Screens towards you. This way the kids turn their back to the screen when they look at you, which would prevent them being distracted when you talk; it would also allow you to see what they are doing with a glance.
I second other comments above: Lem is a genius. I don't get Solaris, but "The Cyberiad" is excellent political satire, and "Perfect Vacuum" might even be too hard for them.
BTW, if "fantasy" is taken in the broad sense, then what about Borges?
Certainly that's the case.
I think the intention of this project is to create a platform for future research.
By making it open-source (and hopefully affordable), it has better chances of being accepted as a standard benchmark for the next generation of embodied AI (which, as its name implies, isn't here yet). Think about it as the physics engine, not the game itself...
Having said that, let's embark on the more interesting discussion of what are the prospects of a robot successfully roaming around our homes. I claim that cleaning is achievable with present-day technology, but more lively interaction with us (humans) around is still far away...
Then it's not "science". It's just one more religion / belief system in a pile of others out to get converts.
I hate to shake your tree, but in my view "science" is a system of beliefs; one that we inherited from the period of the Enlightenment, and we have been developing in the western world for a few centuries, and that has been working out remarkably well, and as such we wish to extend it and support it and spread it. However, there is no denying that it is "one more" belief system, and in some cases, not the best one to adhere to (as anyone who was healed from cancer through integrative medicine would testify).
I am an academic and a scientist, and I believe in all my heart that in most cases science is the best thing we've got, and that its promotion is essential to the well being of our society.
However, it is self-deception to think science is beyond being yet another system of beliefs, and a socially-constructed one (particularly in the case of social science). That in itself doesn't disqualify science from being the right thing to do; it just requires us, as scientists, to remember that we are being funded by the people, and for the people. And while Democracy and Science might be occasionally in opposition, we cannot afford to ignore either element of the equation...
This work speaks against our (faulty, I claim) conceptualization of the brain as an information processing device, implementing some analysis algorithms a-la David Marr.
Instead, think of the brain as a device whose function is to predict the immediate future. Since the environment is probably dynamic, it would be silly to stay put and wait for cues to indicate the changes outside.
It is far more effective to try and guess ahead, go-with-the-flow, constantly stay in flux (some tai-chi overtones here, I admit). Hence spontaneous activity. Experimenters try to create an artificially-controlled environment which is nothing like what we have evolved for, and hence have hard time explaining these results.
Does this make sense to you, fellow Slashdotters?
With all due respect to those brilliant thinkers, I think we can learn a lesson from the first 50 years of AI - while it is clear that great things can be achieved with our new and magnificent computational tools (read: computers), I honestly think we are looking for the wrong goals, and as such there is no prospect (risk?) that machines will become truly intelligent any time soon.
Usually people consider cognition as essentially information processing. But here is a different definition (inspired by people like JJ Gibson and Varela): cognition is the ongoing, open ended interaction with an unpredictable, dynamic environment. This capture, I believe, the essence of the human (and any other living creature) experience in the world, and excludes the computational experience.
We will have to build machines that are capable of open-ended interaction with an unpredictable world in order to hope and see any true sign of intelligence. Since very few are even trying to look in that direction (while most researchers are just looking for the awesome, and often lucrative, applications of our current computational capacity), I don't see any change coming soon.
It might be that the concept of "free will" is obsolete, and I would definitely agree that we should find a way away from concepts of (eternal?!) soul. However, I think the brain is such a complex system that no simulation, with definite predictive capacities, of a particular instance would ever be possible; what I mean is that even when we can build brains from scratch, we could still never predict the behaviour of one specific person, just because we wouldn't be able to sample all the relevant variables to input the "simulation" that would generate a prediction about his/her future actions. People could claim for statistical correlates, but you can't really imprison a person for that, can you?
Fighter pilots have been using devices of similar gist for many years. Now, I am not a professional in this field, but as far as I know this technology never found its way to the consumer world because it is notorious for giving the viewer a nasty headache when used too long. It is not clear if they figured this issue out; until they do, I refuse to be impressed.
P.S. In case the people involved are actually reading it: did you ever try using it for more than 10 minutes straight?
It's true that the Italians, who are used to fairly unregulated traffic, are more attentive drivers than many other nations; but this approach would work only in countries where self-discipline, respect for your neighbor and patience are common traits, i.e. only in Northern Europe. As an Israeli, I dread to think what the road would look like if such an arrangement was in place (in Israel, there are no unregulated left turns at street lights, and no right turn on red anywhere. Still, accidents are all too common).
