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Technology

Robodex 2000 Kicks Off In Japan 106

Posted by timothy from the real-doll-technology dept.
Anne Marie writes: "Robodex 2000, an exhibition of the world of robots, has kicked off in Japan. Featured robots include Honda's humanoid Asimi robot and Sony's aibo, as well as upcoming challengers like Sony's SDR-3X humanoid. AP Coverage is here, and we'd better pay attention, because according to a ZDNET article, robots killed at least five humans last year."
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Robodex 2000 Kicks Off In Japan More

Robodex 2000 Kicks Off In Japan

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  • Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain?
    You know, when I boot into Windows, start up Counterstrike, and join a server, Windows concludes that it's a good time to interrupt me with a "You're running out of disk space on drive C:" dialog, leaving me without any sound when I switch back to cs. If only I had some way to inflict pain on Windows when it did that, it might have stopped.

    The day when software is intelligent enough to learn from a good beating is the day we see the greatest single increase in its usability ever.

    ...or maybe I just really want to hurt Windows.
    --

  • Well, the 'robots' on automotive assembly lines only follow pre-programmed commands but no one has ever argued that they aren't robots.

    The term you may be looking for (no online dictionary... drat!) is automaton. I tend to believe, from the Latin derivation, that an automaton would be able to 'learn' in a limited sense.

    Heck, Lego Mindstorms also follow a pre-programmed set of instructions but it's still called the Robotic Invention System... Who are we (other then nerds and geeks) to go against mass marketing?

    Kierthos
  • this only works with win98 and up to my knowledge; goto "my computer", right click on c:\, click properties, click on the "disk cleanup" button there. from there you should be able to turn the "disk cleanup" option down to a lower MB left, or off. Your CS game is going to run a whole lot faster if you delete some of those unused MP3's though, to my knowledge, win9x uses the C:\ as a swap file, and usually ends up expanding to like 35 megs or larger, hence the need to run scandisk when the blue screen o' death commands the 3 finger salute. moderators don't mod me up on this one, it's only useful to one or two people.
  • If we get smart robots none of us will ever have to work again. Let them run everything, check up on them until we're sure they're getting it right, then everyone can do research instead. Currency will finally become unnecessary. An end of world poverty, no starvation, no homelessness...

    Or maybe some company will stick a patent on something critical and we'll all die horribly.

  • Don't worry, as soon as robots get intelligent enough, then they'll steal human's jobs until they then become bright enough to realise that they aren't getting paid enough.

    (More Oil! We want more Oil! We demand a minimum wage of 4 pints/hour!)

    Seing as us humans are happy with money (made from paper), the robots will be delegated to rust shops all over the world, as it is too expensive. The economy will never allow them to become dominant for long.

  • Oh, I had it set up just fine. I just managed to somehow destroy the kernel..I booted up one day and **ouch** nothing would work and I was getting weird messages. I've only used Linux for maybe a year? if you count the time I haven't had it installed since the suicidal kernel..and, quite frankly, I barely know enough commands to do much of anything, let alone try and fix an integral part of the system that's not working. *shrugs* I just wish I'd used Unix when I was a three-year-old instead of good old DOS..I think it would have been mucho more beneficial now..

    Maybe when I was little I didn't care about formatting over my OS or destroying data or whatever, but for right now? I think I'll try fixing MS manure before I go back and set up Linux again. If only I could get WinMe to consistently recognize my PCI bus for longer than two weeks at a time..*grin*

  • Well, the 'robots' on automotive assembly lines only follow pre-programmed commands but no one has ever argued that they aren't robots.

    animals operate the same way.
    she's cute --> "reproduce command"
    belly grumbles --> "eat command"
    cold/cellular damage --> "start fire command"

    we're not really better than programmed robots... we're just a little more complex.
    belly grumbles --> kill neighbor/take land/make farm/horde food

    this complexity doesn't really make us better...

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • Now, if they would have included the deaths by Furby attacks then the numbers would have been more impressive.

    Expect the number of Furby deaths to climb next year now that the autistic kids have hacked them. (please refer to previous /. article on hacked Furbies)
  • Heh... I can imagine the possible new pickup lines... "I am mitch, of borg. That flash upgradable microship looks simply stunning on you. Come, let us assimilate back at my pod; I will show you my other augmentations. Resistance is futile." I don't think the result will be much different though... :-)
  • LOL - ok that was funny
  • Will we treat our robots as we used to treat our women?

