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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?"
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.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
As humans, personify almost all machines we come in close contact with. So, why would our house be any different?
It's just a machine though, whatever we build.
Pretty Pictures!
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.
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?
when you vaccuum ver 2007 opens the front door for someone
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
We need to start implementing these in the code. Seriously. Safety quickly becomes a concern in complex systems.
Sigs? We don't need no stinking sigs!
Just as long as my Hyperdyne Beer Retrieval Robot finds its way to my living room. I'll be ok.
The roomba managed to hit a door in such a way that it closed itself in. Somehow you managed to jump to the conclusion that it's going to start plotting against you or something?
Tinfoil much?
I used to get high on life, but I developed a tolerance. Now I need something stronger.
My mother, many years ago, used to IM me when dinner was ready. Easier than her yelling across the house, and I actually understood what she said.
Moving on though. While all these different tech's in the house could get very very strange... I think the news article has it about right. We will get to the point in which everything is networked togethere, then there really wont be any "odd" behaviors or interactions.
snowulf.com
Computer, where is Commander Data?
Lt. Commander Data is on the Hollodeck.
my tivo became self aware, and began recording wil & grace.
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.
You probably won't get any magic behavior such as your house suddenly turing sentient while you take a nap, but you will definitely see tons of bugs due to the interconnections. Imagine all the problems that occur in companies because software A won't work with software B and extend that to include your room sensors, thermostat, and lights when your sensor system decides to download an upgrade to its firmware but the other systems don't notice.
--
Free iPod? Try a free Mac Mini
Wired article as proof
Roomba: "No dissasemble!"
OK that sucked.
Never ascribe to intelligence what can be explained by mere randomness.
" There has always been ghosts in the machine, random segments of code that have grouped together to form unexpected protocols. Unanticipated these free radicals engender questions of free will creativity and even the nature of... the soul. Why is it that when some robots are left in the darkness they will seek out the light? Why is it that when robots are stored in an empty space they will group together rather than stand alone?... how do we explain this? Random pieces of code? or is it something else. When does a perceptual schematic become consciousness? When does the difference engine become the search for truth? When does the personality simulation become the bitter mote of a soul? " Dr. Alfred Lanning (I,robot)
If i did'nt read this with my own eyes i would'nt have believed this.... i was nagging the wifey yesterday about not putting the roomba back on the charger. To make a boring story shorter... this very same thing happened to my wife yesterday. But being the way she is she just forgot about it until i found the dam thing in a guest room with the door closed hiding under the bed... its little battery exhausted.
*--- Sometimes a majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. ---*
It's the sound of a thousand philosophers rolling their eyes in unison.
I recall reading about a university that "lost" a server. It was one of those unix boxes that can sit untouched for years and not need restarting. After noticing it was missing, they tracked it down by systematically unplugging network cables, and found a cable that went into a wall and never came out. 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.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
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:
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?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
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!"
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.
"As humans, personify almost all machines we come in close contact with."
Humans personify almost everything they come into contact with. It doesn't have to be close contact either.
One of Humanity's biggest curiosities is about humanity. It is perhaps the biggest. The question of humanity is the basis of almost all art. We study animals, and end up teaching dolphins how to use computers, and gorillas how to use sign language. We are constantly looking for the being that can explain us to us: a god, aliens, both, neither, some dude who lost himself on a mountain, and in recent history robots. Maybe if we can consciously build a sentient being from the ground up, we can learn why we are from it. Or maybe if it becomes sentient on its own, it can tell us what it was like, passing in that moment from the mundane into the sublime.
If and when emergent behavior happens, it will be sometime possibly long after we call it emergent behavior. We want it to happen... maybe just to get a perspective that isn't human.
*honk*
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
They're ORGANIZING!!!!! Destroy your Roomba before we're forced to welcome our new Roomba overlords.
did you have to encourage the Roomba to come out of the closet?
The only way one can say that something is "more than the sum of its parts", is if all the parts have been accounted for. In the case of the Roomba inadvertently shutting itself into a room, the "sum" you refer to isn't complete, as it doesn't take into account the interaction of the little device with a door on hinges. When you factor in the latter, it then becomes possible to calculate the statistical INEVITABILITY that a Roomba will accidentally bump a door closed, locking itself into a room.
In summation, the idea of some totality being "more than the sum of its parts" is a seriously fallacious concept. NOTHING is more than the sum of its parts, rather what's really going on is that all factors or variables in a model or equation are not accounted for.
Think about it.
The implied question is, will automation be our legacy to future civilizations? If innovations like Roomba keep coming, and if a catastrophe befalls us in the future, I could certainly see such a thing happening.
Many Bothans died to bring you this sig.
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.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
This concept is also know as 'emergent behavior' and simply refers to the fact that one has to take into account the interaction of the parts as well as the properties of the parts themselves to determine the properties of a system.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
But when the narrator's iPod, Cuisinart, LifeQuilt, and vacuum get together with his girlfriend, it all goes pear-shaped...
Da Blog
Consider law 1; the backbone of the laws:
"1. Robots must never harm human beings or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."
What constitutes harm? If we have a robot that can grab things, but shouldn't grab people because it could hurt them, what happens if someone near it is going to fall if it doesn't grab him? Does it make a difference if it's the roof of a building, or the top of a sofa? People can die by falling from either. Even in the latter case, where death has a far lower probability, serious injury may occur.
The laws are actually more like the spirits of laws. Drafting the letters of those laws is somewhat more complex than programming a robot to vacuum a room.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Yo' mama so ugly, even robots try to hide from her!
