Slashdot Mirror
Survivor Buddy, a Friendly Robot Rescuer
Roland Piquepaille writes "The St. Petersburg Times, Florida, reports that a well-known robot designer, Robin Murphy, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of South Florida (USF), 'plans to add a heart to robot rescuers.' As says USF, the goal is to develop 'a robot that will be a companion to a person who may be trapped after a car crash or in building ruins following an earthquake, or someone pinned down by sniper fire.' As said Murphy, 'robots can provide not only a sense of being a 'buddy' by playing soothing music or providing other entertainment, the robot also can be the audio and video link between survivor and family.' Murphy will develop this robot with some money coming from Microsoft. But read more for additional references and a picture of Murphy with her robot rescuers."
But it BSOD'd at the wrong time!
While this is an interesting concept it will most definitely fail at this time. Situations that would necessitate this kind of robot are so uncommon. Furthermoroe, the chance that any rescuing authority would purchase such a robot AHEAD of time is so unlikely. Great idea, but if this buys bread and butter, consider a night job.
Just what I want when I'm pinned down by sniper fire. How about some lemon-scented napkins?
Reminds me of the Weighted Companion Cube in Portal.
Sadly, after successfully rescuing you, it cannot accompany you, and must be euthanized...
Yes, when it displays the BSOD, it tells you your future.
Fight Spammers!
... Dr. Murphy has announced she is leaving USF. The brain drain continues. Our new state slogan: "Florida: spend your tax dollars on not education!"
So obviously this is bad. No need to RTFA.
It looks like are screaming for your mom, would you like some help?
Get help screaming for your mom
Just scream like a little girl without help
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
"robots can provide not only a sense of being a 'buddy' by playing soothing music or providing other entertainment."
Yes, if I'm pinned in a car wreck and bleeding to death, I would like nothing more than to listen to muzak and hear a recorded voice urging me to be patient.
Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and I'm trapped inside an upside-down car in a ditch with someone who wants to hear soothing music...
It looks like you are trying to scream. Ah, I see you have a lacerated spine and punctured femoral artery. The gas tank is on fire. Would you like to hear some groovy RIAA music?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I think this robot could easily be a victim of the uncanny valley. If it were too friendly, it would come across as making light of a serious situation and would potentially feel patronizing.
I mean seriously, if I'm trapped under a building, I'm really not going to be in the mood for emotionally bonding with a robot.
To avoid the uncanny valley, the robot needs to be be friendly but not like a dog or person. Instead it should be like a friendly car or other reliable tool that we feel safe using.
I can't believe he started his sentence with 'but'.
Human: I'm bleeding from my arm!
Robot: Would you like to hear some music?
Human: I have a headache too.
Robot: Volume Increased.
I think about the last thing I'd need if I were trapped in a situation where I needed rescue would be some fucking robot to come along and try to cheer me up.
The idea of this seems like MS Office's Clippy, only a hundred times worse. "Looks like you're fucked! Would you like help? I can sing you a song!"
Fuck off and die, Clippy. I don't need a robot to act as a homing beacon or communications device when a simple cell phone or radio is capable of performing the same role. So, unless you can dig me out of here, or actually do something to provide life support, I'm kinda busy right now.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
We're done here.
Erm, they *do* have Mantovani on iTMS, right?
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
Is it self-inflating or do we have to blow it up ourself?
If you've talked to many Floridians, you'll know there's not enough money in the world to teach most of them anything at all.
ResidntGeek
A friendly robot buddy? I hope they name it Floyd.
Share and Enjoy....btw whats so funny about this anyway?
Murphy was shot down by a bunch of thugs in an abandoned warehouse. Later she was reconstructed into RoboCop, and became the robot rescuer!
What is the point of sending robots with hearts? It's not like trapped victims is going to be able to replace their own heart if they have a heart attack...
And before you protest, sure, they can eat the heart and get some nutrients and liquid from it but why not send them robots with cookies and lemonade instead? They taste much better and are a lot cheaper.
note: I didn't read the summary as I'm posting late and every second counts.
What's coming will be much, much more important than the article indicates. A robot could take structural measurements that would help rescuers tunnel to the victims, possibly conduct remote engineering (e.g. deploy an airbag as a temporary shoring device), deliver food/water to the hungry/thirsty, monitor vital signs, and even act as a remote defibrulator (sp?).
This intervention will be bigger and bigger as nanotechnology improves and evolves into self-constructing robots that can crawl through virtually any crevice.
Privacy issues related to this are a whole other story.
