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Babybot Learns Like You Did

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i'm-still-working-on-not-knocking-things-over dept.

holy_calamity writes "A European project has produced this one-armed 'babybot' that learns like a human child. It experiments and knocks things over until it can pick them up for itself. Interestingly the next step is to build a fully humanoid version that's open source in both software and hardware."

2 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Neural Networks by EnsilZah · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The story mentions that the AI is made using neural nets.
    I think it's amazing how such simple data structures can generate such complex behaviour.

    In case anyone is interested, there's this pretty easy to understand tutorial on neural nets here:
    http://www.ai-junkie.com/ann/evolved/nnt1.html

  2. Can you turn off a 2-year-old? by Richard+Kirk · · Score: 5, Insightful
    This particular experiment is not going to create a 2-year old. We have had robots and simulations of robots that have used neutral nets to see if motor skill can be optimised using learning-like techniques. We have had recognition programs that do the same things that our eye and brain system do. This is an intelligent combination of the two.

    However, just suppose, and then suppose, and then suppose...

    So far, we can build computers that can simulate brain cells. There is nothing stopping us making a computer that has a similar complexity to the brain. We will have to mimic the strange mix of part-design, part randomness that brains are. Or maybe we can just throw more computing power, and stuff the brain doesn't have, like the ability to back up and regress. Sooner or later - probably later is my guess, but who knows? - we are going to come up with something that shows intelligence, and probably has inteligence.

    African grey parrots are kept as pets. These are said to be as intelligent as a two-year old. Some of them can understand sentances from a vocabulary of hundreds of words. They don't progress much beyond a two year old. And they are Not Like Us, so it's OK to keep them in cages. Apparently. Hmmm.

    One day, someone is going to make something intelligent, and then turn it off, and there will be an outcry. Is anyone doing the thinking on the ethics of making it before making it?