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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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?

[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.

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.

[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.

In other words

[aussie_a]

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

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

[russ1337]

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

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

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.