Household Emergent Behavior?

Sam Pullara asks: "I got an IM from my Mom today telling me that she couldn't find her Roomba. It somehow had escaped the kitchen and she couldn't find it anywhere, all the doors that it could reach were shut and she checked under everything. She eventually found that it had gotten into a room and closed the door behind it. Once all household items are networked I wonder if a rich environment like a house will make strange behavior like this commonplace? Will the interactions between all the individual devices create something more than the sum of their parts?"

Comments

Obligatory bash.org reference

[slavemowgli]

#5273 +(16837)- [X]

<erno> hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.

I just couldn't help but think of that. :) (#5273) And BTW, if I may say so, your mother's quite cool if she has a Roomba and knows how to use IMs. I can't imagine mine ever doing either.

Re:Obligatory bash.org reference

[david.given]

I'll remind you of this old story; which if you come to think of it, is quite an advertisement for Novell products...

Re:Obligatory bash.org reference

[Hognoxious]

They need to search the probable locations in reverse order, because you always find it in the last place you look.

haha

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha, the roomba hid. My desire to build a robot that does nothing but hides (a cockroachbot, if you will) has never been higher. It could avoid light and run when touched. Release in neighbor's house for excess amusement.

alive

[mrwoody]

Does this mean that her roomba was alive?
Are you sure that it wasn't your dad that put in the closet?
Is this story slashtod worthy?

wait for the first network devices virus

[way2trivial]

when you vaccuum ver 2007 opens the front door for someone

Three rules safe.

[stephenisu]

We need to start implementing these in the code. Seriously. Safety quickly becomes a concern in complex systems.

Re:Three rules safe.

[daeley]

A machine that could even distinguish a people from an inanimate object would be a major breakthrough.

"Is it moving?" might be a good place to start the if statements.

Then, "Is it making noise?"

If so, "Is it waving a torch at my sensors?" or "...shooting me with its puny projectile weapons?" or "...wriggling and squishy when I step on it?" are logical next steps.

Re:Three rules safe.

[barawn]

You're talking Azimov's "Laws"? I find their continued currency frustrating. The might work intuitive in a hand-waving 1940s science fiction story. But when you try to find a place for them in modern Computer Science, they're just too vague and general to plug in anywhere. How on earth do you program "don't hurt people"? A machine that could even distinguish a people from an inanimate object would be a major breakthrough.

I think you're misunderstanding the point of the Three Laws. I've been really, really tempted to build a very simple Three Laws compliant robot just to explain exactly what they mean.

Fundamentally, the basic question of any autonomous artificial intelligence is "how do I figure out what to do?" and to do that, it needs to have some guiding principles. The Three Laws certainly can be those guiding principles, and they are certainly not too general to plug in somewhere.

Let me give you an example of how to build a basic Three Laws robot. Build a robot, with two ultrasonic motion sensors - one pointing outward, the other pointing downward. The one pointing outward is a "human sensor" - if there's an object closer than, say, 1 meter, there's a human present. Now add two spring-released sliding plates - one in front of the "human sensor", and one right above the "robot", which is below the downward-facing sensor.

You now can represent the Three Laws as a flowchart, and the robot as a state machine, with a "World" (OBJECT_FALLING, HUMAN_PRESENT, TOP_PLATE_OUT, BOTTOM_PLATE_OUT) and a "Command" list, with flags (COMMAND_FIRSTLAW, COMMAND_HUMAN, COMMAND_NORMAL).

The decision tree, with Three Laws embedded, then becomes something like

UpdateWorldState();
if (CommandExists(COMMAND_FIRSTLAW))
{ // First law overrides all else
ProcessNextCommand(COMMAND_FIRSTLAW)
return;
}
if (CommandExists(COMMAND_HUMAN))
{ // Human commands override self-preservation
ProcessNextCommand(COMMAND_HUMAN);
return;
}
if (CommandExists(COMMAND_NORMAL))
{ // Other commands
ProcessNextCommand(COMMAND_NORMAL);
return;
}
if (WorldState(OBJECT_FALLING & HUMAN_PRESENT & ~TOP_PLATE_OUT))
{ // First Law
InsertCommand(TOP_PLATE, COMMAND_FIRSTLAW);
return;
}
if (HumanCommandPresent())
{ // Second Law
InsertCommand(TOP_PLATE, COMMAND_HUMAN);
return;
}
if (WorldState(OBJECT_FALLING & ~BOTTOM_PLATE_OUT)
{ // Third Law
InsertCommand(BOTTOM_PLATE, COMMAND_NORMAL);
return;
}

(where, presumedly, human commands are present until rescinded)

This robot would follow all of Asimov's Three Laws - it will stick the plate out to prevent a human's hand from gettin hurt if an object is falling to it, it will follow the human's orders, but it won't allow a human to get injured, and it will try to protect itself unless a human orders otherwise (it should also try to protect a human before protecting itself, but that state would never really happen in this setup).

