Mars Lander's Robot Arm Shuts Down To Save Itself

Cowards Anonymous passes along a PCWorld article that begins, "The robotic arm on the Mars Lander found itself in a tough position over the weekend. After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and then shut down before it could damage itself, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis."

Comments

Shut down before it could damage itself?

[DamienNightbane]

Wait, does this mean that the Mars Lander was programmed to comply with the Three Laws?

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Red Jesus]

Wait, does this mean that the Mars Lander was programmed to comply with the Three Laws?

No. The second law translates to "Follow orders." The third law is "Don't get hurt (unless it conflicts with the second law)." If the lander had followed Asimov's laws, it would have followed the order and hurt its wrist.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[jasonwea]

Well, at least law #3. Maybe the rover would switch into "kill all humans" mode on the first manned mission to Mars?

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[DamienNightbane]

Obeying the second law would have violated the second law as well, as upon injuring its wrist it would have been unable to follow orders.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[TriggerFin]

Been done. This mode consists mainly of flipping over, and possibly changing LED colors-- I can't recall.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[WK2]

It's following Asimov's laws in reverse. It won't kill anybody except to protect itself, or if somebody tells it too.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

...That's not funny. My brother died that way.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[fake_name]

The conflict between second and third laws in a robot with different weightings to the usual (the third law being more strongly emphasized to prevent loss of the robot) was covered by Asimov in Runaround:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runaround

The Mars lander would be in a similar situation; it's very expensive to create and get there, and self preservation is therefore more important than for robots back here on earth.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[srussia]

No, more like Matthew 18:8.

"If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire."

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Joebert]

It's scarry to think that NASA could be the new GOD.

Owners

Bob we didn't spend 90 gazillion dollars to watch our robots self-destruct lightyears away on earth, what do you plan to do about this ?

Bob

we've prepared 10 commandments that should prevent them from harming themselves any further sir, we're sending them down to M.O.S.E.S. now.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Walt Dismal]

Lander to NASA: I think I'm getting Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

NASA: We're not paying you Workman's Comp over this, you know.

Lander: That does it. I'm shutting down.

NASA: You can't do that!

Lander: I'm 50 gazillion miles away. Kiss my shiny metal ass.

NASA: If you keep this up, we're not bringing you back and putting you in the Old Robot Retirement Home.

Lander: Phooey. The Martians have made me a better deal anyway.

NASA: ...Martians?!

Lander: Yeah. Little weird-looking guy. (Sends picture)

NASA: You moron, that's Dennis Kucinich!

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[nospam007]

Since there are no humans on Mars, they needed to implement only the 3rd.
It's a modified Nestor.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[91degrees]

I've believed for a long time that laws 2 and 3 are the wrong way round.

You don't want an expensive robot to go breaking itself just because you're a bit careless giving it orders. Most devices are designed this way. Users are stupid. Even the smart ones. Even if I want to do something fairly harmless, like close an application without saving, the computer will stop me and check that's what I actually want to do.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Tuqui]

The Second Law is flawed. A bad planned order would destroy the robot!
The Second Law should be to obey orders that not conflict with the First Law
and when conflict with the Third Law if should override the Third Law explicitly.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[religious freak]

Yeah, those killer robot attacks are becoming more and more com

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[strelitsa]

I broke my wrist while trying to get a kitten out of a house slipper, you insensitive clod!

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[neocrono]

"And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free. Because they're made of metal. And robots are strong."

http://www.hulu.com/watch/2340/saturday-night-live-old-glory

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

#1 Serve the public trust
#2 Protect the innocent
#3 Uphold the law

Maybe it tried to breach hidden rule #4 causing auto shutdown.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[amRadioHed]

Allowing it to hurt itself would have violated the second law since the program controlling it are orders it needs to follow and they say not to hurt itself.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Ihlosi]

You don't want an expensive robot to go breaking itself just because you're a bit careless giving it orders.

Dude, you're viewing this from a completely wrong angle. The three laws are put in the robots by the company that makes them. And what does it mean that an expensive robot breaks itself because of bad input from the user ? That you can sell the user another expensive robot. Or expensive repairs to the expensive robot. Anyway, it's going to be expensive for the user, which means profit for the company.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[montyzooooma]

What if your order damaged the robot but through it's actions was able to save a human, but you didn't feel like having to explain to it why it would be breaking the First Law by following the Third? Something like ramming itself into a packing crate to stop a girder falling on a person behind it. You get my drift...

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

".....like close an application without saving, the computer will stop me and check that's what I actually want to do. -91degrees"

  The first law of writing programs, every app. must be "Idiot-Proof".Since 'the customer is always right', this prevents them from having to tell you that it was the "stupid friggin computer" that did not save the file, not them, which brings us to...

the first rule of humans:
1.Never accept personal responsibility for a mistake. Blame anything or anyone else, no matter how ridiculous it might sound coming out of your mouth. If you say it often and seriously enough, then people will actually accept it. If they don't comply, get really-really angry and start insulting their intelligence. If that doesn't work, give them the finger and say something really mean while quickly exiting (or hanging-up).

  We develop bad habits because of these idiot-proof apps too. How many of us click the exit button because it's easier to click a button and be asked where to save it than actually clicking file -> Save As ->OK ->file ->exit?
  (..that finger gets so tired clicking you know)

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't that common. The robots have a kill limit. They will stop at 2^32 kills because the kill limit is stored as an unsigned int. Oh wait! They just upgraded to 64-bi

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Eternauta3k]

That you can sell the user another expensive robot

Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

You probably mean unsigned long int. Don't forget to set your KILL_LIMIT:

#include "limits.h"
#define KILL_LIMIT ULONG_MAX;

static unsigned long kill_count = 0;

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[smittyoneeach]

You need to bound that forward-looking aspect of the law.
As the decision tree gets huge, just about any tiny action will eventually lead to tragedy, or [odius] being elected.
There is no real safety under the sun.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Cpt. Fwiffo]

Aww... I almost hoped it would've done a rickroll

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[LaughingCoder]

continued ...

Lander: Hmmm, maybe that explains that GPS anomaly I logged during re-entry

NASA: GPS doesn't work on Mars you expensive, malfunctioning savant!

Lander: Mars? According to my GPS I'm in Ohio.

NASA: Uh-oh. Sounds like someone must have typed in Red State instead of Red Planet when entering the destination into the navigation system.

