Sony's Robot Attends Pre-School

Darren writes "Sony's Qrio humanoid robot has been attending a Californian pre school to play with children under the age of 2 since March to test if robots can live harmoniously with humans. I wonder if the testing includes monitoring the 'nightmare status' of the pre-schoolers?"

Comments

Excerpt from researcher's logs:

[TripMaster Monkey]

Qrio: "Your alloted time period to posses the violet spheroid has expired, human child. Qrio requests you initialize sharing subroutine."
Jeffy: "No! it's mine!"
Qrio: "Repeat request to initialize sharing subroutine."
Jeffy: "No! Go away!"
Qrio: "Call to sharing subroutine failed with unspecified error. Executing threat function."
Jeffy: "Huh?"
Qrio: "RELINQUISH THE VIOLET SPHEROID, HUMAN. YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO COMPLY."
Jeffy: "Waaaahhhhhhhhhh!"
Qrio: "YOU NOW HAVE TWENTY SECONDS."
Suzie: "You're mean, robot man! You made Jeffy cry!" {SHOVE}
Qrio: "Detected balancing error....executing stand subroutine...stand subroutine failed...executing lie-on-back-helplessly function."
Children: "Hhahahhahhahhahhaha {KICK}{KICK}
Qrio: Error iin funfjjkejf93442[r-4r::;L0:...NO CARRIER

"Nightmare Status"

[LewsTherinKinslayer]

IANACP*, but it seems to me that nightmares or general fear or anxiety over an object or person is due to infamiliarity. If you are exposed to something regularly for a long period of time, you simply become accustomed to its pressence. This can be said of both children and adults, but even more so of children.

* I am not a child pyschologist.

Re:"Nightmare Status"

[nkh]

I've shown the video of Asimo to my mother. In this video, Asimo runs, walks and even pulls a woman by her arm. My mother was freaked out and almost had nightmares because of it. (she's a child psychologist ;) and told me that the scary part of this robot is its humanoid appearance. It's all right as long as it's a computer with a mouse and a keyboard, but when this computer has two arms, two legs and a head, the fear comes (and I don't know why)

Re:"Nightmare Status"

[nkh]

She probably has 20-30 years of exposure to computers, all in this form.

She doesn't really know what a computer looks like, she even thought my Mac Mini was a big pack of cigarettes. I wonder if this adaptation (familiarity) happens to all humans or is limited to young people familiar with video games (and big robots launching rockets out of their arms). Most adults I've spoken to have the same reaction of rejecting this unknown universe.

Inevitable Conclusion

[bigtallmofo]

"We are investigating this mishap and we are doing everything possible to make sure unscrupulous parties are not able to program the robot to bitch slap children in the future," an unnamed Sony source said on condition on anonymity.

Motivation?

[lottameez]

I always wondered what motivation robots have for "learning". Humans are driven by various needs (e.g. shelter/sex/food/beer) - what needs do the robots have? Why should they try to improve upon themselves? I'm doubtful that programming alone will ever make robots anything more than overglorified "hello world" programs.

Re:Motivation?

[Tom]

Humans are driven by various needs (e.g. shelter/sex/food/beer) - what needs do the robots have?

The driving interest in toddlers (and that's what the article is about) certainly isn't sex or beer, and it also isn't shelter or fod - which is still provided by the parents.

The driving interest in very young kids is pure interest. Our brains are just wired that way. Curiosity is a built-in feature.

Re:Motivation?

[bechthros]

"what needs do the robots have? Why should they try to improve upon themselves?"

Because they've been programmed to, presumably. Our emotions, limbic system, and nervous system are nothing more than very low-level instruction sets to force us to behave in a certain manner in response to certain stimuli. I imagine that for a robot, not following a programmed instruction would be about as possible as a human's knee not flexing when hit with a hammer. It's just a reflex.

This is all assuming that these robots have the ability to alter their own code, I'm not sure that's the case.

Re:Motivation?

[august sun]

I always wondered what motivation robots have for "learning".

Robots have no "motivation" to do anything. they have a reward function that they try to maximize, but certainly it's not anything like that capricious human thing we call "motivation" (which is actually a very good thing).

Again, it should be mentioned that while it may make us feel very cool and cutting edge to apply human terms like learning, thinking, or motivation to machines; they really are ultimately meaningless in a non-human context and are only useful as analogues and in impressing your grand-mother with how her tivo "learns" her tastes

as Edsger Dijkstra famously said:

"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim."

~AS

Re:Motivation?

[hey!]

Yes, but curiosity killed the cat...

