Open Source Robot for Household Tasks

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday March 6, 2008 @04:58PM from the make-them-do-the-dishes-when-they-beat-you-at-chess dept.

bednarz brings us a NetworkWorld story about the development of a robot through an open source project. The objective of the project is to "take robotics from research into homes." Quoting: "One of its immediate goals is to build 10 robots and make them available to university researchers as a common platform that can be tinkered with and improved. Willow Garage will also supply 'an open-source code base integrated from the best open-source robotics software available,' President and CEO Steve Cousins said. In Cousins' video presentation, the first version of the robot could be seen vacuuming, picking up toys off the floor of a living room, taking dishes out of a dishwasher, and most importantly of all, using a bottle opener to crack open a cold, refreshing brew."

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Re:What is intelligence? by hkmarks · 2008-03-07 02:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

Sci-fi unfortunately got in the habit early on of using the wrong word. "Sentience" derives from Latin "sentire" which means to feel. Sapience (sapere, to be wise or to know), on the other hand, suggests intelligence and judgement.

So a dog is sentient but not sapient. But I guess you could say a dog is more sapient than a trout. (My dogs at least can figure certain things out ['If I go to my food dish but don't eat, the humans will figure out that I want a treat'] and make choices ['Should I chase squirrels and risk getting my paws wet?']. Dogs are pretty darn social, after all.