Robots to Help the Blind

Spelling on the headline by prurientknave · 2005-05-04 15:33 · Score: 2, Funny

Good grief what kind of retard came up with 'obsticals'?

Re:Spelling on the headline by QuantumG · 2005-05-04 15:40 · Score: 2, Informative

Yet another reason why spellbound should be in the default build of Firefox.

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Cold, Cold... Getting warmer... HOT by Vombatus · 2005-05-04 15:33 · Score: 2, Insightful

Assuming that they don't change the stock locations in the store too often, why wouldn't it work?

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we're almost able to replace their eyes! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-04 15:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

maybe this effort should be going towards that instead? How far away are artificial eyes that are good enough for a blind person to shop? And if they're good enough to shop, they are probably good enough for a lot of things that that shopping robot won't be good for.

Re:we're almost able to replace their eyes! by Kiliani · 2005-05-04 16:10 · Score: 4, Informative

In the long run you are probabaly right that artificial vision would be better than a robot (or even a guide dog) - see a recent story on artificial eyes.
Right now "vision implants" are not nearly as developed as their cousins, the cochlear implants. Those can help hearing impaired people (re)gain hearing (call it "artificial hearing", if you wish). People with CI's can learn to speak like anyone, although their hearing is still different from "typical" hearing.

It appears that, compared to the likely cost of developing artificial vision, the robot can be developed for next to nothing. And who knows, maybe it's useful for people with other ailments! Compromise: best to do both.

Artificial vision, just like cochlear implants, is really, really cool, and could help a LOT of people. I keep my fingers crossed!

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Re:we're almost able to replace their eyes! by SeventyBang · 2005-05-04 16:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

Once there's enough resolution for the blind to use the artificial eyes, those who benefit the most will be those who most recently lost their sight. Essentially, the ability to adapt to and benefit the most will be increase with a ratio corresponding to the length of time since they lost their sight.

One of the things which babies' bodies learn as they are growing up as infants, is for their eyes to grow & focus; something which is gradual and not a shock to them.

Imagine someone who was born blind and is hooked up. What do you think they will see and how well will their brain cope with it? And when the shock sets in, how will they deal with that? Once someone realizes what's going on, they'll disconnect it. Then they'll find out they have to progressively work through the process of learning to see - just as infants do. Otherwise, I believe they'd rather be blind rather than live in a world of painful chaos.
Re:we're almost able to replace their eyes! by croddy · 2005-05-04 17:41 · Score: 2, Funny

well, at least we have this
Re:we're almost able to replace their eyes! by fastfinge · 2005-05-04 23:41 · Score: 3, Informative

I read these artificial vision stories with a sense of dread. I've been completely blind for my entire life. If I could suddenly see, assuming the level of data input didn't drive me completely mad, I'd have to learn to do absolutely everything over again: I'd have to learn to read, learn colors, learn to navigate around my environment, to orient myself to visual rather than audible clues, to recognize faces and objects by vision rather than sound, etc, etc, etc. I'm betting this would take me at least 10 years, probably more. I'm not in the least interested in being a basket case for that long.

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Simple answer: No. by ta+bu+shi+da+yu · 2005-05-04 15:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

The answer to this is no, because not all blind people want some impersonal robot. A dog is much nicer as it's alive and can make decisions in the external environment that a robot cannot make.

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Re:Simple answer: No. by tomhudson · 2005-05-04 16:49 · Score: 4, Funny