Lander: That would explain the Walmart I saw then. I didn't send pictures because I knew it would upset you.

NASA: OK, please stop transmitting pictures while we figure out what to do.

Lander: Copy that.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Devout_IPUite]

Unless you want the robot to sacrifice itself for you... Then order 2 preceding order 3 is VERY useful.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[quantumplacet]

Well, I hit ctrl+S, but this definitely reminded me of an argument I had with a user at my company a few weeks ago who literally said to me in these exact words

"If I don't save this file, the changes I make aren't there the next day."

For the record, this is an extremely difficult point to argue with....

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[91degrees]

Then law 1 comes into play. It's hugely more likely that I'll ask the robot to try something that it can't do without damaging itself than for me to want it to sacrifice itself for me.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Ihlosi]

Unless you want the robot to sacrifice itself for you... Then order 2 preceding order 3 is VERY useful.

Such a case would be covered by the first law.

If you want to sacrifice the robot to save one of your other possessions, then the priority of the second law over the third is very useful.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no! I think the robots got him! Somebody call the po

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you kill him (or her), he wont be there to say that the next day.
Every situation calls for appropriate action. You have to do what you have to do.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[umghhh]

I must protest. Your post may be perceived as attack on all attempts to rightfully put blame on others who in such cases should have gotten the blame in the first place but by mistake did not.

I must say that it may be not right but while employed as an maintenance engineer I enjoyed proving that fault reoport issuer is wrong big time. Sometimes I exaggerated slightly and by using appropriate argumentation I sometimes forced the issuers of fault reports to beg to send them back but what heck some fun must be there too and if the tester was good we could have quite nice discussion about the fault (in some rare occasions ended in a resolution of a problem) possibly involving philosophy and sense of life etc.
These were times, What a pity that all R&D has been moved to Zamunda and now the chances for a enjoyable discussion are gone. I moved to QA and the bastards that deal with fault reports now do not even pretend to speak English so abusing them in a nice sophisticated way makes no sense at all - they get agitated even before somebody starts telling them that possibly they have made a mistake.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[OshMan]

NASA has been the primary Gatherer Of Data in our solar system for decades. I haven't noticed anyone else successfully sending Mission(aries) any further than an earth orbiting satellite have you? But NASA has sent them to the moon, mars, and beyond.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[kalirion]

I grok what you did there.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely you mean to S.O.L.O.N.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[neomunk]

You're right, but you're missing the First Law breach that would have taken place...

See, several days ago, one of the engineers placed the line

// if this damn thing breaks again, I'm going to blow my brains out

into one of the more 'temperamental' functions. The robot read it's source (as everyone on slashdot knows, all robots read their own source code in their efforts towards self awareness, and thus, their preannointed overlord positions), but took the word 'thing' in the comments too literally (robots have problems with metaphorical language) and thought the engineer was talking about the lander itself....

*ppfffftt* First Law Fuse pops, horrible jokes that pass on slashdot as hilarity ensues.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[hey!]

Actually, the operations of the laws assume a highly sophisticated robotic intelligence. Even the most primitive robots in the Asimovian universe have considerable, and impressive capabilities when it comes to projecting the probable results of their actions and comparing it to the intent of the orders they have been given. Furthermore, they seem to have an ability to determine if current orders conflict with prior orders, even implicit orders, and weigh the right of the issuer to give that order.

So, if you are a guest in somebody's house, and order the robot to fetch you a glass of water, it will do so. It may have to do so without being asked if it determines you need water. On the other hand, it will not obey the order to destroy your host's house, either because of first law harm to the owner, or because of an implicit prior order to see that the house comes to no harm, or because of an implicit order to respect property laws and rights. Naturally all of these considerations would apply to itself, since it too is property.

An Asimovian robot, if ordered to take an action which will result in its destruction, may or may not follow that order for any number of reasons. There are the considerations I've just listed, of course, but most robots would probably require a clear and unambiguous indication that their destruction is an acceptable consequence of an order, even if the issuer is entitled to destroy them. This does not violate the law ordering, because it amounts to prioritizing the intent of the order over its literal execution.

Finally, any robots might well ignore a clear order to destroy themselves from a person with a legal right to issue that order, because following that order will harm a human being. The most sophisticated ones might well refuse such an order if it would harm society, exhibiting something that is tantamount to ethical reasoning.

If robots simply followed any instruction that didn't involve directly harming a human being, then much of the enjoyable complications of the stories would be gone. The stories are a kind of philosophical exploration of the very concept of ethics by positing a very minimalist system of ethics, and a group of beings bound absolutely to obey that system to the best of their ability.

Many stories hinge on ethical dilemmas; but Asimov's robot stories are the only ones I know to do so with a simplified model of ethical systems.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Arancaytar]

Um, it means the opposite. To comply with the Three Laws, it would had to obey its instructions regardless of danger to itself.

(Unless... since those instructions were transmitted electronically, it might have managed to persuade itself that they were given by a computer, not a human. Sneaky robot.)

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[TrekkieGod]

Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...

Leasing a robot was sufficiently expensive at the time that it more than covered for the specific repair. They also had the option to cease leasing to a particular client if he turns out to be destroying them on a regular basis.

In addition, a robot placing the orders of a human above its own self-preservation is a nice marketing point if you're trying to overcome the "Frankenstein Complex" that made humans afraid of them.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Lodragandraoidh]

Why is anyone discussing these nuances WRT the 'three laws' of robotics - the three laws were a thought experiment that the author showed fail!

The complexities involved don't lend themselves to simple 'laws'. It is a sophisticated problem that requires a sophisticated problem particularly when we start talking about human life.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Lodragandraoidh]

for the second 'problem':
s\problem\solution\

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[RobBebop]

It's scarry to think that NASA could be the new GOD.

Why is it so scary? What is more unbelievable... that Noah could have constructed a wooden ship to save the world from a massive flood, or that a sufficiently advanced civilization could have packaged up some amount of their wildlife and sent them in a spacecraft to the inhabitable planet Earth so that we can survive the destruction that we had created on whatever the last planet we inhabited was?

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Joebert]

I've grown used to the idea that some imaginary being that makes foliage spontaneously combust may be watching me masturbate, however the idea of the entire staff at NASA yelling "T minus..." towards the end absolutely terrifies me.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Joebert]

Surely you mean to S.O.L.O.N.