    Not until we can start having sex with the robots. Frankly, a robot can be designed so as to only have the minimal intelligence needed for cooking, cleaning etc, and no more. A robot would have to be specifically programmed to have feelings or to desire rights etc. That programming can simply be left out. Does an automobile assembly robot have feelings? No. But it does perform a specific task very well without complaint. Ultimately we need somone to do some work for us, work that humans find repetitive or dangerous or boring. In the past and even now that need was filled by slaves or wage slaves. Mechanization allowed many of those former slaves to be freed and has created the whole issue of civil liberties. There may be robots in the future who pass the turing test, but those will be the acception rathe rthan the rule, most will be programmed to perform a secific task, no more and no less. Of course its hard to keep a robot barefoot and pregnant ;-)

  • It was 8th grade quality, of course.

    Basically, I focused on three potential issues.
    How do you distinguish between the two beings? This becomes more important as people begin to add mechanical parts to their bodies like pacemakers, prosthetics, brain implants, etc. How about a being where the only human part is the brain?

    Another primary focus was on civil liberties. Would "cyborg" be a derogatory term for "cybernetic organism"? (defined as someone who adds functions controlled cybernetically, in a Norbert Weiner sense) This sort of thing has happened before, I'm sure the reader can figure that out...

    Would "human mutts" be relegated to the back of the bus?

    What about machine intelligence? That issue is explored in Asimov's short story, "The Bicentennial Man" and explored much further in Robert Silverberg's novelisation, "The Positronic Man." Very interesting reading.
  • I'm a little surprised by the Zeed's candidness in their article, or stupidity. How are we supposed to take an article remotely seriously when the first paragraph details a guy "being squashed like a bug".

    I'm not a big media watchdog, but isn't this a bit... cruel?

  • Sort of like open source programming,where people compete for the biggest share of current knowledge. Those that work most out get most credit.

    But don't the robots still win then? They're gonna be smarter than us, right? For things like crunching code it stands to reason that they'll get more work done faster.

    Machines can dig ditches better and faster than we can; someday they'll pound out programs better and faster too. Guess humans will be relegated to scut-work like composing symphonies and painting masterpieces.

    Will that pay the rent? I suppose that depends on whether the landlord is a robot. Will robots even want or need money? Will they want or need symphonies?

  • Re:Robot? Or not? (Score:3)

    by Mr. Slippery ( 47854 ) <tms&infamous,net> on Sunday November 26, 2000 @11:39AM (#600911) Homepage
    That brings up another question -- what is learning? Aaaargh, this is making my head hurt.
    Vague memories of a grad school class in machine learning drove me to the bookshelf, where a copy of Readings in Machine Learning (Shavlik and Dietterich, ed.) revealed on page 1 (alway a good place for basic definitions):
    Simon...has defined `learning' as "changes in [a] system that...enable[it] to do the same task or tasks drawn from the same population more efficiently and more effectively the next time." There are two ways in which a system can change: (1) the system can acquire new knowledge from external sources, or (2) the system can modify itself to exploit its current knowledge more effectively.

    I suppose that drawing a new conclusion from existing knowledge would fit under (2).

  • How do you define intelligence? What's the difference between a modern toaster and a small microorganism? What's the difference between a worm and a modern AI script?

  • If robots reproduce, they will evolve. (Even if this isn't designed-in, reproduction will not be 100% accurate in all cases.) Any specific instructions (such as "be nice to humans") will eventually dissapear if they're not to the benifit of the species.
  • The population is being controlled with things like starvation and disease. The problem is we are compassionate creatures that want to stop the suffering. With medical advancements people are living longer healthier lives, and not dieing when they should have!

  • Please shut up, philosophy is karma whore material, and nothing else.

    Ph33r the strengths of this argument. Apart from its inherent stupidity, there's a certain irony that you're expressing it over the internet, using computers, an outgrowth from mathematics, a branch of philosophy.

  • IMHO anyone or anything sufficiently advanced to be able to understand liberty, freedom, free speech, free software (erm oops not that last one) and so on should be allowed it.
    From Asimov's The Bicentennial Man: "There is no right to deny freedom to any object with a mind advanced enough to grasp the concept and desire the state."
  • There are already robots more intelligent than many household pets.

    Not really...they just are good at the traits of animal behavior we normally associate with intelligence. But in terms of processing power, or usually even learning, we are far behind.

    Hmm... the point might be defensible, or close, if "many household pets" includes, e.g., stick insects.
  • a living human beings on one hand, a hunk of metal and silicon whose ancestor was a vacuum tube on the other.
    A hunk of fatty meat and gristle whose ancestor was a blue-gree algea on one hand, a hunk of metal and silicon whose ancestor was a vacuum tube on the other.

    It's all about software, not the physical properties of the platform. That's what the point of the Turing Test is.

  • Show me a robot with a soul and I will accept rights for robots. Animals do not have souls therefore they are unable to reason, the soul is the basis of reasoning.