At least a robot won't get you into this sort of predicament:
I LIKE SEEING-EYE DOGS The pet store was selling them for five cents a piece. I thought that odd since they were normally a couple thousand each. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I bought 200. I like seeing-eye dogs. I took my 200 seeing-eye dogs home. I have a big car. I let one drive. His name was Sigmund. He was retarded. In fact, none of them were really bright. They kept licking their genitals. I laughed. Then they bit my genitals. I stopped laughing. I herded them into my room. They didn't adapt very well to their new environment. They would bark, hurl themselves off of the couch at high speeds and slam into the wall. Although humorous at first, the spectacle lost its novelty halfway into its third hour. Two hours later I found out why all the seeing-eye dogs were so inexpensive: they all died. No apparent reason. They all just sorta' dropped dead. Kinda' like when you buy a goldfish and it dies five hours later. Damn cheap seeing-eye dogs. I didn't know what to do. There were 200 dead seeing-eye dogs lying all over my room, on the bed, in the dresser, hanging from my bookcase. It looked like I had 200 cheap hair pieces. I tried to flush one down the toilet. It didn't work. It got stuck. Then I had one dead, wet seeing-eye dog and 199 dead, dry seeing-eye dogs. I tried pretending that they were just stuffed animals. That worked for a while, that is until they began to decompose. It started to smell real bad. I had to pee but there was a dead seeing-eye dog in the toilet and I didn't want to call the plumber. I was embarrassed. I tried to slow down the decomposition by freezing them. Unfortunately there was only enough room for two seeing-eye dogs at a time so I had to change them every 30 seconds. I also had to eat all the food in the freezer so it didn't all go bad. I tried burning them. Little did I know my bed was flammable. I had to extinguish the fire. Then I had one dead, wet seeing-eye dog in my toilet, two dead, frozen seeing-eye dogs in my freezer, and 197 dead, charred seeing-eye dogs in a pile on my bed. The odor wasn't improving. I became agitated at my inability to dispose of my seeing-eye dogs and to use the bathroom. I severely beat one of my seeing-eye dogs. I felt better. I tried throwing them way but the garbage man said that the city wasn't allowed to dispose of charred dogs. I told him that I had a wet one. He couldn't take that one either. I didn't bother asking about the frozen ones. I finally arrived at a solution. I gave them out as Christmas gifts. My friends didn't know quite what to say. They pretended that they like them but I could tell they were lying. Ingrates. So I bit them in the genitals. I like seeing-eye dogs

For an added sense of realism... by wcitech · 2005-05-04 15:35 · Score: 2, Funny

...the robots must stop and dispense oil on a fire hydrant every hour or so.

Hell no the end of dogs. by FireballX301 · 2005-05-04 15:35 · Score: 4, Interesting

I have a cousin who is blind and uses a guide dog. A few weeks ago, his dog essentially mauled some burgler attempting a home invasion.

Robots may be fine and dandy for lab rat use, but in the real world where unexpected things happen, you need to have something that can adapt to emergencies, something that robots won't be able to do for a while.

Re:Hell no the end of dogs. by XFilesFMDS1013 · 2005-05-04 15:38 · Score: 2, Funny

Then obviously you've never seen this movie.
Re:Hell no the end of dogs. by syousef · 2005-05-04 16:48 · Score: 3, Insightful

I have a cousin who is blind and uses a guide dog. A few weeks ago, his dog essentially mauled some burgler attempting a home invasion.

I'll trust a well trained dog over a robot/computer any day, and I consider myself a hardened geek. I find animals much more reliable and predictable than any system I've used.

Plus you get affection - and anyone who brings up virtual pets or robots being affectionate doesn't is self-dillusional and doesn't understand the benefit of a relationship with a real living thing.

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Re:Hell no the end of dogs. by mangu · 2005-05-05 00:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

I find animals much more reliable and predictable than any system I've used.

Then you should find better systems to use. Animals can be trained and reliable, up to a point.

The difference between animals and artificial systems is that when you build things you know how they are made. Animals are closed source, you don't know how they work, all you know is a how a limited set of input/output pairs work. When a machine fails you can debug it, find what went wrong, redesign, rebuild, and retest.

If I had to depend on something for my survival, I'd rather pick a well designed, thoroughly tested machine, rather than an animal. For companionship and affection, OTOH, I'd pick a human being with whom I can interact in a much more satisfactory way than with an animal (insert sheep joke here).
Re:Hell no the end of dogs. by TheLink · 2005-05-05 03:22 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, but when they start talking about AI. It appears a lot of AI designs are pretty nondeterministic compared to programming.