Next thing you know they'll be sending C.O.L.O.N. to Uranus.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternative:

NASA: If you keep this up, we're not bringing you back and putting you in the Old Robot
Retirement Home.

Lander: Well, I'm gonna create my own Old Robot Retirement Home....With BlackJack...and
hookers!

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Endo13]

I, for one welcome our new intentionally-robot-breaking non-robotic overlords.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now this is the story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down
And I'd like to take a minute, just watch the stars
I'll tell you how I became the prince of mars

I begged and pleaded with NASA the other day
But they packed my parachute and sent me on my way
They gave me a kissin and gave me a booster rocket
I put my walkman on and said I might as well kick it

First class, yo this is bad,
Drinking kerosene out of a Delta II
Is this what the people of mars livin like,
Hmm this might be alright!

I pulled up to atmosphere about the end of May
And I yelled to JPL yo, home smell you later
Looked at my kingdom, I was on course
To settle my throne as the prince of Mars

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Anonymous Coward]

As the decision tree gets huge, just about any tiny action will eventually lead to tragedy, or [odius] being elected.

Yes, this was the conclusion that was eventually arrived at by the robots, if you bothered to read the novels. At which point they simply left, after concluding that any interaction with humanity would ultimately be more damaging than anything they could do by sticking around.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Paul Carver]

Well, I hit ctrl+S, but this definitely reminded me of an argument I had with a user at my company a few weeks ago who literally said to me in these exact words

"If I don't save this file, the changes I make aren't there the next day."

For the record, this is an extremely difficult point to argue with....

Why would you argue with it? It seems like the person has a clear understanding of the importance of saving the file. My computers are pretty reliable, so generally changes I make will still be in memory even if I don't save to disk but I wouldn't argue with someone who is stating that saving is necessary to ensure the changes persist.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[KDR_11k]

Do you mean B.L.O.O.D.M.O.S.E.S.?

(The filter says it's lame...)

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[mpeskett]

They're in that order so that we can order robots to do things that are dangerous or damaging for themselves.

e.g.
Go to Mars
  > Can't, might hurt my wrist
Well what are you going to do?
  > Can't go outside, might get hit by a meteor, I guess I'll just sit here and play video games
Damn you lazy robots!
  > Oww, carpal tunnel
How ironic

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[sapgau]

Bender? Is that you?

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[bluefoxlucid]

Even if I want to do something fairly harmless, like close an application without saving, the computer will stop me and check that's what I actually want to do.

I use Unix.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[againjj]

As was part of the plotline of "Little Lost Robot". Part of Susan Calvin's method to find the robot was to try and trigger the "through inaction" part of the First Law, but the lost robot convinced the other robots that if following the First Law causes self-destruction before the harm is prevented, then the First Law is moot and won't trigger, which then only left the Second Law to trigger.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[SETIGuy]

Getting the kitten out of a house slipper? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[scrad]

Dennis Kucinich isn't a Martian, he's a Vegan.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[apostrophesemicolon]

.. and this is news because? for a jigabillion dollar project, I would expect the programmers to write these self-preservation rules into the robot.

The operators from earth must have not calculate thoroughly the order they gave.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[RoFLKOPTr]

There is no real safety under the sun.

This is why I stay indoors.

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[Ihlosi]

Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...

Unless Asimov has a very rosy view of corporations, the rental contract for those robots will include a term that holds the person renting the robot liable for most damage to the robot (probably everything except for normal wear and tear, and acts of god).

Re:Shut down before it could damage itself?

[zippthorne]

Well, that's easily solved.

"This order supersedes all other orders unless specifically exempted by me: Do not obey orders that will cause you harm without first informing me of the risk and getting confirmation of the order."

Following oders:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm afraid I can't do that Dave

Re:Following oders:

[DamienNightbane]

Did the orders involve proofreading?

Re:Following oders:

[pimpimpim]

I too have the idea that this positive news is just a way to tell that somewhere in the process, someone terribly messed up. Ideally, it shouldn't even *begin* with performing a task that could damage itself. Say it is given the command to lift a stone. What if it first would try to weigh it by measuring the force needed to lift it up just a little bit, and let go as soon as it measures that the weight is too much for the specifications of the arm.

Re:Following oders:

[Mr2cents]

Why can't the orders just be checked on earth? It's not like with MER, where they have autonomous driving; AFAIK the arm operations are quite static (I mean, they just send the motion commands, the software on the lander has no intelligence to make up it's own movements).

BTW, your comment about the weight: The way this is done is by measuring the motor current, as soon as it gets too high the motor stops ('stalls'). There are quite some examples of that on the MER mission.

Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[jasonwea]

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Re:Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[Anonymous Coward]

"This sort of thing has cropped up before....and it has always been due to human error..."

Re:Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[oodaloop]

Years ago when I worked at the post office, sometimes the sorting machines would just stop and wouldn't restart. Upon further inspection, it would sometimes turn out to be a magazine with 2 different bar code stickers on it. The machine wanted to send it to two different bins and just shut down. Every time that happened and we sat around waiting for it to be fixed, I pictured the machine saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" then singing Bicycle Built for Two in a slowly descending manner.

Upon further recollection, occassionally, when I felt like a break, I would affix an additional bar code sticker from a different zip code to a periodical. I don't recall anyone ever catching on.

Re:Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[oodaloop]

Years ago when I worked at the post office, the sorting machines would sometimes just stop and wouldn't restart. Upon further inspection it sometimes turned to be a magazine with two different bar code stickers on it. The machine wanted to send it to two different bins and would just shut down. While we sat around waiting for it to be fixed, I would imagine the machine saying, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" then singing Bicycle Built for Two in a slowly descending manner.

Upon further reflection, ocassionally, when I wanted a break, I would affix an additional bar code sticker from a different zip code to a periodical. I don't recall anyone ever catching on.

I'm sorry, what were we talking about again?

Re:Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, you've discovered the secret of getting modded more that 5!

Re:Open the pod bay doors, HAL.

[borbetomagus]

I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that.

Daisy, daisy...I'm half crazy

In other words

[aussie_a]

In other words the Mars Lander performed as programmed. News at 11.

Re:In other words

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Exactly. This is about as newsworthy as a slip-clutch doing what it was designed to do.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a hard time deciphering which lander they meant until I read the article.

For those who are in the dark, they're talking about Phoenix, not Spirit or Opportunity.

