Slashdot Mirror
Robots Do The Darndest Things
alito writes "15 years ago they couldn't get them to walk, now they are rollerskating (video). Read more about the 2004 Intelligent Robotics and Systems conference in this New Scientist article, and at the conference's site. Also shown at IROS, a childbirth simulator for obstetricians, a capsule that crawls through your intestines, and a 3-mm long swimming robot. (No, I don't get paid by New Scientist.)"
Do you even read the stories you post?
Bill Cosby interviewing some of those 'bots' :)
...we should be okay...
Doctor: Okay, put the robot in.
Patient: Doc, this feels a little funny...
Doctor: Nurse, which robot did you use?
Nurse: Oh dear god, I think I used the roller skating one!
Patient: AAaagggh...
Doctor: D'oh, there goes another one!
Nurse: Well, I'm off to check on the obstetrical robot!
Doctor: Make sure that one's not wearing rollerskates!
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
You know, not only did I not think that robot was great at roller-skating, I just can't think of any real use for a roller-skating robot even if it were a real ace at the sport. Meanwhile, my house could use cleaning, and there aren't any robots to do it for me (well, Roomba et al, but I'm talking real cleaning). I think there needs to be a reevaluation of priorities in the robot design field. Who needs another goddamned dancing/skating/stairclimbing robot?
is here.
Here is a mirror for the Rollerbot Video:
http://shell.athenet.net/~files/rollerbot.wmv
It'll probably get slashdotted too, but to sources are better than one right?
...they'd likely fire you for directly linking to a 3mb movie file from the front page of Slashdot. I hope their bandwidth fees aren't too bad this month, we'll see how long it holds out before it's totally Slashdotted...
I think you may be missing the point. Rollerskating, running, walking, what have you, are important fundamental tasks that must be worked out before you will *have* a robot that can do something advanced like wash your dishes or walk you dog. If it can't rollerskate with perfection how do you expect a robot to perfrom a mundane task competently. I for one welcome rollerskating robots.
Danny Bot
http://www.dannybot.com/
The robots is a small version of the Honda robot, both are not autonomous as they are controlled by a human operator. Just like UAV with a human on ground guiding it with a joystick.
These Japanese are playing stricks with the media saying they have advanced robots when in fact they are nothing more than radio controlled "toys"!
That robot is using the same roller blades my little sister does!
Who thought of The Matrix immediately after reading the blurb about "3mm swimming robots"
scary.....
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
not that it matters! slashdot would gleefully post your story anyway.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Here's a mirror of the video. Not sure how fast it'll be.
From TFA:
Looks like Professor Xavier may follow shortly!
But seriously, this does seem to be a real potential benefit for all humans. We will effectively be able to extend our own bodies using robotic technology, perhaps controlling figher aircraft and other complex machinery with our minds.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
In my opinion, it is not a question of *when* we'll get trouble from the robots we're going to create, but what we're going to do about it.
We might as well start planning right now. The article in the posting, as well as numerous other reports, show that the robot mechanics is getting better and better. What is lacking, is some real AI. I think that within 30-50 years, if not before, this "problem" will also be solved.
That's when trouble starts. As Isaac Asimov shows in his literary "experiments" with the three laws of robotics, even *with* benign top priority imperatives NOT TO HARM humans, we may not be safe.
Given the mechanics and the AI, how will robots become a threat to us? Imagine a scientist in a robot laboratory sometime in the future. He/she has all the parts needed to produce the ultimate robot: agile and completely autonomous. I think the temptation will be too much for *any* person. It will be impossible to refrain from releasing a completely free and autonomous robot into society to see what happens. Imagine the excitement: This is comparable to a second creation; it is almost like being God.
Naturally, the robot will have a strong need for self preservation. So it will start to secure land, natural resources, labour, spare parts, factories, and so on, and build other robots and societies to fulfill these and other purposes.
This is when conflicts will start. Wars often start as a result of a disagreement over natural resources or land.
Ideas, anyone?
Catheterization robot was recently tested in Israel. The operation was broadcasted over hundreds of hospitals. Unfortunately it's not even on the news yet. I know about it because my brother-in-law was involved in R&D. This is the only place that mentions this event, but it's in Hebrew and requires a reg. fee :(.
More like walking on skates. I can skate better than that.
Seriously, the robot dancer/skater/stairclimber are all interesting but they run through what I assume is a static algorithm . . . what about inducing some disturbance and writing an algorithm to reject the disturbance to the robot's balance system.
