Robots are narrowing the gap with humans

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/66530.html

WASHINGTON — Robots are gaining on us humans.

Thanks to exponential increases in computer power — which is roughly doubling every two years — robots are getting smarter, more capable, more like flesh-and-blood people.

Matching human skills and intelligence, however, is an enormously difficult — perhaps impossible — challenge.

Nevertheless, robots guided by their own computer "brains'' now can pick up and peel bananas, land jumbo jets, steer cars through city traffic, search human DNA for cancer genes, play soccer or the violin, find earthquake victims or explore craters on Mars.

At a "Robobusiness" conference in Boston last week, companies demonstrated a robot firefighter, gardener, receptionist, tour guide and security guard.

You name it, a high-tech wizard somewhere is trying to make a robot do it.

A Japanese housekeeping robot can move chairs, sweep the floor, load a tray of dirty dishes in a dishwasher and put dirty clothes in a washing machine.

[Teaser]

1. 50 FOOT ROBOTS WILL DESTROY US ALL

.

[Orrex]

10. And not soon enough, if you ask me

I for one salute our 50-foot robot masters.

[w4rma]

2. Anything that requires, even occasional, independent thought cannot be done by a robot.

Not without a human telling it what to do.

[MADem]

3. Yeah, but if that human can sit in an air conditioned truck helping a robot fight a fire, that's

a major improvement over the way we do it now.

[AndyTiedye]

5. Especially if it is a FIre Like This One

All the firefighters who fought the fire at Chernobyl died very soon thereafter.

[MADem]

6. Your link is a nonstarter, but I get the idea.

It's like drones--way cheaper to teach a kid (who grew up playing video games) to fly drones sitting in a trailer holding something that looks like a game controller than spend millions on training a pilot who has to strap on the vehicle, burn a shit load of fuel, AND endanger his or her life to do the exact same chore.

AND, so long as the drone has sufficient fuel, you can swap out "pilots" for pee or lunch breaks. Keeps the situation "fresh" with less flying fatigue to deal with.

[Teaser]

4. define your terms, first.

what do you mean by "thought"?

For example, "Big Dog" can "think" about what it needs to do when it hits a patch of ice, or is on some rough and slippery terrain, and take measures accordingly...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHJJQ0zNNOM

...without any human input.

However, if you gerrymander the question of "thought" to "that which humans do" your statement is nothing more than an uninteresting tautology.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. Dogma

[w4rma]

8. My Karma hit your dogma. ;) (nt)

[Realityhack]

9. You need to define your terms.

And they you probably need to do some serious research into current AI systems before making that claim.

[trotsky]

11. Here is one particular task that a human toddler can do easily...

but even the most advanced robot today would have difficulty with.

Pick out the spoons from this drawer:


Our brains are incredibly efficient at assembling parts of an image into a complete one. This is why a lot of optical illusions work. We "know" what something looks like from various angles, with parts covered, etc. This is exceedingly difficult for image analysis software. We'll probably get there someday, but it seems a long way off right now.

[byronius]

12. I think sex will drive this process.

Just like bandwidth on the internet. What's the percentage used for porn? Huge. And porn has driven so much new technology -- like choosing VHS over Beta -- it seems axiomatic that the last frontier involves robotic sex partners.

(Perhaps I read too much Robert Silverberg as a child.)

[jody]

13. Wake me up when someone builds a robot with the ability to "create" new things. n/t

[Ian David]

14. Let me know when one can give decent head. Then I'll be impressed.

If I want to play chess, I can ask my wife.