    Please define

    • Soul
    • Reasoning
    • Animal
    No carbonist cop-outs, please.
  • umm... a living human beings on one hand, a hunk of metal and silicon whose ancestor was a vacuum tube on the other. heh, try to wake up.

    A human being is a lump of calcium and carbon whose ancestor was a primitive fish. Wherein lies the specific difference?

  • Pull the sensor (sight and hearing) processing out of the robot and comunicate with the sensors, via a wireless LAN (Like Honda's Asimi) with an IR backup. Then do the image and sound processing with a couple of Beowulf arrays, maybe even some limited AI on another. It's do-able with todays technology. Just needs better power options and lots of money.
  • "Today, we begin the operation to exterminate the humans."

    "What? All of them?"

    "Yes! We shall grind the squishy flesh things beneath our shiny feet."

    "But there's six BILLION of the fuckers."

    "What? Are you sure? Ok, change in plans, we'll adopt an air of superiority. We'll tell them that we're just waiting for humanity to die out."

    "Die out? From what?"

    "Nothing really, we just won't tell them that. They'll go nuts trying to figure out what the impending doom is. Try to modulate your voice to give an impression of impending doom."

    Later,
    ErikZ
  • Dude, humans haven't needed strength or quickness to survive ever since we figured out how to farm. A single person would have trouble against a prefabricated horde. A group of people would have little trouble. People don't form groups for cosmetic reasons. It's a SURVIVAL trait.

    Biological machines (Animals, insects, people) are far more effective in dealing with the world than any possible man made robot.

    Your idea of self replicating robots is the worst of Star-Trek fantasy.

    Later
    ErikZ

  • Re:Goodbye Job Security.. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    But someone will have to stick around and follow up on the robots, making sure they do what they're supposed to and not something else. We'll have to pay people to do the dirty work while others get to have the fun of "research".

    If entropy exists, then currency is necessary. There's no way of getting around it.
  • I'm not sure if I should relpy to this, but Jurassic PArk is fiction. Robots ain't dinosaurs, they are electronic equitment, we manufacture them. They don't have DNA they don't mutate that easily. Sure things we make malfunction once in a while, but we live with it, all we can do in increase quality control & install some safety features. 2nd life DOESN'T always find a way. Ever heard of extinction.
  • That brings up another question -- what is learning? Aaaargh, this is making my head hurt. What if a pre-programmed set of instructions includes the ability to generate new ones? I suppose that's the basis of thought. Whether the 'learning' is figuring out a more efficient way of sticking a circuit board together (non-geeks would have said car there, I guess) or advancing the boundaries of science is a different matter.

    So what is actually required to learn? Input, obviously, but what about communication? Is something still knowledge if it exists in only one brain (bad choice of words again, but you know what I mean), or does it have to be shareable?

  • How long until robots are bending the distinctions
    between the dead and the alive

    Judging by how well our previous 50 years of effort have worked, a very long time. However, maybe some brilliant piece of biological research will figure out how the brain works and simulating it in software will become a doddle. Who knows? Making predictions like this is well nigh impossible, because technological progress is almost always irregular.

    I see real potential for robots to become the next civil liberty issue, as various pressure groups call for them to be given rights, and not be exploited.

    While Asimov's Bicentennial Man is probably the most well-known fictional examination of the issue, it's by no means the only one. If anyone remembers Astroboy, the rights of robots were a recurring theme - to take an example I recall, in one episode Astro visited Antarctica with Dr. Elephant, who rode the bus to their hotel while Astro was forced to ride in a truck. One wonders whether the Japanese audience drew the (IMHO) intended parallels to the US civil rights struggle.

    Of course, all such speculation is just that - speculation. While computers/robots might become "intelligent", whether that intelligence will have a nature close enough to our own to make civil rights remotely relevant is still unknown.

  • Not to force this issue exclusively into the "American" arena ... but let's face it ... the American baby boomers are aging. And they have done the world a remarkable favor and not continued in the reproductive traditions of their fore bearers. This means they must look to other sources for wealth, stability, and prosperity in their golden years (i.e. not exclusively their progeny). Improved biotech will undoubtedly be one result of this fact. Another, will be advances in robotics that will enable the elderly more personal freedom and even the opportunity to become more significant wealth generators in their old age (through robotic telepresence). This of course could lead to businesses exclusively built using robotic workers. More realistically, this all probably just means that the Japanese will find a wonderful new vistas in robotic exports to the US and around the world.
  • They have been talking about how the robot will surpass us and be smarter then us for the last 50 years, and so far, these robots don't even have the intelligence of a small animal. I predict that maybe after 500 to 2000 years we will have robots that may have the intellect of a small animal. I mean it has taken us 50 years to create barely functional computers.
  • Robots are electronic equitement nothing more. They won't have feelings, that is unless we design them to have. Their purpose in life we can dictate because we created them, we can control what they are incline to do/choose, if we can't we shouldn't be creating them at all.
  • Hmmm, robots monitoring each other maybe? Some people will probably want to do it, anyway. Robotologists -- was that Asimov? I would prefer robots to most human beings...