The attraction for androids is only skin deep. Today's androids are just a mass of wires. Getting a robot to walk, shake hands, play chess, etc. is substantially different from a sentient machine.
Sentience impresses me, but a mechanical shaking hand does not.
...is alive!
And remember robots eat the medication old people need to live. So act now and get robot insurance.
I used to have a cool sig, back when I cared
Its walking akwardly while wearing wheels on its feet.
Which, to anybody who's learned to skate, is of course remembered fondly as those first steps before you learned why they made you wear those uncomfortable wrist guards.
Its a nice little robotic achievement, but its not skating.
Actual skating would involve a phase of sliding along between "steps".
You can't take the sky from me...
Oops fixed link.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
they can start cooking, cleaning, doing my job, wiping my ass, going to the store, and anything else i have no interest in doing. until then, having them on rollerskates almost pisses me off as much as if i had to rollerskate. and rest assured, if i were rollerskating with a bunch of those fuckers, i'd be kicking them over left and right screaming obscentities about why everyone is irritating and we need more robot-slaves.
We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
(No, I don't get paid by New Scientist.)
Obviously, you get paid by their web host who is now charging them $5 a gig overage charges.
Narrator [in movie]: Ordinary human dating. It's enjoyable and it serves an important purpose. [He turns the table over and a crying baby appears. He turns it back again.] But when a human dates an artificial mate, there is no purpose. Only enjoyment. And that leads to...tragedy.
[The woman behind him turns into a blank robot and the man downloads a celebrity onto it.]
Billy [in movie]: Neato! A Marylin Monroebot!
Monroebot [in movie]: Ooo! You're a real dreamboat (mechanical voice) Billy Everyteen!
Narrator [in movie]: Harmless fun? Let's see what happens next!
[The scene cuts to Billy's bedroom. He is kissing the Monroebot. Enter his mother.]
Billy's Mom [in movie]: Billy, do you want to walk your dog?
Billy [in movie]: No thank Mom, I'd rather make out with my Monroebot.
[Enter his dad.]
Billy's Dad [in movie]: Billy, do want to get a paper route and earn some extra cash?
Billy [in movie]: No thanks dad, I'd rather make out with my Monroebot.
[Enter his girlfriend, Mavis, from the café.]
Mavis [in movie]: Billy, do you want to come over tonight? We can make out together.
Billy [in movie]: Gee Mavis, your house is across the street, that's an awfully long way to go for making out.
Narrator [in movie]: Did you notice what went wrong in that scene? Ordinarily Billy would work hard to make money from his paper route then he'd use the money to buy dinner for Mavis, thus earning the slim chance of performing the reproductive act. But in a world where teens can date robots why should he bother? Why should anyone bother? Let's take a look at Billy's planet a year later. [The scene changes and a foam hand rolls across an empty American football field] Where are all the football stars? [The foam hand continues to drift across an empty laboratory.] And where are the biochemists? [The scene changes to a split screen of a pair of human and robots making out on beds.] They are trapped - trapped in a soft, vice-like grip of robot lips. All civilisation was just an effort to impress the opposite sex. And sometimes the same sex. Now, let's skip forward 80 years into the future. Where is Billy?
[The scene changes to a post-apocalyptic world. Billy is an aged man but he is still with his Monroebot and still making out with her.]
Billy [in movie]: Farewell!
[He dies.]
Narrator [in movie]: The next day Billy's planet was destroyed by aliens. [In the movie a fleet of flying saucers destroy buildings with a quick laser shot.] Have you guessed the name of Billy's planet? It was Earth. Don't Date Robots!
Look, we have Bruce in one freezer for when that football field size meteor comes strait for earth one day, we can just put Smith in the next chamber for when the inevitable day comes and the robots rebel causing bloody murder! Or should I say, MDKs...murder death kill. :)
A stopwatch?
The attraction for androids is only skin deep. Today's androids are just a mass of wires. Getting a robot to walk, shake hands, play chess, etc. is substantially different from a sentient machine.
;-)
Sentience impresses me, but a mechanical shaking hand does not.
2 words: Sex bot.
More words: Buffy bot, Cherry 2000.
You mentioned "skin deep", well we like skin. If you can teach it to shake hands, you can teach it to do other "tasks" as well.
Don't look at me like that, you're all gonna buy one!
You can't take the sky from me...