Some nice music and some entertainment to distract me, say a nice game of checkers or a rerun of 'The Lion King'....
Maybe if it was designed to go out and draw some fire, it would be both useful and entertaining!
Who thinks up this shite?
where was it announced that she's leaving USF?
I for one welcome our friendly robot overlords.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
"Other examples of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation's record with sentient technology include an armada of neurotic elevators, hyperactive ships' computers and perhaps most famously of all, Marvin the Paranoid Android. Marvin is a prototype for the GPP feature, and his depression and "terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side" are due to unresolved flaws in his programming. Ironically, the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation defines a robot as "your plastic pal who's fun to be with".
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy electronic guidebook defined the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes" with "a footnote to the effect that the editors would welcome applications from anyone interested in taking over the part of robotics correspondent." The story notes that a version of the Encyclopaedia Galactica that "had the good fortune to fall through a time warp from a thousand years in the future" defined the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came."
...and send me into a sniper zone.
:D
Look smeghead unless the robot looks like and acts like a series 4000 Mechanoid you can just take your smegging corporate funding and spin on it.
Switching to lie mode:
This is a great idea to have a robot run by the most reliable secure OS known to mankind. Steve Ballmer is a nice guy who just wants you to feel good.
Swithching back to truth mode:
Sir, I am awfully sorry to say you are going to die a painful and horrific death. Would you like to record your last will and testament...
It strikes me how brave they use definitions like "sense of being a 'buddy'", "soothing music" or "friendly" in this article! Especially together with other definitions like "a person who may be trapped after a car crash or in building ruins following an earthquake, or someone pinned down by sniper fire". I will not be surprised if someday we will have news about a well-known robot designer who is getting sued for crating a machine that annoys the hell out the victims while they are helplessly trapped... Making their situation even more unbearable and painful. Not to mention there is Microsoft involved...
If you're not confused, you're not paying attention
A more useful robot would be one that kills the sniper, or snakes its way out of the rubble (who said that the robot must be humanoid?) in order to lead rescuers to your exact location.
But (duh) people who live in places where snipers are a problem, or places where buildings don't have to be constructed to 100-year earthquake codes, tend not to have the disposable income to spend on personal robots.
Is a vibrator a 'personal robot'? Maybe, if it tells you that it loves you.
Is this Slashdot story a joke? Did I miss April First again? I thought that it was May, maybe I'm just ahead of my time.
Why don't they design the robot so it could dig you out? I think if we're going to be building machines we should make them pretty strong. Am I right? Am I write?
when getting shot at by sniper fire it can provide help? unless its a johnny number 5 forget it.
if I'm getting shot at by sniper fire that buddy better be packing lasers or fbw missle of some type.
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
Orbis terrarum est non altus satis
I always knew they do.
...."Have you mooed today?"...
Just wait till the advertisers get onto this. There will be no escape, you can't even turn it off.
...a Nintendo DS and Super Mario Cart.
The Suburban Auto Group already came up with a better idea: Trunk Monkey Emotional Support!
Oh great! Now GM will implement a "robot companion" with their "On-Star", when you purchase a new auto.
....._______.....
What if the robot decides to turn into a nazi ss death head, when you wreck and the operator on the On Star system hears you
I think I just saw this in a webcomic.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=549110&cid=23364336
"As said Murphy, 'robots can provide not only a sense of being a 'buddy' by playing soothing music or providing other entertainment, the robot also can be the audio and video link between survivor and family."
-Yeah. Like I relly want to listen to a robot sing "Feelngs" why my family watches me spend the day getting shot at. Real good.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
1: "Shoot High, Aim Low" by Yes
2: "A View to a Kill" by Duran Duran
3: "Shoot Me Again" by Metallica
4: "Here I Am" by Emmylou Harris
5: "Contrecoup" by They Might Be Giants
This is my sig. It's prescription, I swear. I need it for reading things... on the other side of things
Don't have the robot SAY a message (which will of course almost certainly be absurdly inappropriate) let it RECORD a message. There are many examples of situations where people who knew they were trapped and going to die have left a message for their family. Such messages are of course disturbing for the loved ones, but also treasured. And by reminding a severely wounded person of the world outside, and of what they have to live for, making the recording might perhaps boost the person's will to remain conscious and survive. And even if they don't survive, making the message and feeling it would get to your family might help make the end less bitter.