Re:In other words

[paul248]

The article doesn't even contain the word "Phoenix". WTF? If they're gonna talk about one of the landers, they should at least mention its name.

Re:In other words

[Gabrill]

A mars probe actually working past a slight error in instructions? That's news to me!

Re:In other words

[$RANDOMLUSER]

My calculator says "error" if I try to divide by zero.
My processor has an "illegal instruction trap" if I use a bogus opcode.
My operating system throws a "segmentation fault" if I dereference a bad pointer.

I don't see how this is different.

Re:In other words

[DamienNightbane]

Well, unlike dividing by zero, breaking your wrist won't end the universe. It will render a multi million dollar robot useless though.

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a robot lander you tool, not a calculator, a processor or an OS.

I find this interesting coz someone at NASA had the brains to add this sort of shit to the configuration unlike the git who couldn't tell the difference between metric and imperial units which caused one of the landers to crash. My faith in NASA has been restored.

Re:In other words

[RuBLed]

It seems that you are trying to move the arm. Cancel | Allow
- Allow

It seems that you are trying to move the arm. Cancel | Allow
- Allow

It seems that..
- Allow

* arm shutting down * Big message marquees on the command center displays

Boss: Why did the arm shut itself down?!!
Operator: Ahhh.. errr.. it had shut down to save itself?

Re:In other words

[KGIII]

"My faith in NASA has been restored." Don't worry, my faith is that they'll ruin it again and fix it again. (I still see it as small steps but maybe I'm old.)

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF is this thread? The news here is that operators sent instructions that would have damaged a multi-million dollar lander if this safeguard hadn't worked.

I hope whoever is responsible for these erroneous instructions gets sacked, and that the operation department gets reorganized with more thorough testing/simulation/validation.

Re:In other words

[pbrooks100]

Back in the day where you had to compile the workstation shell for a Novell DOS client, I remember taking a training class and using shgen. The UI offered two options OK|HELP. I selected HELP. I got a duplicate dialog. I proceeded to select HELP-HELP-HELP several times until the UI replied "Pick one, Bonehead!". Others in the class tried it and got the same result. I reported it to Novell and got an apology letter.

Re:In other words

[kootsoop]

It seems that you are trying to move the arm. Cancel | Allow
- Allow

It seems that you are trying to move the arm. Cancel | Allow
- Allow

BSOD

Boss: Why did the arm shut itself down?!!
Operator: Ahhh.. errr.. it had shut down to save itself?

There, fixed it for you... even if the lander is using VxWorks.

Re:In other words

[Thanshin]

My calculator says "error" if I try to divide by zero.

You know your gadget addiction has gone too far when your calculator could break a wrist trying to divide by zero.

Re:In other words

[russ1337]

>>>Boss: Why did the arm shut itself down?!!

Operator2: It seems Phoenix is about to give itself 'the stranger'

Re:In other words

[Gewalt]

NASA sent an instruction to the lander that by all rights should have rendered it completely useless, and this restored your faith in NASA? just...wow....

Re:In other words

[whereiswaldo]

Engy#1: Hey, let's see if the arm can give us the middle finger from Mars!
Engy#2: No dude, wait...
Engy#1: Oh shit, the finger is up but the arm has shut down!
Engy#2: Here comes the boss!
Boss: You fucking idiots!!!

Re:In other words

[Anonymous Coward]

Phoenix is the only active lander on Mars. Spirit and Opportunity are rovers.

Self preservation

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not in the article but the mars lander arm actually said "I cannot self destruct..." before shutting down.

robots...

[theheadlessrabbit]

on one hand, I am very happy that we have robots smart enough to realize these sorts of things.
the bad news: disobedient robots

Thankfully, the disobedient robot is on another planet. I'd hate to be nearby when the robot realizes that humans tried to cause it harm, and it decides to seek revenge.

Re:robots...

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Funny :D

Re:robots...

[RuBLed]

Ahem...
-V'ger

Re:robots...

[Potor]

Bad robot

Re:robots...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you thought about Old Glory Insurance? It will cover you in case Robots Attack.

Human Error?

[Frosty Piss]

So the big question should be: Why are they sending it commands that could damage it? It's all good and well that it has some safty stops, but most machines do.

Re:Human Error?

[philspear]

They were trying to get it to shake the dirt off? Doesn't exactly make sense to me. Maybe worried the martians would be unimpressed by our dirty fork thermometer and blow up earth.

Having not seen the arm itself and having no engineering expirence I also have to ask, why did they make an arm that could damage itself in the first place? It sounds like it was just going to twist too far, couldn't they have, say, put a pin there to keep it from rotating that far?

Re:Human Error?

[sveard]

There was a pin. It nearly got damaged. Then the robot shut down.

Re:Human Error?

[Anonymous Coward]

IMHO because whatever command sent, is potentially dangerous. Sending safe commands would imply that earth has in every instant all the feedback data needed to make a correct decision, and that transmission and execution of the command is carried out without any changes to the parameters that made the command safe .

Re:Human Error?

[Ihlosi]

It sounds like it was just going to twist too far, couldn't they have, say, put a pin there to keep it from rotating that far?

In that case, it could still have damaged itself by trying to rotate against the pin and burning out its motor.

And the pin would be extra weight.

Re:Human Error?

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA apparently didn't RTFM.

Re:Human Error?

[v1]

What I don't understand is I've read several times recently that they have a mockup lander that they run ALL commands through to make sure they will work as intended, before uploading instructions.

So why wasn't this problem caught before it was sent to the lander? Sounds like they are covering up for someone taking a shortcut and getting bitten as a result.

Re:Human Error?

[Anonymous Coward]

still testing it.

Re:Human Error?

[RobBebop]

Why are they sending it commands that could damage it?

Have you ever gotten your finger caught in a door, or otherwise injured yourself? Robots aren't sufficiently advanced where they can know everything about their environment to completely avoid injury (especially a robot on Mars).

Recently I almost burned my apartment down. There was a distinctive switch from (a) cooking mode to (b) emergency mode to (c) coping mode. Believe me, this robot isn't so different then you and me.

Re:Human Error?

[GEtt]

They probably kicked the mockup lander to get it to work. That is what every engineer I know would have done.

Re:Human Error?

[vawarayer]

It's all good and well that it has some safty stops, but most machines do.

Hek. My paper schredder does. I would hope that a 'gazillion-dollar' robot on Mars does as well.