Making the QRIO skate is not really a big technological achievement considering that the leg motions have already been pre-programmed to get the robot to walk. It is really a matter of calculating the weights and trying to balance the robot while moving the legs to propel the robot.
Now, if they can program a neural network that changes the leg and arm movements in relation to a physics model, and have the robot learn how to walk and skate by trail-and-error, then I'd be more impressed. THAT is what we should aim for nowadays.
Being an ob/gyn myself, I read the article on the birthing simulator. Reminds me of the Star Trek episode when Warf delivers a baby and says, "That's not the way it happened in the simulator." I wonder if the simulator squirts body fluids, yells and curses like real life. There's just no telling where techonology will go next. Prostate exam simulator?
No man's an island, unless he's had too much to drink and wets the bed.
Did you watch the video? It's not so much 'rollerskating' as it is 'walking on feet with wheels'. There's a huge difference. Another poster nailed it. These machines aren't autonomous, they are being controlled from somewhere else. While I appreciate the fluid motion that has been exhibited from these demonstrations before (just not this one), don't for a moment believe that we're going to have walking, talking robots as part of human society any time soon. Some of the most complex problems in software engineering have barely been scratched with respect to giving a machine general autonomous control. It may take a whole new computing paradigm before we see robots that can properly skate down a sidewalk avoiding random obstacles as conventional techniques just aren't flexible enough to build a system that can do even the most basic functions of the simplest animals.
Please save us some time bringing up a player that cannot work. I have to do a search to find RealPlayer 10.
If it's windows media or apple player only, some us using only Linux would know not to bother.
Timothy only posted a story about a certain robot.
For men, opening an umbrella up yout ar5e, as suggested by Robin Williams in oneof his stand-up shows.
You don't need a lab to make mud.
Ideas, anyone?
plenty. And I agree with you, but while Asimov wrote some great stories, the "three laws" are a useful plot device at best. Development of real, human friendly AI will have to take into account resource contention etc. just as you point out. The most important thing is that, also as you pointed out, the temptation is too great for prohibitions to work. We have to develop friendly AI before we accidentally create unfriendly AI. (And for AI I hear include any sort of A-Life which has the potential for self-direction)
[-- Trust the Monkey --]
I dunno if I'd call that rollerskating. It's looks more like it's walking with skates on. Anyone who's ever skated would know the difference.
Christ, this looks like something that might make a good Simpsons gag. First the robot lamely slides off of a ramp (presumably to gain some speed?), then for no apparent reason it grinds to a halt. It stands motionless for a good 10 seconds before it starts moving again. The arms spread as if it's about to take off, the legs move a little, and it segues into something that looks like water ballet for geriatrics. Ugh. I don't know what to think of this.
Because of this, legged robots are back to walking, rather than jogging or running. The field has regressed since Raibert and Hodgins.
Just like the weirdoes who grew up on star trek invented flip phones and PCs...these guys grew up on Japanese anime, where androids and 50 foot tall battlerobots are commonplace. These guys are trying to invent this stuff for real! ...and unlike us it looks like they are making some progress at least on the small scale. If you can have a robot rollerskate or do sumo moves you can replace those arms with machine guns or grenade launchers. Weve watched in Iraq how useless tanks are in cities.
We are all acting like a bunch of babies regurgitating frankenstein/terminator pablum or making ooh cute toys, instead of doing serious work.
Are the robots going to take all our jobs away...a lot of them... eventually. but new jobs will be created...and no they wont be burger flipping(the robots will be doing that too).
If you guys remember we didnt invent the car either, but American car companies still did okay for almost 80 or 90 years and some are still profitable.
All you IT guys thrown out of work by Indian programmers now have something to do. Whos going to be the Apple computer of robotics?
I always view the goal of robotics development as the advance of intelligent mechantronics device... The cool things mentioned are cool mechantronics device (Honda humanoid robot, the tiny swimming bot etc). They are remotely controlled, make possible because of the improvements in control theory (humanoid robot) and MEMS (tiny bots).
In terms of the intelligence, there aren't much improvements...
Are you kidding? The process is as automated as possible. The reader submits story and a script assigns a 1d20 probability in that story being selected (based on the karma and subscription status of the submitter, of course). If it manages to pass that AC rating check, the script assigns the story an editor name at random and publishes it to the front page. Of course, stories occationaly roll and natural 20, wence they are kicked to a live editor for approval. Obviously this isn't a common occurance as you can tell.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
I find a calendar works well. Month-at-a-glance seems the easiest. ;-)
Robots needs to do some serious catching up.