You'll of course say this is an extremely simplistic setup, and it's not perfect. You're right. That's not the point - the point is that you can slowly, over time, build a Three Laws Safe robot over time, as the "World" state and "Command" lists become more complicated.

So, the answer to your question "how do you program 'don't hurt people'" is to have a robot evaluate the state of the world, estimate what the world state will be in the future, and determine if any of the Three Laws would be broken, and take action to prevent it. The action to "how do you recognize a human" is entirely dependent upon the sensory perceptions of the robot. So what if it mistakes something else for a human? It's just trying to fulfill its basic programming.

This should sound remarkably similar to another programm

Just..

[computerme]

Just as long as my Hyperdyne Beer Retrieval Robot finds its way to my living room. I'll be ok.

Computer!

[bahamat]

Computer, where is Commander Data?

Lt. Commander Data is on the Hollodeck.

Re:Computer!

[ravenspear]

Computer, where is Commander Data?

Actually, he's in the ship's third grade classroom.

at 2:14am

[Anonymous Coward]

my tivo became self aware, and began recording wil & grace.

Re:at 2:14am

[node 3]

my tivo became self aware, and began recording wil & grace.

Thus restoring balance to the Universe--one machine goes into the closet, and another comes out.

I've got some bad news for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Your mom is getting old and losing her memory. It's easier for her to blame a robot than to accept this reality. We call this denial.

Oh, and some other bad news, it's probably hereditary.

Dialogue

[mao che minh]

Your mom: "Hey, where's my roomba?"
Roomba: "No dissasemble!"

OK that sucked.

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens when the wanna-be geeks try to play too. "Oooh, robots" "Ohh something wierd happened" "Ohh I said 'Emergent behavior', all the other geeks will be so impressed!!"

Someone needs to start fud.slashdot.com where all the fakes and alarmists can go to hang out.

Re:What's that saying?

[slavemowgli]

Roomba's Razor?

Did You Hear That?

[cynic10508]

It's the sound of a thousand philosophers rolling their eyes in unison.

Re:Of Course.

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep denying the ghost in the machine and you will wake up one day to welcome your new overlord and master.

Please, Think of the Roombas!

[MBCook]

Clearly, there is more to this story that you've told us. Are you sure your Mom has told you everything? I think it was hiding from abuse. Here are some theories:

• Does your Mom keep spilling the SAME thing in the SAME spot every day and making the Roomba clean it?
• Does she empty it's dust bin too much?
• Does she let the dust bin overflow and never empty it, making the poor Rooba overweight and feel "fat"?
• Does she have a pet that keeps attacking or chasing the poor Roomba?
• Does she have a pet that doesn't respect the Roomba's teritory and that it's higher in the pack than the pet?
• Does your mom often use the virtual walls to set up mazes for the Roomba to navigate to find the little spot of dirt that needs cleaning at the exit?
• Does she use the remote (if she has that model) to make it go forward, and backward, and forward, and backward, and...

Clearly, the poor little thing is being abused, and was forced to run and hide from your mom. You need to go and help it. Only someone truely evil would stand by while a little household appliance would tortured against it's will. Won't someone please think of the Roombas?

I Hope So

[vjmurphy]

I can't wait for my toaster, microwave, cordless telephone, stereo receiver and PC to form some sort of Voltron-like super tech.

The only problem is that I'm pretty sure none of my current 12+ remote controls will be able to command it effectively.

"Voltron, put down the cat. Damn, wrong remote!"

I'm sorry Dave...

[benw1979]

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

So...

[Geoffreyerffoeg]

did you have to encourage the Roomba to come out of the closet?

Re:I don't believe this

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife IS my Roomba: "FASTER Roomba or I'll get the whip!"

Re:Emergent bugs instead of features.

[Sephiriz]

Time to implement vacuum coding standards!

Kill It!