While I don't doubt the idea has been around long before, this reminds me of the "autoremotes" from the Elite novella "The Dark Wheel";
"Blinking through its solitary monitor, it hovered over his face like a squat, legless dachsund hound and pumped adrenalin, oxygen and glucose into his bloodstream. Alex opened his eyes and panicked slightly. The autoremote calmed him down with a quick pumpsurge of tetval.
The robot's voice whispered in his ears, 'Brandy? Scotch? Vodka? I am equipped with a full range of miniature stimulants to make the waiting easier.'
'What . . . happened . . . ship? . . . Avalonia . . .' he gasped through the tight face mask.
The autoremote blinked at him sympathetically, 'Brandy, then,' and hit Alex with two shots of Qutirian SynCognac."
There's nothing in particular wrong with the concept, but I can't help thinking a cheery voice would be the last thing I'd want if I had various limbs crushed under several tonnes of rubble.
We will come to encounter robots that interact with us in more ways than we can imagine. That interaction will be subject to the rule of law. One method for ruling robots will be legal contracts. --Ben
Benjamin Wright, Dallas, Texas, benjaminwright.us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture#Drones
If these things go into mass production, there will be a robot social disbalance, which is why I'm applying for a grant to build the first Robot Bully. "Making the bad times just a little bit worse!"
My webcomic
I don't think there was an official announcement yet, but it's been widely circulated around campus.
Please, dear God! Take me now!
Have gnu, will travel.
"Oh Fry, I love you more than the moon and the stars and the POETIC IMAGE #37 NOT FOUND"
I was expecting one of the robots to be named after 'Wilson' of the movie Castaway. :)
Neat idea though. A lot of the effort of surviving is keeping motivated and staying positive.
Victim: Where am I?
RB: You're stuck under a building with a Rescue Buddy!
Victim: I mean, what am I doing here?
RB: I'm sorry. Would you please rephrase the question?
Victim: How did I get stuck under a building?
RB: The building fell over; you got stuck!
bytesmythe
Hypocrisy is the resin that holds the plywood of society together.
-- Scott Meyer
This seems absurd. Some people are very creative but they try to make up uses for something that isn't wanted or needed. Certainly one of these people. Robots are cool. I want a robot. But to clean my house, maybe walk the dog when I can't be there, that sort of stuff. I don't want a robot to play me my "Top 10 songs to listen to before you die" playlist on my iPod. I'd much rather be found by a rescue dog. Its real, and would cheer me up much better than a machine "buddy".
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
Tom Hanks found a solution for this situation a few years back: Wiiillllson!!!
Have yourself a merry christmas this season by buying your loved one a state of the art RoboRescue dog. Asking price only 125,000 dollars. No Nigerian money orders please.
It's an honor to be slashdotted- thanks! Given the interest in our project I'd thought I break out of lurker mode and try to address some of the questions/concerns, since it's hard to judge technology from descriptions in the popular press. The robot isn't fully autonomous-- it's serving as a medium between humans "behind" the robot with humans "in front" of the robot and the rest of the world. As it stands now, had we found survivors at one of our responses, the operator would have spoken over the 2 way audio. Fine, but what happens when you have multiple people trying to talk to the survivor? Should the robot use a single voice? A synthetic voice? It seems easy, but I recommend Dr. Cliff Nass' book "The Media Equation" which is about how we subconsciously react to media such as coming through computers. The project is less about computer science and more applying what the communications and psychology researchers have known for years. Another point is that a robot being driven by a medical person tends to be socially inconsistent. It gets too close, too fast. The doctor is talking through the 2-way audio but the robot is not making eye-contact... Our initial research indicates that this is a significant problem, even though it seems counter-intuitive. Shouldn't we be just glad the robot (and the doctor) is helping? Again, check out The Media Equation and Cliff's work. Our lower brain rules, same as it ever was. If you want a sci-fi analogy, the closest I think is the surrogates in Stations of the Tide. Again, thank you for the interest and feedback. Prof. Robin Murphy (replying as an individual entity with the usual caveats about my comments not necessarily reflecting the opinions/policies of my sponsors and colleagues unless they liked what I said.)
It looks like you're writing your last farewell.
Would you like help with that?
a) Write a quick goodbye to mom and dad before you bleed out.
b) Write a long sorrowful goodbye blaming the world.
c) Write an apology to all your EXs
d) Write a letter admitting to all that you have done wrong - warning low on disk space.
http://davesboat.blogspot.com/
8) Bot, will do whatever it takes, as long as you can tell it what's going on... I had a dog, like that...once....
Don't you think...? Or don't you?