Slashdot Mirror
Fast Navigating Guessing Robots
holy_calamity writes "A new navigation technique for robots allows them to make predictions about what's around the corner based on where they've been already. It works well in repetitive environments like office buildings. If this were a Japanese project I'd say it'd be useful for robotic secretaries new on the job, but since it's an American one I suppose it'll be used for automated SWAT teams."
If it were possible to rate topics like individual posts, I'd be torn between Insightful, Flamebait and Troll.
Ignore this signature. By order.
Naaaaah, it has to be for automating our SWAT teams, because we're a bunch of killcrazy cowboys looking for new ways to blow things up. Um... yee-haw?
Actually, I'm not American and I don't like what I see it's turning into.
And even if I'm capable of making the very same comment, it doesn't mean I don't know it would be flamebait.
And since I don't want this to turn into another flamewar on American politics or somesuch crap, I'm shutting up now.
Ignore this signature. By order.
I don't know much about AI, but is the idea of making predictions based on previous data some kind of breakthrough? I'm assuming this is just an application of some firmly established concepts in AI. When confronted with a redundant or repetative data set, make predictions based on your experiences as to the nature of new elements in that set. I mean, aren't we paying these guys to tell machines how to recognize patterns? Is it news when they teach a machine to recognize patterns?
I'd venture that the purpose of this post is to discuss Terminators, and Japanese robot secretaries, and to hail our coming robot overlords. This is just a guess based on a highly redundant data set I've been analyzing (rather than doing my work).
The more you know about the context, and the more you know about the result to a given action, the less information you need from the environment (or from the other side of a communication channel). This is the Holy Grail of information theory and data compression, and it seems as if they are applying its principles here. Higher CPU and better expert programming will likely produce some nice results in the near future.
I kinda thought the SWAT joke thing was supposed to be an ironically self-deprecating throwaway line, rather than that other sort of a line, the one with the hook in it, that everyone seems to think it is. Actually, thinking about it, after all the criticism American defense forces have come under, maybe a little prickliness from you guys is a good thing. Last thing this thread needs is someone quoting how much of the US GNP goes into ADF funding.
THUD~*
Except that context can be computed statistically very effectively by computers (only sometimes, of course).
Say I present Google's computers with the number 42. Surprisingly enough it associates it with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy reference, much as you or I might. Indeed, if you put in a sentence it will do a surprisingly good job of responding to the context of the number 42, all through computing numbers and statistics.
This almost sounds like some variant of reinforcement learning.. (The bit with confidence scores). Why do they never post real algorithm details :-(
>post such opinions in public (omg !), disregarding the retarded "we must stick to the middle of the >road" mentality. Moderation is not about
> telling people what you think of their opinion.
The story should be presented without editorial comment, however. After that it's open season.
That said, I guess we'll start using fluffy bunnies to sniff out bombs instead of machines. We wouldn't want to violate the Robot Bill of Rights, eh?
1 in 4 Maine children in struggle with hunger.
The actual problem is that when these statements are made in the story summary, they are not subject to any moderation, deserving or otherwise. Regardless of whether you feel the statement deserves moderation, it clearly isn't adding anything to the summary. It's an old slashdot problem, and you can bet that the comments which survive just happen to match the slant of the editors: in effect, by making it into an untouchable story summary, it received the ultimate up-mod...
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Why? In a game environment, it's possible -- easy -- for the "AI" to have full and perfect knowledge of the world. Guessing is not necessary.
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
Almost, but not quite. The problem is just as you describe it, but the solution isn't to put Google in a box on wheels. Rather, we should be connecting the box on wheels to Google, wherever it is. My computer doesn't have Google's database or processing power, yet it can analyze the context of things through Google's datamining capabilities. I think autonomous robots need to be a bit less autonomous until we figure out the robot part more thoroughly. Shrinking and minimizing size will come with time in a near steady progression, but leaps and bounds could be achieved through networking the box on wheels to Google (and related) sized datamining tools. Just my 2 cents though.