Thats exactly right. Good Point. This theme has been explored in the Australian movie 'Malcom' where he rigs a toy car and a vid cam to rob a bank. It works until the money bag falls off when the robot scuttles into the sewers.
NOW you see that a real/good robot would be able to navigate the bank by itself, identify the tellers and speech synthesise its demands.
For those of you that are interesting in remote bank robbery An Aussie Shop includes the Intruder bot on its price list for 40,000 dollars which is designed for use by bomb squads, military etc. And lets face it, 40,000 is a drop in the ocean if you can rob a bank successfully. Maybe you could find a bank to finance the venture for you...;)
Its the year 2000. I thought that by now a robot would be mixing my drinks!
Indeed, it seems that software and information are the big winners for research and development at present with AI being the only discipline we can't quite master/apply. When we do perhaps things will move into the age of automation, and this is already very close.
PC's can do marvellous things but when the hardware is such that the computer will branch out from being an information device to a physically able one then we will see the real benefits shining through.
There is another issue however when you think about 'Robots' - Is it better to build of robot that is designed to a particular task, OR should robotics focus on building that monolithic multi purpose bot.. much like ourselves. I beleive the former is already beginning as our appliances become smarter and dreams of a 'robot slave' will only come to fruition when the awkward attempts at making them 'humanlike' are superceded by a design that is simply better, less expensive and useful.
IMHO a robot that is controlled completetly by RC is not a very good one. It must be capable of independant movement and exploration, problem solving (anyone that knows anything about nueral nets or AI knows it does involve randomness and a margin for error that accomodates learning), and communication with humans that can 'command' the robot in simple terms. A simple command like 'Come Here' is to be solved by the robot, not spoonfed via RC.
Yes, robots will become more prevalent in our lives the same way computers did. And we wont have to pay upwards for 40,000 dollars either. But the AI experts have hurdles to cross, the robot hardware gurus have better designs to conceive and the consumer has a lot to accept in terms of robots doing human jobs.
Indeed, robots should make our lives easier, at the cost of human jobs, the world will have to rethink its idea of the worker, and also rethink its idea of the human.
It sure beats that 'Hey if you you forward this to 10 ppl you will get 1000 dollars next week' email. If you got the darwin awards in your email it means one of your mates are nice enough to pass a good laugh on to you.
Why doesnt someone start a mailing list for ppl that send spam??
The message could read -
Hi, someone has subscribed you to this mailing list because of all the annoying messages you send them. To unsubscribe, forward this message to 10 people by midnight....
Slashdot Mirror
NOW you see that a real/good robot would be able to navigate the bank by itself, identify the tellers and speech synthesise its demands.
For those of you that are interesting in remote bank robbery An Aussie Shop includes the Intruder bot on its price list for 40,000 dollars which is designed for use by bomb squads, military etc. And lets face it, 40,000 is a drop in the ocean if you can rob a bank successfully. Maybe you could find a bank to finance the venture for you... ;)
iRobot
Indeed, it seems that software and information are the big winners for research and development at present with AI being the only discipline we can't quite master/apply. When we do perhaps things will move into the age of automation, and this is already very close.
PC's can do marvellous things but when the hardware is such that the computer will branch out from being an information device to a physically able one then we will see the real benefits shining through.
There is another issue however when you think about 'Robots' - Is it better to build of robot that is designed to a particular task, OR should robotics focus on building that monolithic multi purpose bot .. much like ourselves. I beleive the former is already beginning as our appliances become smarter and dreams of a 'robot slave' will only come to fruition when the awkward attempts at making them 'humanlike' are superceded by a design that is simply better, less expensive and useful.
IMHO a robot that is controlled completetly by RC is not a very good one. It must be capable of independant movement and exploration, problem solving (anyone that knows anything about nueral nets or AI knows it does involve randomness and a margin for error that accomodates learning), and communication with humans that can 'command' the robot in simple terms. A simple command like 'Come Here' is to be solved by the robot, not spoonfed via RC.
Yes, robots will become more prevalent in our lives the same way computers did. And we wont have to pay upwards for 40,000 dollars either. But the AI experts have hurdles to cross, the robot hardware gurus have better designs to conceive and the consumer has a lot to accept in terms of robots doing human jobs.
Indeed, robots should make our lives easier, at the cost of human jobs, the world will have to rethink its idea of the worker, and also rethink its idea of the human.
iRobot
Why doesnt someone start a mailing list for ppl that send spam??
The message could read -
Hi, someone has subscribed you to this mailing list because of all the annoying messages you send them. To unsubscribe, forward this message to 10 people by midnight....
iRobot