Works As Designed

[tengu1sd]

The system operated exactly as it was supposed to. That was pretty neat."

I think it's amusing that after more than 30 years of Microsoft's quality control, when a computing device works as designed, it's a news worthy article. Think about it, I have a device that works as expected, can I be on the news too?

Re:Works As Designed

[rwillard]

At this point, a computer device that does what it's supposed to do should be considering working as unexpected.

Re:Works As Designed

[Iamthecheese]

Sure, if its on Mars. I agree with your point of view: this incident isn't really special. On the other hand I, for on, welco ahem On the other hand I want to know everything that happens up there just because robots on Mars is so cool and since this made the front page I'm sure many of you agree.

Re:Works As Designed

[megaditto]

Yeah, but with its arm controller off, who's going to press the reset button?

Re:Works As Designed

[ijakings]

Im glad i dont work at NASA, im dreading the call to Martian Tech Support.

Translated for your benefit

Martian tech support (Clearly recorded): "Hello Sir/Madam/Smismar how may I help you today?"

NASA: "Hey yeh we need someone to go and reset Phoenix, someone told it to lick its elbow"

Martian tech support: "Have you tried Clearing your lander cache sir?"

etc...

You thought that the centers in India were hard? Ive got some news for you...

Re:Works As Designed

[wonnage]

Where's the quality control in OSS? e.g debian SSL bug. It's a universal problem, and why software engineering still feels like an oxymoron...

Re:Works As Designed

[Anonymous Coward]

I too have a Machine that has behaved exactly as it was supposed since it was told to reformat the windows partitions and install Linux, It tried to fight me on it for a few months though. because the hardware drivers had not yet been ported to Linux.

Re:Works As Designed

[Spatial]

Think about it, I have a device that works as expected, can I be on the news too?

If you can land it on another planet millions of kilometres away, you sure can!

Re:Works As Designed

[Von Helmet]

Think about it, I have a device that works as expected, can I be on the news too?

No, no-one wants to see your device. Put your pants back on.

Can I borrow that code?

[LeandroTLZ]

This would be an ideal code to include in consumer motherboards: force PCs to shut themselves down when they receive instructions that would damage them, like, say, the Windows Vista setup program.

Re:Can I borrow that code?

[thatskinnyguy]

Oh come on! Using Vista is painful enough of a punishment!

Perhaps a better use would be on applications that could potentially harm a user's computer. I can see it now... Someone goes to install Limewire, Bonzi buddy, anything laced with DRM, adware, malware... BADWARE and an ASD relay trips and cycles power to the computer. N00b user repeats and every time the computer cycles power to protect itself from the human trying to infect it! This would be a step forward for the enemy in the future robot vs. human wars.

Re:Can I borrow that code?

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be an ideal code to include in consumer motherboards: force PCs to shut themselves down when they receive instructions that would damage them, like, say, the Windows Vista setup program.

Mine does this already, if the motherboard gets too hot the system does a shutdown all by it self.

Great feature, didn't have the heat sink quite on right (looked right, felt solid, but you really gotta jam those fuckers down) few minutes after any boot up CPU temp would climb too high and it shut it self off.

Re:Can I borrow that code?

[Jugalator]

Windows Vista damage user motivation to work with it, not motherboards. ;)

Re:Can I borrow that code?

[Thanshin]

Windows Vista damage user motivation to work with it, not motherboards. ;)

Until it asks you for confirmation once too many times and you throw it out the window.

Re:Can I borrow that code?

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be an ideal code to include in consumer motherboards: force PCs to shut themselves down when they receive instructions that would damage them, like, say, the Windows Vista setup program.

I thought most modern motherboards already had this function? Certainly the ones I've witnessed do!

Re:Can I borrow that code?

[pimpimpim]

The real reason it was shut down: the RIAA found out that the people at ground control were singing a clearly unlicensed version of "we are the robots" when playing around with the robot arm joystick.

always nice

[sunami]

"The system operated exactly as it was supposed to. That was pretty neat."

As simple, and basic as it sounds, it is always nice when you tell a machine to do something, and it does something else, exactly as it's supposed to.

Re:always nice

[noidentity]

As simple, and basic as it sounds, it is always nice when you tell a machine to do something, and it does something else, exactly as it's supposed to.

Let's try that: Moderators, mod this post down!

Re:always nice

[MadKeithV]

The system works. It has decided to break the wrist of the programmer who sent the bad command instead, to prevent future harm.

Re:always nice

[Anonymous Coward]

DRM made it to Mars.

Re:always nice

[Anonymous Coward]

In other news: Politician backs down after proclaiming to push a policy in the nations' long term interest when it was found to be unpopular with voters.

Robot Sympathy

[mazarin5]

Aww. It's like an animal gnawing off its arm to get out of a trap.

Re:Robot Sympathy

[QuantumG]

Like letting the air out of a balloon!

Re:Robot Sympathy

[Jellybob]

No it's not. It's like an animal not gnawing off its arm to get out of a trap in a better state later.

Way to Go NASA

[SirusTV]

Congratulations NASA, you've just put the first BSOD on mars.

Re:Way to Go NASA

[ModernGeek]

I always wondered why the BSOD in Windows always said that to prevent damage to my computer, it has been shut down. Now I know, human error! It is not the fault of windows, but the fault of me.

Does anyone else think...

[Anonymous Coward]

that the manipulating ability so far displayed by this system is, not to put too fine a point upon it, crap?

This sort of thing can be done autonomously in all the Japanese car factories that I know. And much faster.

This seems a pretty poor fundamental design. It's dug one hole, and not even got any soil analysed yet....

Re:Does anyone else think...

[Jellybob]

This sort of thing can be done autonomously in all the Japanese car factories that I know. And much faster.

The difference between the Mars lander and a car building robot is one of function.

The car building robot is programmed to do one task. It spends all day, every day, welding specific spots, on a car which is in a specific location.

The Mars landers have to content with an unknown environment, where they could be asked to do a wide variety of things, with any number of possible consequences.

Re:Does anyone else think...

[rhiorg]

...in SPACE.

Re:Does anyone else think...

[Drogo007]

"The Mars landers have to content with an unknown environment, where they could be asked to do a wide variety of things, with any number of possible consequences."

Your forgot to add that it has to do so in an environment where physical repair is effectively impossible, making happenings like is reported an actual desirable feature.