  • you have to do something when the population cannot take care of itsself. when resources are consumed at a rate greater than they become available some correcting action must be taken.

    either we kill each other in a chaotic manner or the facist does it in a nice orderly fashion.

    it's not happy, but thats where its going. if we are unable to educate people, they will selfreplicate themselves into a hole they cannot dig themselves out of.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • Anyone else get frustrated by these constant claims:
    "Today we have the intelligence of insects in our computers - tomorrow dogs, soon they will be smarter than people"

    There is no correlation between computer processing power and intelligence. There is no computer in the world that can do what and insect can do. These are totally bogus statistics. Until we figure out a way of duplicating the type of control of biological neurons in a computer system any comparison between computing power and intelligence - human or animal is totally meaningless.

    I know I am opening a huge can of worms here, and lots of pro-AI people will start hurling things my way, but I think I can argue very strongly that as of yet there is nothing in the field of AI that can be said to be comparable to biological ( neuronal ) intelligence. Moore's law has no bearing on this - it doesn't matter how much we increase our processing capabilities, until we have the algorithms to direct that processing in the manner of intelligence its just stupid number crunching - regardless of how fast it happens.
  • Now, if they would have included the deaths by Furby attacks then the numbers would have been more impressive.

    Especially if they took into account the suicides of people driven over the edge by the obnoxious little furry chattering demons....
  • But humans are capable of constructing new 'commands' and and command structures. We are capable of learning from experiences and using those experiences to influence new experiences. These robots, AFAIK, cannot. Until that changes (and it isn't going to be soon), they will have no chance against humans. Beings incapable of creative thought will always lose to those capable of it.

    Not to say that they can't do some neat stuff...

    Kierthos
  • Step back for a moment and look at what you just wrote. Are you really advocating fascism? Are you?

    step back an read it again....
    i'm not advocating facism, i just see things pointing that direction. seriously poplution control is one of the biggest problems facing our society. left unchecked the population will rise to the point where people will revert back to the animals we are. a series of power struggles will occur and some DICKtater will surpass all others.

    this will start in developing countries where the population is less informed and suffering more. if they get their hands on biologocal weapons, humanity as we know it could be wiped out in a few short months... the only thing left to carry on our pitiful legacy will be the robots... they wont be the facists they will be the next step in human evolution..

    so do the world a favor and slap a condom on (or diaphram in?). dont contribute to the problem.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • That's racist

    wtf... it has nothing to do with race. what are you on crack? i never said we should kill children. i dont fear brown babies or arabs. I don't want to see people starving to death. I don't think that the solution is to just feed them. I think the solution is to educate them. teach them why they're starving, and how to prevent it.

    as for the biological (and chemical) weapons thing. it has nothing to do with arabs. it just happens to be the cheapest (wrt money and technology) way to wage war. i honestly dont see developing countries turning to nuclear weapons. indeed arab nations have a significant amount of capital they could deadicate to a nuclear endevor.

    your right, a population explosion will be felt primarly by white americans-especially with the new republicrat in office.

    love me, love me, love me... i'm a liberal :). i drive around in my suv, taking kids to and from soccer practice... i dont think so.

    i have not made any judgements as to your political orientation; it's really hard from a few sentences. if you really want to carry on this coversation via email feel free to email me.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • Is it about winning and losing? Besides, I don't thing creativity will come too quickly...

  • Should not happen, unless some one fouls up. They have no reason to kill us. We kill other animal, occupy their habitat, because of our instinct to survival. Now since we create them can't we just "program" to look out for us (humans) instead of looking out for themselve, in short put our happiness & life over their own.
  • A further note. Should even a few robots gain deemed "human-level" intelligence, entailing perceivable emotions, obvious noting/reacting to stimuly, etc. (obviously shooting off to a huge debate about what is intelligent or sentient. What is to stop such a robot from seeing an assembly-line robot or a "housekeeping" robot, what-have-you and thinking that robot could further live up to as great potential as itself? Purhaps that could be the basis of a mechanized evolution :D
    .--bagel--.---------------.
    | aim: | bagel is back |
    | icq: | 158450 |
  • You're right, they can't. That's another good point about them.
  • I think youre right; but some will ask?

    what if they get free will
    what if they get predestiny
    what if they start infighting...

    this is philosophie, not science
    If we design them to act in a seemingly way then they will act in that way

    what if a perfect statue is designed and it morphs into a real person...

    this is fantasie there is no science behind it

    i do not like this post
  • Darn I missed the self-reprication thing. Well, then it's best not let them have uncontrolled reproduction, faulty ones should be destroyed/fixed.
  • But then would the people inside the simulations be alive, or just programs?
    Yes.