.. mmmm luvly :)
They are probably 20 years behind.
We hardly have a HAL that can sing bad tunes.
Or a Terminator with a speech impairment.
Maybe too many people are taking computer courses but not (electronic) engineering.
Can't wait to have my personal cyber-bar-maid
Now you can get Arizona Drinks in the UK
I built one for my girlfiend using lego mindstorm - she like it anyhow.
I for one welcome our new roller-skating-3mm swimming-intestine-crawling-child-birthing-robot overlords!
http://www.caip.rutgers.edu/vrlab/publications/pap ers/1999_ieee_tbe.pdf , prostate examination simulator, there is one for the simulation of the female pelvis too .... no telling of what can be built given the time , money and idle brains of grad students
I thought the porno music soundtrack they used for the robot was quite effective.
Time for the obligatory Futurama quote.
Fry: "Well, so what if I love a robot? It's not hurting anybody."
Hermes: "My God! He never took middle school hygiene. He never saw the propaganda film."
Farnsworth: "It's just lucky I keep a copy in the VCR at all times!"
Look at all the computer virii, worms, etc. released over the past 20 years. None of these were an "accident". Every single mallicous program ever created has been an intentional act.
So considering robots and AI, if intelligent robots decide to start killing and take over the world it will be by human design before it's ever a result of robotic nature and/or independant decision. Some mallicious person will attempt to build a robot that has the skills necessary to reproduce and cause as much damange as possible.
Sounds very similar to the function of a computer virus today right?
What the /. crowd really needs is a simulator for the part that happens 9 mos. earlier.
Note that Worf tried this once. There was an accident and became paralysed. One mildly sucessful treatment involved relays transmitting signals to his muscles from the brain through electronic devices.
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
Best headline ever. =)
I can seriously see how this would be important for the robot scientists, as it helps develop balancing and so forth.
You cant fight in here, its a war room!
http://www.androidworld.com/prod01.htm
Maybe roller-skating is much easier than cleaning a real home with all its niches and obstacles, after all. You'd have to teach the robot that the carpet has to be hoovered, and the windows need to be cleaned with a sponge, water and a few drops of dish washing liquid in it and not the other way round. You need to tell it not to pour any water over your brand new 21" TFT, and you'd have to hardwire the use of stonger detergents for cleaning the toilet. You might even have to encode a map of your place so that the robot doesn't get lost (if the robot needs energy, do you really have _two_ unused sockets in each room of your house--one for the robot, one for the hoover)?
There's two way of tackling this: bottom-up or top-down. Top-down means you do research on robots that roller-skate, somebody else might do a little project teaching robots how to climb stairs etc, and none of the might have applications in mind. The bottom-up approach starts from the current-day state of the art and uses proven engineering principles to push that state of the art just a little bit further with each product generation. So you'd start designing hoovers, then hoovers that detect vases and avoid bumping into them, then you add an additional arm that cleans windows on the fly etc. Each generation is rolled out to alpha/beter test users and eventually to real customers before the next stage. In practice, the first type of research and development ("academic") and the latter ("industrial") usually interact, but not nearly as much as one would wish, since assumptions and motivations are very different.
--
If you're in Britain, try Nuggets , our mobile search engine. We answer your questions via SMS.
You'd have to teach the robot that the carpet has to be hoovered, and the windows need to be cleaned with a sponge, water and a few drops of dish washing liquid in it and not the other way round. You need to tell it not to pour any water over your brand new 21" TFT, and you'd have to hardwire the use of stonger detergents for cleaning the toilet.
I don't think this is very hard. You just have to give the robot a list of things together with the apropriate detergent. The more difficult part about cleaning is to detect the level of cleanliness (one wipe usually is not enough). From a user perspective, nothing would be more disappointing than a cleaning robot that worse at cleaning than an unmotivated teenager.
Twice the karma!
I put my dishes in racks in a box, push a button, and two hours later I have steaming hot clean dishes.
Oh wait, that's my dishwasher.
Where law ends, tyranny begins -- William Pitt
Okay. But if location of things is not fixed (chairs) or can contain objects (tables, desks), then you need to recognize objects before matching "things" against your detergent list. Pattern recognition is hard.
So I click on the video and M$ Media Player Installer starts and on the first screen says that it is going to take over my machine and take over any kind of media it detects, etc.
Please, please, I beg of you people, don't use M$ formats.