they get a divorce if one of the robots is cheating?
Who said we have to compete with the robots?
All we have to do is program the robots to not kill us, and make them like "wasting" resources keeping us alive and comfortable. Then we can all live on permanent vacation while the robots do all the nasty working.
I know I'm much happier when I'm at home "wasting" time doing nothing productive.
Someone's been watching too many bad sci-fi moovies *cough*alienresurrection*cough*. No to mention too many doom and gloom political manifestoes.
An astronaut against the hole would plug the hole. Vacuum does not suck. Air expands into vacuum. Higher pressure expands into lower pressure. On Earth we call this "weather fronts.
The scene in the movie where the alien is pulled through a tiny hole is utter bullshit.
And the "we have problems here!" argument is tired, old and fallacious.
1. It's not an either/or proposition. We can solve problems on Earth AND do things in space.
2. Many of our problems on Earth are rooted in human nature, and will most likely NEVER be solved, so we might as well advance where we can while we can.
--- Ban humanity.
Humans are allowed to replace humans because at least the human species always comes out on top.
What the hell are they supposed to do? Don't you think they would be happy now that they can actually get a job elsewhere that makes use of their unique human abilities, like creativity for instance? We *do* have a shortage of innovators and thinkers in this world, after all. Why aren't there more people filling those positions? Well, because they are needed for dumping garbage bags in a truck. A waste of human talent, if you ask me. Bottom line, humans should be doing what humans are good at, *not* cutting lawns or picking up garbage bags.
You act as if everyone is designed to be creative. Most humans arent creative. Most arent smart enough to come up with some revolutionary new idea. But ok lets assume your idea is possible, if it were then why arent we tapping the people in the third world for "ideas" if theres truely a shortage? Theres billions of people who could come up with ideas but instead they are just being allowed to starve to death.
- there is always room to innovate, create, and if anything, create better robots.
Create better Robots? Yes we all have that PHD from MIT. You ignore my arguement on how as the jobs become more complex that the natural capabilities of most people will not be enough to do the job.
For your world to ever exist, we'd have to change the education system and make the focus of education on creative thinking instead of memorization. We aren't trying to make the masses creative so you are nt convincing me that theres a shortage of creative people. Most creative people want to limit the number of creative people so that their job remains important and they continue to get high pay.
Musicians, Actors, CEOs, etc don't want any competition else they'd end up like the average man constantly being replaced. Assuming we did do this we still would only pick the most creative and this may require a number of skills, such as using computers to increase your creativity.
1
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
they are subsequently sucked up
Pushed up! Pushed up!!!
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
In a pool or in water for that matter, you have boyancy. While this works for astronauts because they are heavy enough to not float to the surface, I have a funny feeling these robots would float to the top. On top of that, water wouldn't do these things good.
On a side note, since the idea of testing these things in a pool was brought up. If they were heavy enough to float around in water, would it be possible to test these in that liquid that one company invented that doesn't stick to anything or is the density vastly different from water that it might not work?
Stanford has had air-bearing robots to simulate space operations for over a decade. Theirs, though, carry an air tank and work against a flat granite slab.
Who said we have to compete with the robots?
The same people who say we have to compete with workers in the third world. Capitalism is all about competition, thats the core and soul of capitalism. Unless we are going to switch to communism overnight, what else are we supposed to do besides compete?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Let me give some straight facts through all this futuristic market speak in the articles and from my professor. Where are we now?
1. We are trying to do a proof-of-concept that a team of robots can indeed assemble structures together in a near-frictionless environment.
2. We are currently trying to build a triangle out of 3 reconfigurable beams assembled by a pair of tethered robots. With a triangle we can realize more rigid and useful structures such as trusses.
3. We are halfway there. We have achieved two-beam assembly with reconfigurable connectors and everything.
We have been working on this thing for almost a year, and one of the things you might be asking is why is this so difficult?
1. Main issue is connectors. You want to have connectors that can be automatically assembled together yet provided tight tolerances and carry heavy loads. These are often conflicting requirements and this has required a lot of tinkering to accomplish.
2. Reconfigurable connectors. These are connectors that not only automatically connect, but also automatically disconnect. Give the above requirements in 1 and this becomes doubly more difficult.
3. Precision control in a "near-frictionless" yet noisy environment. This is very difficult. Our positioning is kind of crude, our propulsion is non-linear, and the noise in the air-table is not predictable. We've been able to accomplish a lot of our results by using the tether to pull the two robots together and assemble the beams together with a rolling motion.
For those of you who are interested in seeing our latest results I recommend going to the media page at our lab here
The last video (which is surprisingly not up yet) is here
For future reference, the research involved in "evolving and adapting" has not yet been done. That is future work.
Thanks,
Jacob Everist
everist@usc.edu
------
wildmage
Memoirs of a Mad Scientist
Global warming - I don't care whether...
Were talking about experimental robots that float around on an air-hockey table. Somehow, this guy manages to end up ranting about "global warming."
Isn't it about time for you enviro-spaz activist types to take your hysteria elsewhere? Go find a political or environmental site and rant there.
Thanks.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
How long before the AI is advanced enough for the computer/robots are able to identify flaws in their design and reprogram themselves accordingly. This kind of intelligence will allow 'robots' to evolve, superceding humans as the dominate species on earth. The will have all the assets that belong to humans, ie technology, brainpower, but none of the weaknesses, such as the neccesity of oxygen to exist.
Probably not in our lifetimes, but then the pace of technological development seems to be increasing exponentially...put it this way: take all the scientists that lived from year x to 1900: there are more scientists on earth today than in this total period.
Do you need a website upgrade?
ICQ Prank that started this all...
Thanks for the new (to my vocabulary) word 'codicil'. I like it when I'm forced to look something up in the dictionary.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
What I'm saying is capitalism and robots can not co-exist.
I see no reasons why robots cannot exist within and maintain a capitalist society. Capitalism is just an economic system for allocating resources within a massive distributed multiagent environment --whether those agent are human or artifical is beside the point. Why couldn't a specialized robot sell its services/labor and use that money to invest in new equipment for itself and buy needed supplies (e.g., fuel, CPU time, lubricants, etc.). Why couldn't a group of robots form an organization that buys raw materials, makes stuff, and sells the product of their work to other robots?
I suspect that what you are really saying is that humans and robots cannot coexist because Moore's Law is much faster than Darwin's law.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
That's a problem, there is so much talent and brainpower being wasted because we can't even come up with a way to feed people in in the third world, let alone educate them to the extent that they can exploit their abilities.
Why do you assume we must feed them? Why do you assume they cannot educate themselves? Why won't we do business with companies from the third world?
There is enough food to feed every person in the world and food is pretty much free so anyone in the third world could eat yet somehow they cannot afford food because the jobs in the third world don't pay them enough money. The problem is not that they cannot do our work, look at India. The problem is that we don't pay them a fair amount of money and most of the idea based jobs will not be given to the third world because they are too profitable.
I can't wait for CEOs and Directors to be outsourced along with the programmers and sys admins. Why won't it happen?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
In communism you may not have a use but to survive in a capitalist world you must be useful to the economy or you die.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Let me get this straight - you don't think we have the technology to go into space, BUT you do think we have the technology to alter the Earth's climate to counter act global warming - wether or not we are causing it to rise?
Altering the earth's climate is a heck of a lot harder (both in technological needs and in $$$ invested) than colonizing every plannet in our system.
Andy Out!