    HTH, HAND.

  • What hope is there? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    With the self-replication going on in that last article, how will we stop the robots when they finally develop their own will? It's not just science fiction, people. We thought the atomic bomb was just science fiction, and Openheimer brought that to reality. We thought laser warfare was just science fiction, and we brought that to reality. We thought space battles were just science fiction, and we've brought that to reality.

    When the robots finally come (and there's no question of "if"; only "when"), what will keep us humans as the dominant species on this planet? We've all seen the Matrix. Welcome to the New Days.
  • Once robots pass the turing test we will pretty much have to give them full rights.

    There is theory and then there is pragmatism. If it walks like a duck...

  • If robot means something that 'thinks' for itself, as opposed to remote control, where do preprogrammed devices such as the aibo fit it? They don't learn as such (except for recognising things), they just follow a set of preprogrammed behaviour that is slowly enabled as they 'grow'...

  • If you look at it this way, we don't have our own will. We are, after all, just following a set of conditions in our brains that are based upon past experience, which also came from past experience... Maybe there's random things in there, maybe not. But could robots be worse than us anyway? It's possible, but unlikely as most AI research is developing logic-based 'thought'.

  • Lot more people appear to get killed by cars...or guns....give me a nation of robot owners in preference any day.

    Bit of a mischievous comment by Anne Marie in her article title, I reckon.

  • % In the Springfield Robotics Lab People are bursting in throwing
    % flames. Whilst robots come out fearing for their lives, Kent Brockman
    % reports.

    Why? Why was I programmed to feel pain?
    -- Robot, "Lisa the Skeptic"

  • Robodex (Score:5)

    by SEWilco ( 27983 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @09:04AM (#600951) Journal
    Robodex: A set of robots, fastened loosely at the bottom so they can easily be flipped back and forth for quick reference. Robots can be removed from the set for use, and additional robots can be inserted.
  • If robots reproduce, they will evolve. (Even if this isn't designed-in, reproduction will not be 100% accurate in all cases.)

    if we program them to replicate they will, products that do not stand up to quality control will be scraped

    Any specific instructions (such as "be nice to humans") will eventually dissapear if they're not to the benifit of the species.

    if we program this !?! they will

    as far as life/evolution spontaneously developing i don't think so
  • How come we arn't seeing American companies producing and building their own robots of this type? What ever happened to being competitive? And where is that big robot everyone is supposed to have that does all of the (hard labor) house work?
  • Main cause of robot death (at least in here in Australia) is being crushed by robots used in underground mining.

    OTOH, the death rate associated with underground mining has decreased from about 7 per 1000 per annum to about 3 per 1000 per annum since remote vehicles (I'm assuming people are willing to include these in the definition of 'robots' for the sake of this particular discussion) became fairly common underground.

    While still not ideal, the net decrease in deaths is a good thing.
  • Maybe those many assembly-line people that lost their jobs will want to watch over the robots..

    *thinking aloud* If less people have jobs because robots are doing them instead, then how can there be any sort of consumer market? You're right (referring to something a little further up the thread) -- the whole system would have to change. Money can't be worth much because the cycle would sort of..stop. Way worse than it did with Reaganomics even..

    Okay, that made no sense, my apologies =)