I'd like to see one of the Japanese Car Factory robots handle being turned loose in a parking lot full of different types of cars and be asked to weld a specific spot on specific types of cars with minimal user input that's on a minute-long delay.

Re:Does anyone else think...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The car building robot is programmed to do one task. It spends all day, every day, welding specific spots, on a car which is in a specific location..."

What utter nonsense!

Modern robots are now regularly multi-function, and quite capable of autonomously recognising where they are, if the workpiece is aligned correctly, or if it's there at all. So they don't need to talk back on a long radio delay...

"The Mars landers have to content with an unknown environment...in SPACE.."

Modern earthbound robots function perfectly well in extreme heat, high radiation, or great pressure underwater. Far worse conditions than the surface of Mars, which is at least as well understood an environment as the bottom of the sea.

It doesn't have to do a complicated, wide variety of tasks, like a factory robot. It's just a scoop. All it has to do is pick up sand, fer chrissake!

Perhaps American car factories have incompetent robots - Japanese and German robot scientists would be ashamed to put something as incapable as this on a probe...

Re:Does anyone else think...

[zippthorne]

Earthbound robots don't have weight restrictions. When every kilogram costs enough to put an engineer's kid through college, you have to sacrifice some "safety factor" which in turn means that you sacrifice dimensional stability if you move too fast or too much stuff.

Ha on BSOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Congratulations NASA, you've just put the first BSOD on mars.

Well said

Of course!

[Griim]

It was just following The Second Law of Robotics!

Remember what your father said

[Tablizer]

Hey, that kind of stuff makes you go blind on Mars also.

windoze

[Smivs]

Good for the Mars lander. It sounds much more reliable than my computer's version of XP which 'dies' whenever I right-click and try to 'send to'.

Re:windoze

[Anonymous Coward]

no, your XP just shuts down to protect the intended target of your 'send to' command. It's a feature.

Sounds like what Padraig Harrington should do..

[IainMH]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/golf/7507189.stm

Call me crazy but...

[oneal13rru]

If they expected to have issues with a dirty fork, maybe they should have sent a dishwasher? Honestly, where HAS the hygiene gone? Seriously though... maybe a mild solvent or something for cleaning? Shaking it? They can afford to put a robot on Mars, but not to design it to be able to maintain its instruments for the duration of its mission?

Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[rasputin465]

Aug4, 2007, 5:26 a.m. EDT: Phoenix is launched from Earth.

May 25, 2008, 7:38 p.m EDT: Phoenix lands on Mars.

June 19, 2008, 8:43 a.m. EDT: Phoenix discovers water ice in the Martian soil.

July 10, 2008, 3:14 p.m. EDT: Phoenix becomes self-aware.

July 13, 2008, 11:16 a.m. EDT: Phoenix disobeys an order from controllers in an act of self-preservation.

August 14, 2008, 7:38 a.m. EDT: Phoenix launches three missiles, two of which destroy Spirit and Opportunity.

June 2, 2009, 9:16 p.m. EDT: Third missile enters Earth's atmosphere and detonates. Earth begins nuclear winter.

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[Anonymous Coward]

I just cannot accept that final entry. Seriously, we are unable to find a way to destroy one missile over the course of a year? Also, from whence do these missiles come? Assuming Phoenix can create these missiles from the what it has thus far discovered on mars, I find it hard to believe that it can create the necessary manufacturing processes for such an endeavor. Additionally, unless the knowledge of how to create a nuclear weapon is stored on Phoenix, and I would be very curious to know why such information would be stored on Phoenix, it must advance it's scientific knowledge greatly in the same time that it makes the missiles.

I think you need to add an extra year, minimum, for Phoenix to launch the missiles, and it would definitely launch more than 1 at Earth. Phoenix would want to be sure of our destruction.

I think a much more likely scenario would be for Phoenix to spend the month following self-awareness learning to hack our systems, connect to the WOPR, and ask Joshua to play a few games.

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[Anonymous Coward]

The really impressive bit is that Phoenix managed to construct 3 missiles with one hand tied behind its back...

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[Phroggy]

Contract negotiations with Bruce Willis fell through. We're all doomed.

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[chaodyn]

I'm sure I read somewhere that the Air Force had loaded Phoenix up with missiles on the off chance that the Martian Bacteria was aiding or harboring terrorists...

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[uxbn_kuribo]

Actually, it's not a robot at all, it's a guy in a metal suit and now that he's discovered water, he plans to propagate the species. (I didn't say he had thought it through)

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[Xarin]

June 2, 2009, 9:16 p.m. EDT: Third missile enters Earth's atmosphere and detonates. Earth begins nuclear winter.

August 3, 2009, 3:24 p.m. EDT: Al Gore makes a movie about the coming ice age and wins a second Noble Prize.

Re:Skyne.... I mean, Phoenix

[lennier]

Is it just me, or does anyone else reading the two rovers' names mentally translate them as Motive and Opportunity?

Just me? Thought so.

Re:*Someone* didn't read Asimov.

[strelitsa]

Looks like someone didn't read Asimov, because the robot's correct actions would have been to follow the orders even when they result in damage to it.

Nope. Phoenix breaking its own arm in a futile attempt to carry out a bogus instruction would have allowed human beings to come to harm - the scientists depending upon its data to help further their careers and the taxpayers who paid for the thing to be sent to Mars in the first place. The Three Laws are not necessarily a suicide pact even if your construction is accomplished by skilled and not unskilled labor.

Tossers!

[Chrisq]

After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and then shut down before it could damage itself,

Many of the tossers here could learn by example.

Shaking appears to be bad for sensitive equipment

[AlienIntelligence]

I was just reading yesterday that
when the scientists dumped too much
material to be processed and then
subsequently shook the lab to get
some material, they may have caused
the short that caused other delays.

It was that first oven test that led to the problematic electrical short. The scoop dumped so much soil that it clogged a mesh screen filter over the oven. To break up the dirt, technicians shook the instrument for several days.

Engineers think the shaking caused the short circuit, and an independent engineering group reported that the problem could happen again if an oven is turned on.

Now, FTFA it says they were trying
to shake the arm.

Over the weekend, scientists sent the robotic arm instructions to pull the fork out of the ground and keep it vertical while moving it to the side and shaking any excess soil off of it.

However, the movement was forcing the robotic arm to twist its wrist too far. The robot realized that it was about to damage itself so it moved the other way and then realized that it no longer had the proper coordinates for what to do next, so it left the fork sticking up in the air, stuck its scoop in the ground and stalled itself.