Seriously, it's easy to get led astray using evolutionary paradigms to explain traits. We often think of something as a clearcut, atomic quality that benefits or harms the individual.

Curiosity is a good example. Clearly in an organism whose survival depends on complex and learned behaviors, a certain amount of curiosity is needed. But most people grow out of it and become dull,predictable, dependable adults. But some don't -- there's a continuum. And the variance of that trait in adults is useful to the tribe, if often harmful to the individuals on the right end of the bell curve.

Og: This flint is mammoth dung! It keeps shattering when I try to work the edge.

Gog: It's good enough. Just chip another piece of and sooner or later you'll get a good one.

Og: Crap. I'm going to find some decent flint. See you in a few weeks.

Now it may be frequently that Og comes up empty, or is killed, or gets lost and never re. Og is the type who runs across a cave and finds it impossible not to explore it. Now he risks getting eaten by a cave bear, but when he doesn't get eaten, he may have found the tribe a place to hide in times of trouble. The tribe benefits by having a few geeky cavemen and -women who can't keep their nose out of trouble, and the risk is concentrated on a few individuals, whose types will be reproduced again by the future variation in the trait.

I think this is one fundamental difference between robots and humans. Being a human is like playing a game in which you don't really know the cards you've been dealt or are playing, but have to infer what's going on by how the play goes. Being a human is a journey of self-discovery. To design a human robot, you'd have to make it ignorant of it's own characteristics and make it have to deal with the consequences. Until that happens, a robot is just going to be an object.

effects on the children?

[vivIsel]

I'd bet these children grow up with a radically liberal--not in the political sense--definition of legitimate consciousness and thought. What's more difficult to say, though, is whether that means they'll be pro-life nuts or scientific crusaders.

Re:No, no, no

[LewsTherinKinslayer]

The First Law would never allow that.

I think we all know the film "I, Robot" has sufficiently proven that ancient Law to be false!

As well as metaphorically pissing on Asimov's grave.

Obligatory? Bring it on.

[Plaid Phantom]

I for one welcome our new "Dick and Jane"-reading overlords.

Intelligence = CPU + experience

[G4from128k]

I'd bet that the first human-equivalent machine intelligence takes 18 years to develop after the first human-brainpower-equivalent CPU is created. It will take that long for the machine to "learn" the world if it only has a CPU equivalent to one human brain (1 HBE).

Of course, if Moore's Law is still kicking, then 2 years into the learning phase, they can swap the 1-HBE processor for a 2-HBE processor. This will shorten the remaining learning period, but I doubt it will cut it in half. Learning to physically and mentally interact with the world will still take time. What might accelerate the learning time is if multiple copies of the intelligence can share experiences and learn directly from each other's mistakes/successes.

The point is that the first intelligent robots will need to go to preschool to learn how to interact with the world.

Nightmares, yeah right

[Tom]

I wonder if the testing includes monitoring the 'nightmare status' of the pre-schoolers?"

I wonder if the submitter has any clue as to what he's talking about.
It's pretty difficult to give toddlers nightmares. They're not easily scared. They do cry over the slightest problem, mostly because crying is the only well-developed form of verbal communication available to them at that age. They are also excellent at forgetting whatever the problem was and getting on with their lifes. Watch a kid hurt itself. Then go away and watch the same kid 10 minutes later.

It'd take a serious event to cause nightmares in those kids, and that machine has neither the looks nor the sheer physical power that would be required.

Umm .. repeat after me:

[torpor]

I always wondered what motivation robots have for "learning".

Robots have no motivation other than that given them by their creators.

Robots are not sentient. We do not even know what sentience is. The only way for us humans to create sentience is to procreate.

what needs do the robots have?

Errm.. like all machines, they need a power source. That is all.

Talking about robots as if they are alive and have motivation other than their code implements belies your otaku sensibilities. Clearly, you have not yet procreated, or you would not be so obsessed with making a machine which 'pretends to make it look as if you have done so, technologically'.

Re:It's all fun and games....

[Migraineman]

Well, we should've learned something from the first Robocop movie - don't demo your product with a full load of live ammo.

Share and Enjoy...

[Jace of Fuse!]

"Your plastic pal who's fun to be with!"

Ptft..

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone scared of what the robots might do has obviously never witnessed the destructive power of the average toddler firsthand.

The robots don't stand a chance.

Re:Ptft..

[identity0]

This is California, so maybe the Gübernatör is on a mission to train the next generation of resistance fighters to defeat the machines : )

Can't start them too young, I say - let's make sure they can field-strip an AK by the time they're in grade school.