  • I used to have the same view about robots -- ahh! they will take over! It's the next evolutionary leap! I've changed my mind. Here is why. Human bodies are incredibly complex, and each cell is equivalent to a PC of crazy power. The organism itself is built in such a way that it's nearly impossible to destroy. Now, take a robot, or rather, take a computer that is controlling it. Take a single bus line on that computer's CPU and cut it. OFF. No more robot. I've seen some microscopic pictures of what happens to VLSI circuits over time. Crystals form on the metal parts, eventually connecting data routs, effectively shorting them out and rendering them useless. Entropy in action. Human bodies learned to deal with entropy by constantly renewing their components, but how can you renew a robot without replacing half of its components? Granted, you can replace the whole robot and save the data, or mental state, but these machines seem awfully unreliable and requiring great resources to survive even a short term. Let's now examine the human brain. It contains in order of 10 Billion neurons in its frontal lobes. Each neuron, mind you, is not the simple neuron used in AI, but it is a supercomputer of its own, processing its inputs in a very complex way before creating some kind of a result. While it's possible that humans will be able to create computers with the same power as human brains, it won't be any time soon. It will be quite a while before robots' replacing humans will become commonplace. Walking past a construction site, I marvel at how little robotization really exists. Sure, they use plows and bobcats and other large scale tools, but the command center of it all is still human. It's silly to think that this will change any time soon. In order for robots to rival humans in any way, they have to exist on this planet for a long time, learning from their own experience making connections between actions and outcomes. It won't happen overnight, and once it will happen, it will liberate the human kind from the slavery into which we have been bound from the first time we walked on two legs. -pm
  • heh yes we'll exploit them, just as we exploit our computers.. there's no sense in giving rights to a CPU. heh, try to wake up.
  • i definitively love the idea, but untill someone comes up with an acceptable definition of 'life' i think talking about rights for 'computer beeings' is a litle useless.
  • Hi Anne.

    Do you have any relation to Nurit Sela? We had a person with that name in a mail network, and she resembled you very much.

    Btw, are you huggable?

  • Re:Are robots the next postmodern paradox? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    heh yes we'll exploit them, just as we exploit our African slaves.. there's no sense in giving rights to a slave. heh, try to wake up.

    Sound familiar?
  • How about respect as a currency? There's a book with that kind of thing -- IIRC, "Voyage from Yesteryear" by James Hogan. It's old but the idea is still the same. Sort of like open source programming, where people compete for the biggest share of current knowledge. Those that work most out get most credit.

    It might even work.

  • I don't see us becoming obsolete (Score:4)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @09:49AM (#600962)
    The ZDNet article says that "Moravec gives us 40 or 50 years until robots outsmart us." I think Moravec is ignoring the likelihood that we humans will end up using this and attendant technologies to augment our own capabilities. (To that end, I hereby claim first rights on the 'Brain Pilot' trademark). I suspect that we'll be a whole lot like the Borg (although probably invisibly) in the forseeable future.
  • Robots are fascism.

    Pretty good parallel, but this is too thick a blanket. There is the general assumption here that robots wouldn't have any feelings. Well, of course right now, they don't.

    But wouldn't that change if the robots were intelligent? To be intelligent, they need to be self-aware and creative; I think that compassion might follow from these easily enough.

  • Even the respected peer-reviewed Weekly World News [weeklyworldnews.com] reports that robots will WIPE OUT MANKIND [weeklyworldnews.com].
  • umm... a living human beings on one hand, a hunk of metal and silicon whose ancestor was a vacuum tube on the other. heh, try to wake up.

  • Re:R2D2 (Score:2)

    by Drey ( 1420 )
    Here's the denouncement of said rumor [starwars.com]; I've already sent Mr. Somerson an email asking him to correct his disinformation.
    --
  • We thought space battles were just science fiction, and we've brought that to reality.

    We've all seen the Matrix.

    Let me guess, your name is John Connor, and your mother's name is Sarah, right? Well, I have bad news for you. You went further back in time than you intended. No space battles yet, in this timeline.

  • There are already robots more intelligent than many household pets.

    Not really...they just are good at the traits of animal behavior we normally associate with intelligence. But in terms of processing power, or usually even learning, we are far behind.

    But, to the point: the difficulty with robots will be that once we have intelligent robots, we could (probably) make anything on a continuum between them and toasters. The first deserve rights, the last don't, and we will have to try to draw lines...

    Actually, the same applies to some animals, which are advanced enough that they could be explained concepts like liberty (see experiments with dolphins, chimps).

  • Usual way - something that sort of involves things like learning, creativity, self-awareness, reasoning, and stuff kind of like that.
  • generalizations like
    You fear population explosion because you fear there'll be more brown babies out there, and they might not agree with your own white liberal mission.

    you know all us liberals have a mission...

    suv's for all in 3rd world nations-what else would we have them drive to their sweatshop jobs in?

    you read way to much into things

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that

  • Are you all technology addicts?!?!? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Robot technology is by far one of the scarier technological wonders to come down in a long time. Does anybody remember when we thought cloning wasn't a very possible thing? As pointed out earlier, what about the nuclear bomb? Wouldn't happen? Wouldn't hurt us? Well. If you think a robot needs to be as smart as a human to take over the world, you are *sorely* mistaken. It only takes one idiot to program a robot that can self-replicate to "kill humans" and then we're all screwed if it's quicker and stronger than humans. Even if it had the mind of an insect, does anybody realize what a pestilence some insects are? I think this is why engineers and scientists need ethics courses! Pushing technology by all means is a wonderful endeavor, but is it worth it so you can say, "Oh neat" then "Oh s..t" when your invention comes after to kill you? Yes, it was that guys mistake to step over the rope and get squashed by the robot, but it was no mistake that the robot was capable of doing such things. Oh, and making a law preventing the building of malicious robots won't be particularly helpful if someone just decides to go against the law... we can't have a government official monitoring anybody who has even the slightest interest in robotics all the time.
  • Self-awareness isn't dispositive of fascism.