[JanneM]

Kill It. Kill it now. It is an early spawn of Evolution, and will only seek to multiply itself at the cost of right-thinking, right-leaning, right-voting churchgoers.

If you do not kill it at once, then eventually, you will have to face down and destroy its progeny, including condom machines, male organ likenesses, and anything soft with a hirsute demeanour.

Re:lost hardware

[rah1420]

Turns out the server got sealed in by construction as a panel was put on the other side of it, making it part of a wall.

"For the love of God, Montressor!"

Yo Mama

[Anonymous Coward]

Yo' mama so ugly, even robots try to hide from her!

prank

[goombah99]

In college I once built a tiny device that that could be hidden in a ceilng tile that would emit a de-localized sounding cricket chirp. If you turned the lights on to look for it it turned off. After the lights went off it waited 20 minutes then emitted a chirp about every few minutes. Victim either had to leave dorm room light on at night or go crazy hunting for it.

Re:prank

[spywarearcata.com]

Once back in my Bandley 3 days, I hid an LED with half a 555 timer and a battery up in the acoustic tile so that the dome of the LED was ensconced within one of the camouflaging grots.

It was timed to flash just outside what I estimate the tipping point of boredom for people whose eye caught one of its flashes.

Coupled with the obsessive engineers who noticed it, it was both hilarious and -- instructive.


Now, I suppose, I would design it with a cadmium sulfide resistor so that the flashing interval would increase if it noticed less ambient light, which might happen if a head were close to discovering it.

Re:prank

[uberdave]

My boss had a keychain finder that beeped when you wistled. He also had a Compaq Luggable (this was back in the 80's). When the luggable powered up, it would beep. The powerup beep was at just the right frequency to set off the keychain finder. This, of course, led to the eventual "hide the keychain and watch the boss go crazy trying to find it" game. I hid it in the drawer, under the keyboard, beneath the machine, etc. One day I opened up the machine and taped the keychain to the underside of the lid. It drove him nuts.

Houston, we have lost a S.W.O.R.D.S. unit

[slashname3]

Humourous story!

Now when the military looses one of those new robot SWORDS that are autonomous like the roombas then we have a news story. Time to get the popcorn and turn on the news.



"It has been three hours and there is no signs that the chase will end. Facinating sight really, small robot running down the freeway with a string of 80 police vehicles creeping along behind it. The police are having to re-think how to stop this little robot. Their last attempt ended in failure when the vehicles placed in front as a baracade where blown apart to make way for the robot. It is not clear just how many rockets are still on the robot. Of course their first idea was to let it run its systems down. However everyone was surprised when it looted several cars for their batteries. At this point the chase could go on all night....."

Re:lost hardware

[Uart]

So.. did they at least give the server a cask of booze in the wall with it?

Re:So...

[VikingBerserker]

Somehow you managed to jump to the conclusion that it's going to start plotting against you or something?

It's funny you should mention that. Last night, some woman named Sarah Connor called me to come get my Roomba from her front porch.

Re:Meh

[Class Act Dynamo]

When my mother first got her computer, she would IM me since I was away at college. One time, a girl I knew put up an away message on my computer that I will paraphrase as, "Out associating with a multitude of young, scantily-clad, homosexual men." My mom IMed me once while this away message was up and has never IMed me again to this day.

Re:lost hardware

[Queer Boy]

So.. did they at least give the server a cask of booze in the wall with it?

They gave it a network connection.

Re:How do you do that?

[pmsr]

Easy! As long as it doesn't cause "organ failure or the permanent impairment of a significant body function" it's ok.

/Pedro

Nevermore!

[Ohreally_factor]

No amontillado for you, ever!

This is how . . .

[sunspot42]

This is how the Cylons got their start. One minute they were cleaning up the floor, the next minute they were plotting genocide.

Re:What's that saying?

[PetoskeyGuy]

Blue States:
Never ascribe to intelligence what can be explained by mere randomness.

Red States:
Anything that cannot be explained must be attributed to a greater intelligence.

Re:What's that saying?

[fm6]

Thank you! I hate being at loss for a word!

OK then, you're my dumbass.

Re:urban myth

[Anonymous Coward]

I know a guy who built a network in a Russell/Campbell office. He wanted to connect two buildings but the only way to do it was to lay the cable over the road. So if you know where to look, there's a particular driveway that has a speed hump and the speed hump is full of CAT5 UTP.

[losing karma]

[SmittyTheBold]

This is the best OT thread EVER!