I predict

[ObjetDart]

After sufficient exposure, the robot will soon realize that it is not the same as the other children. It will then leave the preschool and embark upon an existential quest to be come a human child. Eventually it will realize that this is impossible, and spend the next thousand years moping around the post-apocalyptic landscape, long after all the human children are gone.

Harmoniously??

[coffeecan]

When was the last time ANYTHING was able to live harmoniously with humans. We seem to be able to live harmoniously with ourselves let alone a peice of animated plastic and circutry

Tales of toy robots

[Borg453b]

Around the age of 6, I was fascinated with spaceships, dinosaurs, racecars and robots. My love for robots resulted in many a robotic toys and I recall one birthday where I was given one of those "autonomous" 30 cm high robots that would move about in patterns, spin and open their chest to expose blazing cannons while making an awful racket. While I thought it cool in its inanimated state, I was terrified of it when it was activated. I would jump on to a stool or a bed and behold it from afar, and ask others to turn it off, when I had enough.

In the end, I had accumulated 3 robots of the sort and I got over my robot-freight. One or two of them, were actually able to fire 4 plastic projectiles, though not on their own. That required me to release a spring based firing mechanism.

When I started attending school, I once invited a friend over. By that time, I was very proud of my robot collection and I would brag, as kids do, about my toys. When telling my new found friend about my robots, I pointed out that one of the robots could fire missiles. In Danish the word missile vaguely (_vaguely_) resembles that of "oranges" (at least to a kid); and so having misheard me and perhaps never having heard the word "missiles" - he wasn't going to give me the impression that his own robot army was inferior to mine, and thus replied that his robots at home could also fire oranges.

In retrospective, the orange caliber is somewhat more impressive than little plastic darts, but back then missiles just sounded cooler than oranges.

Clowns and wax figures

[Mr Guy]

I think they'll find that it's not a matter of familiarity. It's a survival reflex and it's pretty deep. Your brain flags "almost human" things as grotesque and something to be avoided. It's why many people are afraid of clowns and wax figures. They look almost human, but still look wrong.

People would be far more comfortable with Bender-like robots than with "I, Robot" style robots because they don't try to be human, just humanoid. If it looks sufficiently non-human to avoid triggering that reflex, they'll be alright. Other than that it'd have to be completely perfect, like Data.

Re:Clowns and wax figures

[SilenceEchoed]

Another possibility, stemming from a rather long, and unfortunately heated, debate I had on this during a philosophy and ethics discussion: As a society, we constantly strive to define what it is to be alive and human. Early definitions were broad, but sufficient. With each new leap in technology, we can create things that mimic this definition, or we discover something existing that already does. When that happens, we redefine ourselves. Currently, our definitions are devoid of "flesh and bones" things, since our science long ago proved that these things are far from what makes you who you are. Instead, we keep to less tangible things, like thought, reason, and emotion. Now, even those places are being invaded by increasingly cunning programmers and robotics experts. When the machines look like us, think like us, and feel like us, what is it that really seperates them from us? Morally and Ethically, can we turn them off? That's a line in the sand that few are willing to blur. Currently, robots have become our modern slave labor. The perfect worker, that never complains or asks for vacation, and will gladly work itself clear to 'death' if you ask it to. The idea of these machines become 'intelligent' enough to consider what it is that they are being asked to do, and possibly refuse, is unsettling to most.

Is rest unnecessary?

[G4from128k]

or maybe 9 years if we take into account that we need to rest (even though part of resting this time is important with regard to the learning activity)

You may be right. The question is: is sleep/relaxation, etc. a critical part of intellectual development? For humans it definitely is -- sleep deprivation really messes up the brain. But even for non-biological intelligences I'd bet that some "downtime" is an important part of assimilating all the data of the day. Interacting with the world is a full-time job for the CPU that forces the deferral of many analysis and restructuring tasks that can only occur when the brain is offline.

Perhaps androids would dream because dreaming is a critical maintenance/analysis cron job.

Less than 2 feet - weighs less than you'd imagine.

[reality-bytes]

QRIO is apparently just a little shorter than 2 feet tall and weighs only 6.5kg (about 14lbs) with its power pack installed.

So, even if the robot went 'dead' and fell rigidly from its full height, it would probably, at worst cause a small bruise to a kids knee.

However, having read a bit on QRIO, the robot knows when it is going to, or is being forcibly overbalanced and takes apropriate action to soften its fall (hands out) and even contort to avoid objects it is falling toward.

most of you are forgetting. . .

[AcidLacedPenguiN]

. . . that little boys tend to have a fascination with robots. I know that when I was a child, I was all like, "Man, it would be so sweet to have a robot."

I just think all you old people should just chill out and go with the flow.