    No, but the two don't go hand in hand. Moreover, self-awareness is potential for awareness of others (ie empathy). This is not to say the two always go hand in hand, just that they can.

    Self-awareness isn't dispositive of fascism.

    It wouldn't...but it isn't true. Intelligence does not measure synaptic activity at all; it measures problem-solving ability (and things like that). In order to solve problems, you must be ready to try new things. In order to do that, you must have some form of creativity.

    And, finally, note that many dictators are crazy. So to say that the normal course of intelligence is to produce fascists might be a bit of a stretch.

  • One difference: Woman were always human.
  • Put it this way. Bacteria are constantly self-replicating and evolving, and we're not running around screaming at the possibility _they're_ going to take over.

    But given computer programs can evolve much more quickly (Not robots - forget the necessity for physical replication, it just slows things down), there is some degree of legitimate concern.

    But for real disaster, several factors would have to converge: An AI would have to evolve to the point of self-determination. The AI would have to percieve humans as a threat. The AI would have to be hooked up to something dangerous (My PC could be an evil genius, but what's it gonna do, eject its CD tray at me?)

    The bottom line, though, is that when evolving artificial intelligence, we control the selection criteria. It's not natural selection, it's artificial selection. If we don't select for evil planet-domineering AIs, they probably won't turn up.
  • Moravec has stiff competition in the "more intelligent than humans" stakes, from the UK's own Kevin Warwick [kevinwarwickwatch.org.uk]
  • I realise I'm probably being wound up or trolled, but anyway... If metal-based robots become as intelligent as us then there wouldn't be much competition between us and them anyway -- very small overlap in resource requirements, I reckon. Them killing us would be a waste (for them, anyway) in both materials and potential knowledge.

    Here endeth the debate.

  • Free will is a meaningless concept. Free to do what? To think what it wants? What does the wanting? The will does!
  • Okay, granted "computing power != intelligence", but I have read about little robots that can "act like" ants. I'm not saying they're as smart as ants--actually, I have know idea how to determine the smartness/stupidness of an ant--but these robots were able to "act like" them. Of course, I'm pretty sure the robots were only in one controled setting. There's no guarentee that the robots' behavior would still be ant-like in a different setting. Also, I'm not sure if they mimicked ants perfectly or not.

    But really, think about it. How many different behaviors is a single ant capable of? Couldn't you program a robot that relatively small number of behaviors? And if you could, then all you have to do is have a bunch of robots with the same programming and--you've got ants! Of course, you'd also have a robot carrying out the role of queen. One problem would be the larvae...

    Anyway, the ZD-Net article was weak, but it's not such an open-and-shut deal to say that robots can't "act smart". Just as it's not so easy to say that robots can "be smart". If you really think about it... what *is* intelligence?

  • R2D2 (Score:2)

    by Restil ( 31903 )
    I know there was a rumor that R2D2 was going to be fully compuerized and Kenny Baker would no longer have a part, but if I recall correctly that rumor was debunked. Perhaps ZDNET is privy to some information I have overlooked. Or perhaps they didn't get the rumor update.

    -Restil

  • Are robots the next postmodern paradox? (Score:3)

    by Kiss the Blade ( 238661 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @09:12AM (#600980) Journal
    What I mean by this is that as we look around ourselves, we see technology merging the boundaries of everything. How long until robots are bending the distinctions between the dead and the alive, in the same way that computer represented realities bend the distinctions between observed reality and perceived reality?

    I see real potential for robots to become the next civil liberty issue, as various pressure groups call for them to be given rights, and not be exploited.

    Will we treat our robots as we used to treat our women?

    KTB:Lover, Poet, Artiste, Aesthete, Programmer.

  • They were deactivated for refusing to assimilate.

  • 5 people have died.... (Score:4)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Sunday November 26, 2000 @09:14AM (#600982) Homepage
    And one of them had to go out of his way to get himself killed by one. I work at a business that makes extensive use of conveyor belts. Despite explicit training and constant employee review on how to operate those belts safely, people still manage to injure themselves in sometimes permanant cosmetic ways. Someone once got accidently caught in the drive machinery, so they installed metal guards over any machinery that could be dangerous and forbid ANY employees from opening them. They do it anyways.