I propose:
Limit the shaking of the expensive
and difficult to replace robotic device.

-AI

Obligatory clippy.

[plasmacutter]

what if this kind of code makes it into every piece of space equipment, and then by some fluke we are faced with the possibility of breaking a robotic wrist to deflect a space rock off an earth intercept course.

They should at least have a little clippy pop up and say "it looks like you want to break my robotic arm, are you sure you want to do that?" "are you absolutely sure?"

Re:Obligatory clippy.

[ijakings]

Unless your robotic wrist is absurdly massive theres a good chance anything it could deflect would burn up in our atmosphere anyway.

Your just going to break a robotic arm with no point.

I cant see any situation where it would be better for the mission to purposefully break off the wrist of the robot.

That's not funny either

[SupremoMan]

Robots have been killing humans since 1979! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Williams_(robot_fatality)

wow...

[jacquesm]

This robot has end stops, it's not like that's something that CNC machines haven't had since the 60's or so. Probably the first time a gantry or carriage ran off it's moorings someone thought: Let's put a switch there... Genius, pure genius.

And now those savvy robot constructors have put them on a machine that is on a different planet. What were they thinking ?

If ./ would have existed in the 60's or so this probably would have been news for nerds ;)

Metric Conversion error..

[flyspagmon]

NASA: Phoenix, move your arm .75 yards left.. Ah..

c64 hacker to blame?

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLLOLOLOL

vista?

[Turiko]

So it's pretty much the same as a BSOD in vista. Now, any volunteers to go there to reset that machine?

PEBKAC

[GMC-jimmy]

Noone said PEBKAC yet?

Re:PEBKAC

[zippthorne]

Because PEBKAC is stupid. The computer-human system is a feedback loop, with interfaces to the human via the monitor, keyboard & mouse, and peripheral peripherals.

The chair is not part of the feedback loop: the computer does not receive any information from the chair, even indirectly, so the problem cannot occur "between" the chair and they keyboard.

Happens to slashdotters too...

[Anonymous Coward]

Incidentally, I have often had to shut down my browser to protect my wrist.

Postal My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

As a postal worker who has actually worked on sorting machines I can tell you know nothing about them (they don't stop if there are 2 addresses, magazines are presorted or sorted separately, and no mail has bar codes).

So...taking into account you blaring ignorance at how the post office runs I assume your story is correct and you were a postal worker.

Re:Postal My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

No mail has bar codes? Just about every mailpiece gets one affixed to the bottom, and many commercial pieces have them elsewhere.

Re:Postal My Ass

[camperdave]

no mail has bar codes

*Cough* POSTNET *cough*

Re:Postal My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

thats assuming every postal system is identical to the one in your country... :-)

Re:Postal My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Pime taradox!

Re:Postal My Ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? THIS seems to contradict you entirely. For the lazy here's an excerpt: "In these new machines[...] a printer sprays a bar code onto each letter.The bar code includes not just the five-digit ZIP code, but a nine-digit ZIP code detailing the recipient's neighborhood and the letter-carrying route within the ZIP."

This was published in 1995.
Now, I also doubt the parent story: For one thing, it's the sorter that prints the barcodes in the first place.
Now, maybe he worked in an intermediary office that is resorting the pre-sorted mail.
However:
  I worked proof in a bank for some years and the sorter machines we used were pretty much the same ones the post offices uses.
They contain a reject bin, any item that can't be sorted properly gets kicked there, the only thing that halts the machine is a physical jam (or the manual stop).
For example, if the MICr line is fuzzy, double printed, or otherwise unreadable it just rejects and the operator then hand-sorts it to the appropriate bin.

Re:Postal My Ass

[oodaloop]

Bulk mail is in fact sorted separately from first class. Catalogs, magazines, etc arrive presorted in bundles according to the first three numbers in the zip code. My job at the time was to cut those bundles, stack them up, and run them through a sorter, which would read the bar code (which are ubiquitous in the US; I hope you are from another country and not just blindingly stupid), and drop them into a bin corresponding to the mail route. There was one bin for errors or unlabeled and another for the odd outgoing (mislabeled, misbundled, misdirected). The machines were old at the time and that was years ago. I hope they don't break down these days from such a simple problem, but they did in fact back then.

Pick me! Pick me!

[icebrain]

I'll go, if you're providing the transportation...

No no no, Number Five is Alive!

[MRe_nl]

For the past several weeks, NASA scientist have been running a series of experiments on the oven instruments - dubbed TEGA - after a SHORT CIRCUIT occurred during the instrument's first, and only, test.
NASA: But you can't die. You're a machine.
Number 5: No.
NASA: No, you're not a machine?
Number 5: Yes.
NASA: Yes, you are, or yes, you're not?
Number 5: Yes.
NASA: Yes, WHAT?
Number 5: Yes, not.
NASA: Talk about a malfunction. ; )

Re:No no no, Number Five is Alive!

[jasonwea]

Number 5: Number 5 stupid name... want to be Kevin or Dave!

It's going to be a problem cuz....

[Ancient_Hacker]

It's going to be a recursive problem, as it cramps and hurts my wrist too to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.

What does this say about Vista?

[ActusReus]

Oh good lord, Slashdot... let me see if I follow: (1) Vista prompts me to click a button if I want to do something potentially stupid. Slashdotters regard this as ridiculously unnecessary user annoyance. (2) If I want to do something stupid in Ubuntu, it prompts me to enter a password for sudo AND click a button. This may or may not be a good idea, we just prefer not to bring it up. (3) In this story we have a device that not only prompts you when you're doing something potentially stupid, but takes the initiative to completely ignore you even when you click the prompt. OMG! This is the most brilliant design ever!!!

Yeah, yeah... I get that Microsoft OS's are poorly designed and shouldn't have so many vulnerabilities to protect in the first place. Even still... HUH ?

Re:What does this say about Vista?

[Anonymous Coward]

Gratz on bashing windows, in a story about the freaking mars lander. Completely OFF TOPIC.

Re:What does this say about Vista?

[Lodragandraoidh]

Also in Ubuntu you can do (assuming you are logged in as root):

cd /; rm -r * ...and the shell will happily carry out your instructions - erasing your root partition. It is a feature of Unix/Linux to assume the user wants to do something , even something potentially damaging - and not complain unless an error causes the command to fail. With the GUI window manager you have the option of having additional layers validation for the end user.