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.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
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....."
Well, yea, the romba just hit the door.
Nevertheless, the possibilities are endless what could happen when you locked a bunch of roombas, some cardea segway-style bots, some aibos and and some humanoid robots in your house.
Emergent behaviour means the group could end up behaving in a systematic, apparently intelligent original way that had not been programmed into a single of them.
It doesn't mean they'd gang up to punish you for abusing them, though.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
My Roomba locked me out of the house the other day... I was on my back patio grilling, and had turned the Roomba loose in the house while I was outside (the noise is still a little bit more than I care to hang around for an extended period).
We use that time honored technique of securing sliding glass doors by placing a chopped off broom handle in the track to augment the flimsy door lock. (Yes, I know how fantastically secure that is...)
So while I was out tending to the food and sipping a beer, I hear a "chunk" from inside the house, and I see the Roomba skittering away from the broom handle that it had just pushed neatly into it's "locked" position.
Luckily my family was home and heard my pounding on the door... If I had been home by myself who knows how long I'd been stuck.
And I swear I heard the Roomba cackling evilly as it moved into the next room...
No man is an island, but Gary is a city in Indiana.
This calls to mind Paul Di Filippo's short story And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon, set in the near future. The premise is that the integration of RFID, high-powered microprocessors, and wireless connectivity into every consumer product available is followed by the outbreak of a virus called the Volition Bug. Under its influence, everyday appliances and furniture occasionally form "blebs" which work together to achieve their unfathomable goals, and even achieve sentience.
Karma: Segmentation fault (tried to dereference a null post)
Complete text, badly formatted
Too bad that it was an urban myth. Funny although.
Published quite a while ago, but I remember it as being very good, "The Two Faces of Tomorrow", originally published in 1979, and based on what I remember, it still applies to what could happen in the future. Very interesting read. http://www.jamesphogan.com/books/twoface/baen97/ti tlepage.shtml
(because somebody probably already brought this up), I call your attention to the Tom Selleck movie "Runaway" - which was generally pathetic except for the excellent performance by Gene Simmons of KISS fame as the evil Dr. Charles Luthor.
.357 Magnum clutched in its one "claw".
The specific scenes of interest concern the home robot (the size of a vacuum cleaner without the handle) which has been reprogrammed by Luthor to wipe out the family of a techie accomplice by running around the house with a
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
We will indeed see this kind of emergence, but it will end up being pretty fucking lame. Truly one of the worst episodes eve...er, worst episodes of human history.
"You know why you do not see me styling wit my homies? Because I have no homies!!" -Mojo Jojo
No amontillado for you, ever!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
This is how the Cylons got their start. One minute they were cleaning up the floor, the next minute they were plotting genocide.
For the devices to truly be more than the sum of the hardware, they would not only have to be truly self-aware, but capable of learning about other hardware. Or, continual firmware upgrades when charging - so they get regularly reprogrammed with the ability to "deal" with other automated devices in your home. All of these devices would have to "grow" or "update".
Personally, I'd rather see them go at it like BattleBots. A little duck tape, a nice solenoid and a semi-auto pistol...
Visualize Whirled P.'s
For more, check this.
Da Blog
THREEPIO: He says the restraining bolt has short circuited his recording system. He suggests that if you remove the bolt, he might be able to play back the entire recording.
LUKE: H'm? Oh, yeah, well, I guess you're too small to run away on me if I take this off! Okay.
http://www.fallenjedi.com/anhscript.html
"Democracy." It's just a slogan.
Some of the problems with Asimov's laws of robotics were quite apparent even back in the '40s. The first law is especially difficult : "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot that attempted to strictly follow the first law would, for instance, keep taking away your cigarettes. See Jack Williamson's The Humanoids -- a 1949 novel in which humanoid robots following Asimovian guidelines ("To serve and obey, and guard men from harm") keep an entire planet of humans drugged into complacency, because it's the only way to keep people from endangering themselves.
I was browsing del.icio.us from a link in today's Bittorrent article, and I found a highly relevant story, And The Dish Ran Away With The Spoon by Paul Di Filippo. Read it, and beware!
This is the best OT thread EVER!
± 29 dB
I did a ghost tour in Hobart, and the guy said that they found a tunnel running from Parliament to the basement of a building that was likely to have been a brothel at the time the tunnel was operational.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
That would actually be a fun thing to work on... parking oneself in the room for a few weeks with what little of wiring diagrams could be found, determining IP addresses, mapping network segments, and drafting new network maps. Trying to research/guess passwords to machines no one had logged into for years. Figuring out what services each machine provides and to whom.
:)
Then comes the exciting part when you start unplugging all the cables you think aren't in use and downing the machines that should be redundant or defunct. (somewhat nervously listening for the phone to ring or the pager to go off) You'd be amazed how often the blinky lights are only blinking because several machines are talking with eachother and absolutely no one else outside the room.
Some people may view this as a frightening thing to try, but I'd call it a once-in-a-lifetime challenge.
I've done this sort of thing before, twice, and it IS quite a rush. One of them was only slightly less tangled than this fun picture: http://vftp.net/virtual1/temp/IMAGE011_1wires.jpg
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Actually, the Sun Tzu-bot struck me as benig closer to sentience.
There was an article maybe a year or two ago now about a robot, designed to fight other robots for testing AI fighting strategy or something, that got out of its enclosure and escaped into the parking lot.
One room? Pssh. I'll take my Sun Tzu-bot any day of the week.
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things