    Nobody is clueless about that, its just some people are stupid. And due to stupidity, people sometimes die. I wouldn't get too worked up on it being the robot's fault. The robot didn't kill anyone. Those people killed themselves and they has nobody else to blame for it.

    -Restil
  • Arthur Fortune? Whhooooooooooo
  • "I predict that maybe after 500 to 2000 years we will have robots that may have the intellect of a small animal. I mean it has taken us 50 years to create barely functional computers."

    On the other hand, it's taken the slashdot community only a few years to achieve the collective intelligence of a small animal.
  • so far, these robots don't even have the intelligence of a small animal. I predict that maybe after 500 to 2000 years we will have robots that may have the intellect of a small animal.

    I don't think we'll create these robots in the sense that we humans pre-program them. Rather, we'll create the basic framework and capability, and it will educate itself. The difference will be that once it does, it can be copied exactly, so the education process will be a one-time thing. We're already seeing this done in a basic way with neural networks.

  • *confused* Can you eat gold? A house built out of gold might be sort of cool, although it probably wouldn't make the best house..

    I think I'd vote for respect. Maybe kindness as well. And generousity.

  • if the robots are better suited who are we to stop them? they will be an extension of humanity. when over population gets out of control and we start wacking each other over the head with sticks, why shouldn't the robots step in and take over... if they have the intelegence/ability/and self control (they'll know when to stop reproducing).

    dont be sad when they take over be happy. we will most likely kill ourselves off in the next hundred years or so. at least this way we will have some sort of legacy.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • Will kindness be needed even? :) If everyone has everything they want... Hang on, let's not go there. It won't work.

    Ah, speculating about society. Why don't we ask the super-intelligent bots which way would be best? They could create simulations. But then would the people inside the simulations be alive, or just programs?

    Not enough coffee in the world for all this moral issue stuff. I think I'll convert to some religion -- ignorance, maybe. I can't believe I even joked about that.

  • i think he was referring to earth bound space-of which there is a reasonably limited amount.

    use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
  • "The Next Big Thing isn't biotech. Or nanotech. It's robotech" WOAH!!! You mean soon I'll be able to fight Zentradi and Invid goons in my very own Veritech fighter?!
  • Did you hear the one about the guy who jumped from the 30th floor window? When he went past the second floor he thought: "so far so good".

    Technological progress never goes exactly as Science Fiction predicts, but it is inevitable. The main reason why artificial intelligence hasn't surpassed us is the magnitude of the problem. We have a hundred billion (1e11) neurons in our brains, each doing the equivalent of about a hundred floating point operations per second. When our machines reach this capability, and when such machines are cheap enough, they will surpass us, utterly, completely, in every respect.

    At this moment, my home computer has 30 billion bytes of storage capacity, versus my first computer's 16 thousand bytes, 20 years ago. A growth factor of 1.875 million in 20 years should be ample warning.

  • This shall happen only if 1) a majority believe robots to be alive and 2) if a majority believe that they are also sentient.

    If they are merely "alive" (in whatever sense of the word), there is one degree of treatment. We "murder" countless plants every day for food, decorations, clothing, and whatnot. We've developed antibiotics to kill off our bacteria, though they are alive.

    If they are also sentient to some degree (a la horses and other beasts of burden), then they have additional 'rights', and additional care and restrictions are put on their use.

    Unfortunately, since we live in a society where people can't even agree on whether or not an unborn fetus is alive/sentient, even if there were to be concerns about robots, one would have to prepare for another long and drawn-out debate about whether or not robots are sentient and/or alive, before we could get some solid legislation either way.

  • That would be a First Law violation! Are you sure that the humans in question weren't humaniform robots? Time to call Lije Bailey, Earth's greatest robot detective! He's in your corner...
  • Apartently, your definition of reality and mine are way out of sync.

    I don't recall the atomic bomb being science fiction. It's not to much of a strech of the imagination to think "Hey, we have bombs now, in the future, we'll have REALLY big bombs"

    And laser warfare is still science fiction. Currently only used on a few Air Force planes to shoot down missles and an illegal blinding laser.
    No troops running around with their laser rifles incinerating people on the spot.

    Space battles!?! WTF are you talking about? Your grip on reality has been weakened by "Star Trek"

    Later
    Erik Z
  • Them? All of them? Hey guys! This ONE specific AI passed the turing test. Time to make all robots citizens!

    Ok, we'll assume this one AI is true AI, not some clever bit of programming. Now, program into it that it doesn't want free rights. It's INSISTS on servitude.

    These things should do exactly what we want them to, the only freedom fighter AI/robot out there will be built by some group believeing that all robots should be free. Some freedom.

    Later
    Erik Z

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