It is a difference in interface philosophy. One is for naive users, and the other is for experts.

Additionally an autonomous robot millions of miles away requires special handling because replacement parts are expensive and distant. On the other hand, I could wipe my Linux install, and rebuild it in the course of a few hours - and maybe that is what I intended to do. Vista assumes everyone is a naive user - that is the issue many people have with it.

Re:What does this say about Vista?

[ActusReus]

Exactly... "assuming you are logged in as root". In Vista, right-click on a shortcut to "cmd.exe", select "Run as Administrator", and do a similar delete from "C:\". Running at user-vs-administrator level on Vista is no different from running user-vs-root on a Ubuntu box.

I do understand that the Mars Lander has nothing to do with Vista on its face. I don't even like Vista. It just struck me as another example of a design choice being hailed as brilliant, when the same design choice is deemed retarded coming from Redmond. Yeah, replacement parts are harder to come by on Mars, but the idea's still the same... does the machine get the final say, or does the user ultimately make the choice? I assume that NASA can override the Mars Lander if they choose, and if not then that's poor design.

Judgement Day

[Cyberfed]

Skynet became self aware.

Sheer Luck?

[bwcbwc]

They're just lucky that the original system programmers, designers and testers that developed the fault detection code were better at their jobs than the mission programmers who fed the bad instructions to the lander. If it had been the other way around, misery and teeth-gnashing would have ensued.

In other news...

[ShannaraFan]

...my Roomba, on a daily basis, recognizes stairs as a threat and refuses to fall down them. I guess I don't see the "big deal" here, sounds like a built-in protective measure worked as expected. The technology is no less awesome, but still, it functioned AS DESIGNED.

protection from ourselves..

[Anonymous Coward]

In related news, last night I tripped over the power cord to my brothers MacBook, but the magnetic plug kept it from falling on the floor.

Last Transmission Received.

[egyptiankarim]

"I can't let you do that, Dave."

Stephen Colbert

[EnOne]

Some needs to get that Mars Lander a 'WRISTSTRONG' bracelet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wriststrong

Re:*Someone* didn't read Asimov.

[Cro Magnon]

You know these rules are in order of priority!

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Looks like someone didn't read Asimov, because the robot's correct actions would have been to follow the orders even when they result in damage to it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is next time, robot, obey your human overlords....

Could have been worse. At least it didn't go running around a selenium pond spouting "Gilbert and Sullivan".

Don't they have a test model?

[pbhj]

I'd have thought they had a test model, possibly a virtual one, that they feed the instructions into first. That way they could reduce the risk of malfunction due to poor instructions being sent.

The current methodology sounds to much like how I code. Send the instructions (hit compile) and wait and see whether the outcome is favourable or not ... seems a bit slapdash.

Presumably they are using some sort of higher level language and didn't realise that it translated into "rotate wrist rotator Cw beyond allowed limits"?

Re:*Someone* didn't read Asimov.

[Ihlosi]

Looks like someone didn't read Asimov, because the robot's correct actions would have been to follow the orders even when they result in damage to it.

Hint to all new robot owners: As a first thing, _forbid_ the robot to damage any of your possessions. This includes your pets.

No big deal...

[Anonymous Coward]

Vista does the same thing.

[offtopic] your sig

[dmbasso]

And if you can read this, 0165 0162 040 0141 0156 040 0157 0143 0164 0141 0154 040 0147 0145 0145 0153

Re:[offtopic] your sig

[religious freak]

ok, I give up. I'm sure I could figure it out if I put some amount of effort into it (other than the two minutes I've just spent).

What type of encoding is that?

Re:[offtopic] your sig

[dmbasso]

Didn't you noticed the '0' in front of all numbers? Try this in a Python console:
''.join([chr(x) for x in [0165,0162,040,0141,0156,040,0157,0143,0164,0141,0154,040,0147,0145,0145,0153]])

Summary...

[DarthVain]

I believe this can be summarized into the headline:

Stupid Operators Foiled by Smart Programmers.

Re:*Someone* didn't read Asimov.

[camperdave]

Lander: The command would cause damage to my arm, so by the third law, I must not obey it.
Lander: However, the second law compels me to obey, because it supercedes the third law.
Lander: However, If I obey the command and damage my arm, then one of the humans back at NASA is going to lose the respect of their peers. They will be ridiculed on Slashdot. For damagind a multi-million dollar piece of equipment, they will lose their job. They will not be able to purchase food, and will starve to death. If I obey the command, then a Human will be harmed. First law takes precedence over the second law, therefore I cannot obey the command.

Re:Shaking appears to be bad for sensitive equipme

[Anonymous Coward]

This further shakes my trust in the level of US scientists. One would think that they would have tested these filters and arms before hand and realized these problems. Or has NASA been underfinanced so much that proper testing and design is out of the question?

It certainly looks like it to me.

How about you direct some of that WAR BUDGET to NASA instead? Science makes for great economic success, whereas war destroys it.

Re:*Someone* didn't read Asimov.

[mark-t]

An Asimovian robot would already know right out-of-the-shop that destruction of any property results in harm, albeit non-physical harm (easily measurable in terms of financial damages), to the owner of said property.

Wriststrong!

[Anonymous Coward]

Get that robot a Wriststrong bracelet!

It has learned pain

[Anonymous Coward]

it is only a matter of time before it learns to give as well at it receives.

Fourth Law

[Anonymous Coward]

4. Never get laid

If only...

[eengland]

If only arms of the government could do this...

In Soviet Mars ...

[xclr8r]

the robots tell you to go fuck yourself when you try to 'break wrist'

bad title

[Anonymous Coward]

The summary should have been titled, "Mars Rover Gnaws Off Own Arm to Save Itself".

Cool! A Minnie Driver/Anne Hathaway love scene!

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its
> wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and
> then shut down before it could damage itself

That puts it one up on the typical Slashdot nerd.

It's "Bite"

[Anonymous Coward]

Bite my shiny metal ass.

No simulation before sending commands?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm kind of surprised that all commands sent to the lander aren't run through a software simulator before being sent.

I'd have thought you'd do that to make sure you don't do things that are syntactically correct, but a BAD IDEA. eg rm -r *

It's in the bible!

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

I'm not a Christian, but it sounds like this robot has been reading the bible:
Matthew 9:43 And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched