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The Changing Face of Robotics
An anonymous reader writes "Using sensors to interface socially, the next generation of robots may not fit the classic idea of what a robot should be. Glen Martin writes: 'Equipped with two articulated arms, it can perform a multitude of tasks. It requires no application code to start up, and no expensive software to function. No specialists are required to program it; workers with minimal technical background can "teach" the robot right on the production line through a graphical user interface and arm manipulation.'"
Cool. I love the idea of virtually zero employment thanks to ubiquitous robots.
Wonder how that's going to work out...no workers means no one collects a paycheck. Only a few people will own all the resources. So what...the government gives the people a stipend? And we spend it on whatever the robots make? Or do we just cut out the middle man, hand the robots over to the people through government proxies, and make whatever we want?
Man, I would say in the long run, capitalism doesn't have much of a future.
It's a shit summary of a shit story which is old news to start with. Basically they're just saying that they will deliver you a "generic" robot which has no specifically pre-programmed tasks. Instead of paying someone to write a custom program to (for example) weld a joint, the worker uses a GUI and manual manipulation of the actuators to "teach" the software the task you want it to perform.
This idiot also makes a bunch of really off-base assumptions about what a robot is "supposed to be", and ignores most of the bulk of science fiction in order to come up with the claim that this is somehow "unusual".
They mean it requires no expensive software other then the expensive software that it already runs.
I think it is more of a puff piece written in an attempt to cash-in on a reference to the movie "her".
An AI program is NOT the same thing as a robot. And an expert system is not the same as an AI program.
I've always wanted to be a robot's pet.
Now Mr Robot, this is what I want you to do. When the boss comes by, I want you to lift up both arms like this, now extend your middle actuators and shout, "Blow it out your tailpipe!"
time to cut full time down maybe 20-32 hours.
Let's start with 32 hours / 4 days a week with an end to the salary no OT pay or maybe a high mini level of pay to have the no OT pay say 100K+ COL
Also an high H-1B min wage say 125k+
They will be programmed to KILL. What then???
Captcha: Murder
Why the recent interest in robots? Robots were used extensively in the 70s and 80s in car factories. They didn't need much computing power. They didn't take over jobs in many industries as many predicted back then. Why is there a more recent interest in robots? Does good machine vision require lots of CPU power? Have Chinese wages become too expensive? Have Mexican wages become too expensive? Is the ACA that horrible? Were factory managers too lazy to think of how robots could benefit them?
I don't know about the graphical user interface, but if you get someone who does metal cutting, welding, or other such work and ask him/her to use arm manipulation to teach a robot how to take over their job, you mind find "arm manipulation" is interpreted to mean something along the lines of "welding the arm onto the robot's arse".
use both arms
Last production robot i dealt with you 'programmed it' by walking it thru the paces in a 'learn mode'. While the back end there was software of course, the person 'showing' it how to do the job didn't need to know this.
I guess times have changed, for the worse.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Or, more likely, they completely haven't, which is what I was objecting to - I believe this is one of those threads that attempts to claim that somebody is doing something earthshatteringly new, when, in fact, it's the same thing everyone's been doing for years or possibly decades already.
What the hell? Two arms and multiple functions? You call that a robot? Can a 10 year old whizz kid deep into pod race subculture build it in his bedroom from kits? Can it play co-pilot to a X-wing space fighter? No? Then it ain't no robot.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
what a robot is "supposed to be",
An alcoholic kleptomaniac, of course.
This is how the next generation robot looks like.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Explain.
Judging by the welders and fitter and turners that I know, after asking one of these blokes to teach the robot that will take their job, I think the "appendage manipulation" that the sounds that they will be producing would make most chiropractors cringe.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
You can only cyber with an AI, but you can stick your dick in a robot. And an expert system just asks you how it would feel to stick your dick in your mother.
The 2012 interview was more informative:
" Indeed. We don't mean "common sense" from a Marvin Minsky-like strong AI perspective. Baxter's "execution" application consists of a series of behavior-based systems. During "training," the robot detects task-relevant features and uses it to build up the behavior based system.
For example, let's say a user is training the robot for a pick and place task. During the "pick" phase, a user places the gripper above an object and closes the gripper. The force on the gripper is detected by the robot. Our "training" application detects this sequence as "the robot is grasping an object"... so during "execution", Baxter won't proceed unless it actually detects an object in the robots gripper. Thus, if the object fell out, it would stop (or do something else). This is different from how existing industrial robots work -- they'd just merrily continue the pick-and-place without the object.
Collectively, these "behavior primitives" are assigned and composed, ie. "learned", during "training" by having non-technical users directly manipulate the robot rather than programming it (which is also possible for those inclined). This gives the robot an air of common sense."
This is useful, but not that intelligent. Take a look at these PR videos to see what it can do. Basically, it can pack and unpack things, and move them from one place to another. It's not good enough to assemble much of anything. Plugging in connectors to assemble a phone? Not with this machine and software.
How the hell do you have a graphical user interface without anyone having ever written any software for it?
More importantly, how the hell are you going to have the workers themselves automate their job away, willingly?
Heinlein's "Door into summer" describes Flexible Frank robot with exactly those capabilities.
Finally, a device to punch someone in the face over Internet. It couldn't have arrived sooner.