And complex computer programs aren't that deterministic. Not that reliable and predictable.

Just select a suitable dog, and it'll be more reliable and predictable than the blind person its supposed to help. Whereas there are many complex computer systems which don't seem to be nearly that reliable and predictable.

It'll be hard to build a machine that could do as much for a blind person that a dog could do.

Just go list down the features:
1) Most dogs have at least some theory of mind so it is easier for them to have some understanding of the owner's needs even if the owner doesn't explicitly state them - owner could be unconscious or somewhat conscious but incoherent/not his usual self.
2) They can learn the owners habits.
3) They are many many generations ahead of any AI I've seen, and my bullshit meter doesn't swing to the limit when it comes to claims about dogs being intelligent. Heck some are probably smarter than more than a few people one might know ;)
4) Very cheap for what they do.
5) Low maintenance for what they do - in fact having to take the dog for walks is a "feature" - the owner gets health benefits too ;).

Many more...
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TFA says "no" by EvilStein · 2005-05-04 15:36 · Score: 2, Funny

"People think we're trying to replace guide dogs, but we're not."

Nope, not going to replace guide dogs. Dogs have excellent senses, robots just have bits & bytes.

""We refer to it as a robotic shopping assistant," he told the BBC News website.

The guide dog won't keep hanging out by the auto parts section. who knows what the robot will do. Maybe subscribe itself to Popular Mechanics when you're not paying attention. ;)

No. by dexterpexter · 2005-05-04 15:40 · Score: 4, Informative

No. As someone who was part of a team that worked on building autonomous robots (albeit for the I.G.V.C), I must say that, in my experience, the one thing that cannot be replaced (at least, not yet anyways) is instinct. (Neural Networking or no.) The dog offers companionship and thus a bond, which plays well with the dog's instincts in not just leading the person around and fetching things for them, but protecting them as well.

If people are concerned with replacing guide dogs (as they have relatively short lives and take a long time to train), they should consider guide horses. You may think I am crazy, but this has been successfully tested and is becoming more popular.

The horses live to be 25-40 years old, have binocular and monocular vision, and are very intelligent. They also have more instincts about safety than an algorithm, to date, can provide.

However, the robots are a very neat idea.

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This just in... by isny · 2005-05-04 15:50 · Score: 3, Funny

I tied my vacuum cleaner to my dog. Will this replace the roomba?

The canine OS is still better for now by ScentCone · 2005-05-04 15:52 · Score: 2, Interesting

Sure, the dog can't pick out the right canned food on the shelf, but it can see a car coming from two blocks away, sense unstable ground, and pick up on unsavory people's body language in a second. I'm not blind, but walking with my dogs alerts me to things I'd never notice otherwise - they are truly amazing critters. I hope my eyes are good for the rest of my life, but hopefully we'll have direct visual cortex stimulation from implants or some other solution before I have to depend on a mobile robot to help me get around. In the meantime, it's Fido for me.

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It needs one more skill by lheal · 2005-05-04 16:00 · Score: 2, Funny

... to beat out man's best friend.

They have to teach it to like peanut butter.

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Dogs have many uses by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-04 16:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Guide dogs can often do more than merely guide a person while walking:

1) Can also be trained to fetch things like phones (very useful for when a blind person falls and hurts themselves and then cannot get up), keys, and miscellaneous items that a blind person accidentally drops and then need assistance in finding on the floor.

2) As another poster mentioned, a guide dog can provide a level of home defense against intruders. I once heard an author on NPR describe how a dog's primary sense is smell with eyes being second. This is why its so important (as far as the dog is concerned) to have its nose out the window when traveling in the car. Smells provide much more information. Any ways, imagine what goes through a dog's mind when he smells a stranger that is also giving off odors related to adrenaline/anxiety. The dog is going to go into a state of extreme alertness and defensiveness and will try to let everyone in the house know about what its discovered irrespective of whether it was trained to be a guard dog or not.

