Babybot Learns Like You Did

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."

Comments

AI Learning

[fatduck]

From TFA: "The goal is to build a humanoid 2-year-old child," explains Metta. This will have all of Babybot's abilities and the researchers hope it may eventually even learn how to walk. "It will definitely crawl," says Metta, "and is designed so that walking is mechanically possible." Not a bad goal at all, and if it's open source they can't cheat by promoting a specific goal such as walking in the software. Reminds me of Prey where they couldn't figure out how to get the nanomachine swarm to fly so they let its AI "learn" how to do it on its own.

Re:AI Learning

[EnsilZah]

They may not use a simple goal like walking, but in order to learn there has to be some sort of reward/punishment system in place.
Real babies have goals like getting their parents' attention, being fed, keeping warm.
I wonder what sort of goals a robot baby has to have to learn in the same way a real one does.

Re:AI Learning

[bmo]

TFA Said: "The goal is to build a humanoid 2-year-old child"

You said: Not a bad goal at all

Apparently you've never been around a 2-year old.

--
BMO

Open Source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you afraid this poor open source robot will get exploited by the other robots, or do the proprietary robots have something to hide? What kind of insults can we expect? Your father was a code monkey and your mother got her card punched by a UNIVAC!

names

[hyperstation]

babybot? robocub? fire your marketing people!

May?

[Kangburra]

may mean that such machines can never become as intelligent as us

They don't know and they're playing with it. Have they even seen the Matrix??

Dude

[Umbral Blot]

A one armed baby bot? That's disturbing on so many levels.

Re:Dude

[rolfwind]

It doubles as a slot machine....

There is more to a 2-year-old than walking

[Flyboy Connor]

The goal is to build a humanoid 2-year-old child," explains Metta. This will have all of Babybot's abilities and the researchers hope it may eventually even learn how to walk.

A fun project, and potentially a good step on the road towards human-like intelligence. However, the "2-year-old" remark is again one of those far-fetched promises that is a loooooooooooooong way off. Making a robot-arm play with a rubber ducky is one thing, letting a robot understand what a rubber ducky is, is quite another. Making a robot crawl is one thing, but letting a robot crawl with a self-conscious purpose, again is quite another.

Fortunately, one of the researcher in TFA admits that 20 computers with a neural network on each is no replacement for a human brain. But the 2-year-old remark follows later, and is evidently entered as a way to generate funding. It sounds cool, but it is not what the result of this project will be. I assume the researchers know this all too well. Or perhaps they have no children of their own.

Neural Networks

[EnsilZah]

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

Wow.

[Dare]

I wonder what happens when this bot discovers that it's a physical object, and can try and manipulate itself.

(... yeah, baby robot masturbation... but no, seriously...)

Can you turn off a 2-year-old?

[Richard Kirk]

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?

Simple algorithm

[vagabond_gr]

It experiments and knocks things over until it can pick them up for itself.

You don't need an advanced AI to do that, the algorithm goes like this:


while(1) {
    throw_toy();
    while(!toy_is_back())
        cry_loud();
}

Making babies

[thewiz]

"The goal is to build a humanoid 2-year-old child," explains Metta.

There is a far easier and more pleasant way to create a child.
Unfortunately, it requires 2 years, nine months, and three minutes.