Slashdot Mirror
Screens towards you. This way the kids turn their back to the screen when they look at you, which would prevent them being distracted when you talk; it would also allow you to see what they are doing with a glance.
No need to be so aggressive: http://xkcd.com/541/
Can someone figure out why they need to actually build their own place? I just don't see how it fits with their strengths...
I second other comments above: Lem is a genius. I don't get Solaris, but "The Cyberiad" is excellent political satire, and "Perfect Vacuum" might even be too hard for them. BTW, if "fantasy" is taken in the broad sense, then what about Borges?
The robot is being teleoperated in those videos.
Certainly that's the case. I think the intention of this project is to create a platform for future research.
By making it open-source (and hopefully affordable), it has better chances of being accepted as a standard benchmark for the next generation of embodied AI (which, as its name implies, isn't here yet). Think about it as the physics engine, not the game itself...
Having said that, let's embark on the more interesting discussion of what are the prospects of a robot successfully roaming around our homes. I claim that cleaning is achievable with present-day technology, but more lively interaction with us (humans) around is still far away...
Your thoughts, AC?
At least according to this website: http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?parm1=5&docID=hsnews-000002717866
I hate to shake your tree, but in my view "science" is a system of beliefs; one that we inherited from the period of the Enlightenment, and we have been developing in the western world for a few centuries, and that has been working out remarkably well, and as such we wish to extend it and support it and spread it. However, there is no denying that it is "one more" belief system, and in some cases, not the best one to adhere to (as anyone who was healed from cancer through integrative medicine would testify).
I am an academic and a scientist, and I believe in all my heart that in most cases science is the best thing we've got, and that its promotion is essential to the well being of our society.
However, it is self-deception to think science is beyond being yet another system of beliefs, and a socially-constructed one (particularly in the case of social science). That in itself doesn't disqualify science from being the right thing to do; it just requires us, as scientists, to remember that we are being funded by the people, and for the people. And while Democracy and Science might be occasionally in opposition, we cannot afford to ignore either element of the equation...
This work speaks against our (faulty, I claim) conceptualization of the brain as an information processing device, implementing some analysis algorithms a-la David Marr. Instead, think of the brain as a device whose function is to predict the immediate future. Since the environment is probably dynamic, it would be silly to stay put and wait for cues to indicate the changes outside. It is far more effective to try and guess ahead, go-with-the-flow, constantly stay in flux (some tai-chi overtones here, I admit). Hence spontaneous activity. Experimenters try to create an artificially-controlled environment which is nothing like what we have evolved for, and hence have hard time explaining these results. Does this make sense to you, fellow Slashdotters?
Usually people consider cognition as essentially information processing. But here is a different definition (inspired by people like JJ Gibson and Varela):
cognition is the ongoing, open ended interaction with an unpredictable, dynamic environment. This capture, I believe, the essence of the human (and any other living creature) experience in the world, and excludes the computational experience.
We will have to build machines that are capable of open-ended interaction with an unpredictable world in order to hope and see any true sign of intelligence. Since very few are even trying to look in that direction (while most researchers are just looking for the awesome, and often lucrative, applications of our current computational capacity), I don't see any change coming soon.
It might be that the concept of "free will" is obsolete, and I would definitely agree that we should find a way away from concepts of (eternal?!) soul. However, I think the brain is such a complex system that no simulation, with definite predictive capacities, of a particular instance would ever be possible; what I mean is that even when we can build brains from scratch, we could still never predict the behaviour of one specific person, just because we wouldn't be able to sample all the relevant variables to input the "simulation" that would generate a prediction about his/her future actions. People could claim for statistical correlates, but you can't really imprison a person for that, can you?
Fighter pilots have been using devices of similar gist for many years. Now, I am not a professional in this field, but as far as I know this technology never found its way to the consumer world because it is notorious for giving the viewer a nasty headache when used too long. It is not clear if they figured this issue out; until they do, I refuse to be impressed. P.S. In case the people involved are actually reading it: did you ever try using it for more than 10 minutes straight?
It's true that the Italians, who are used to fairly unregulated traffic, are more attentive drivers than many other nations; but this approach would work only in countries where self-discipline, respect for your neighbor and patience are common traits, i.e. only in Northern Europe. As an Israeli, I dread to think what the road would look like if such an arrangement was in place (in Israel, there are no unregulated left turns at street lights, and no right turn on red anywhere. Still, accidents are all too common).