3) Dogs can alert you/wake you in cases of emergencies such as fires.

4) Dogs have amazing senses of smell and its believed they can smell hormonal changes and odors related to anxiety and stress and such, can tell when there is something "wrong" with their master.

Re:Dogs have many uses by melandy · 2005-05-05 02:54 · Score: 2, Interesting

The dog is going to go into a state of extreme alertness and defensiveness and will try to let everyone in the house know about what its discovered irrespective of whether it was trained to be a guard dog or not.

[snip]

Dogs [snip] can tell when there is something "wrong" with their master.

This is absolutely true. Dogs are truly amazing creatures. Dogs in familys with new children are especially intriguing. Most will form an especially close bond with a new baby, and are often more effective at getting a parent's attention than baby monitors. They usually stand guard over the baby whenever someone new is in the house (as often happens with newborns), and if something just doesn't feel right, everyone will know about it.

My dad is blind (no, he doesn't have a dog, but I wish he would get one) and just from experience of me leading him around, it's not possible to do it synthetically. There's simply too much information to process... too many stimuli to evaluate. While a robot can navigate hallways, maybe even curbs, it can't judge if someone is holding a door open for you, or is going to let it slam in your face. I have seen guide dogs do this. It's uncanny how well they can judge a stranger's intentions.

Oh, and for those not in the know, guide dogs will only eliminate on command, so they won't be dropping little brown presents on the floor of the A&P. That's one of the first things they are taught.

NFB by Anonymous Coward · 2005-05-04 16:17 · Score: 2, Insightful

It's sad that the National Federation of the Blind, which believes it represents its constituents, thinks of guide dogs as a crutch and would love to replace them with impersonal, imperfect robots.

Compare the costs (money, effort, expertise) of purchasing and maintaining a guide robot versus a guide dog. Now compare the capabilities of each. Will the robot be self-healing, last a whole day on the equivalent of a bowl of chow, and adapt to changes in the daily routine?

More importantly, which would you want guiding you across a busy city intersection? The GPS guided robot or a dog that has a sense of self-preservation?

Re:Obligitory Something Awful Reference by pr0f3550r · 2005-05-04 16:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Get your pak chooie unf here
The following is provided for the 5 people who don't know what Something Awful is. Transcript as follows:

Corn_Boy - wassup
Corn_Boy - what is the time there?
Lowtax - 11 pm
Corn_Boy - wow, why are you woking so late?
Corn_Boy - what kind of work do you do
Lowtax - VE and SA stuff
Corn_Boy - whats that
Lowtax - VE - Virginian Empire SA - Secretary's Alliance
Corn_Boy - is the secretarys alliance like a union
Lowtax - Kind of. Mostly we just go over to Marcie's house after work and gossip, go to the rodeos, wash cars, etc etc. We also lobby congress.
Lowtax - What do you think about robots?
Corn_Boy - the ones that make the cars?
Lowtax - No, space robots
Corn_Boy - I dont know, I havent met one yet, but I guess they would be cool
Lowtax - I am building a space robot, that's why I asked.
Corn_Boy - ok, will it be going into space?
Lowtax - I am trying. It will be a very useful robot. I am giving it AI. Do you know what that stands for?
Corn_Boy - who is al? do you not like him and is that why you are giving him to the robot
Lowtax - No, AL is my friend, AI means "Abnormal Interests". I learned that and I'm programming my robot to act like a human.
Corn_Boy - like in the disney movie
Lowtax - What is Disney? I don't watch movies, I had to use the parts from my VCR to build my space robot.
Corn_Boy - from a vcr, wow, how does that work
Lowtax - I will tell you, but it is a secret so you can't tell anybody
Corn_Boy - ok, I wont, I promise
Lowtax - I am using the CLOCK in it to have the robot tell time!!!
Corn_Boy - will it have a gun
Lowtax - NO! I am non-violent, and I do not enjoy guns and violence!!! It will have a broom and fishtank and vaccuum. The Ultimate Space Robot!
Corn_Boy - you must be real smarte to be albe to make a space robot, my parents have a dvd player thing, can you turn that into a robot, it has a lasre in it
Lowtax - I can turn everything into Space Robots!
Corn_Boy - have you made many other robots?
Lowtax - Yes, but they don't work the way they were supposed to. One was a BIG ACCIDENT my friend
Corn_Boy - what happened
Lowtax - Grandma fell down the stairs
Corn_Boy - did the robot push her was she alright
Lowtax - I misprogrammed it. I tried to do good, but the robot jumped up and pushed grandma's head and she started spitting and her teeth flew out and the robot shot sparks and grandma fell down the stairs onto my uncle.
It was the worst Christmas ever.
Corn_Boy - oh no! sparks, did anything catch on fire
Lowtax - Grandma did, but I got a Pusher robot to shove her outside into the snow.
Corn_Boy - that was lucky, we have christmass in the sumer here, so no snow, you are lucky that you live there, very lucky!
Lowtax - Where do you live?!?
Corn_Boy - I am in new zealand
Lowtax - Wow! I was going to build a robot for a company in New Zealand! They are named "Ochnop Technologies" - have you heard of them?
Corn_Boy - no sorry, I do not know much about the robot industre
Lowtax - You should, some day robots will be in your house! Wether you know it or not!

Pusher robots
Shover robots
Force robots
Bumping robots
you know!
Corn_Boy - I hope that they dont go crasy and shoot me
Lowtax - ROBOTS DO NOT SHOOTS Guns shoots and robots dont go crazy unless you tell them too.
The Pusher robot I am making will shove around the blind people and take them to the store. Then the Shover robot will push bread into their throats.
Corn_Boy - you mucst be a very nice person to be making helper robots
Lowtax - I like to do my part. One day my Space Robots will revolutionize the world! And space!
Lowtax - Space has a terrible power!
Corn_Boy - do you mean like the worm-holes from star trek
Lowtax - I do not watch star trek, it is LIES!@! Space has a terrible po

Cost benefit... by zxflash · 2005-05-04 16:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

Fancy robots are expensive to develop at first but once mass production starts this could be a great alternative to dogs... Considering what it costs to train a dog and the "carrying costs" associated with keeping one...

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That's not the original. by ta+bu+shi+da+yu · 2005-05-04 16:57 · Score: 2, Informative

The original involved monkeys.

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Re:That's not the original. by Astin · 2005-05-04 17:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

yes.. yes it did. And a friend of mine wrote the original too. I remember the day she produced the crumply lined piece of paper she had hand-written it on in class a few years before I saw it. Ah, the minor, unknown celebrities of then net....

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It's just not the same with a robot... by DickeyWayne · 2005-05-04 17:31 · Score: 3, Funny

A blind man walks into a store, grabs his guide dog by the tail, and starts swinging him around in circles.

The clerk runs up. "Sir, can I help you?"

"Naaa. I'm just looking around."

Jokes just won't be as funny with robots.

"Is this the end of guide dogs?" by tsch · 2005-05-04 17:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

No.
I can say that since I RTFA:
"People think we're trying to replace guide dogs, but we're not."

Re:The end of evil RFID? by Beolach · 2005-05-04 19:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

RFID in and of itself is not good or evil. It is a tool, and like any other tool can be used or abused; it is how it is used that is good or evil. I would say that this is a good use.

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Seeing eye dogs by gkearney · 2005-05-05 02:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

My wife is blind and uses a dog. Seeing Eye Dogs do not, as some believe, lead the blind person to where they want to go. The blind must still know where they want to go and how to get there.

The dog simply helps them to avoid things like curbs, stairs and so on. It does so by simply stoping at them and waiting for the blind person to give them instructions as to what to do next.

It is perfetly possible to get lost with a dog.

We have seen all sorts devices of this type all the time canes with sonar, devices with GPS, you name it. The fact remains that nothing will ever subsitute for proper mobility training for the blind.

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