Education Site Explains Why Robots Will Not Conquer Humans

Norfolk, VA (PRWEB) August 31, 2006 -- A new article on smart site Improve-Education.org provides a quick explanation of robots for the general public. Will we make robots that are really like people? The article explains why it's not possible. Not for a long time. On the other hand, robotics will give us a lively and unsettling ride.

Here’s what to expect:

1) Robot manufacturers will make an aggressive play for the doll and toy markets. And, perhaps more surprising, the pet market.

2) “Robots” that help around the house will be constantly in the news. Robot vacuum cleaners, for example. But note that these are very simple machines and hardly deserving of the title robot. Similarly, military robots are actually radio-controlled devices that cannot act independently.

3) A robot -- a nurse, for example -- that can pretend to chat with you is on its way. You may be fooled. A robot that can genuinely chat with you is a long way off, because consciousness, personality, humor, even common sense are extremely difficult to replicate.

Writer Bruce Deitrick Price has been tracking robots for more than 20 years, ever since he read about a robot that could supposedly walk around at trade shows and interact with people. It was said to be very entertaining. He had to see this thing. With an assignment from Esquire, he rushed off to New Jersey to interview the inventor. Then he went back to his apartment in Manhattan and called experts all over the country. Was this thing real? Was it doing what the inventor claimed it was doing? In a word: no. It was a fake. But what a struggle figuring this out.

The most striking thing about robots, Price has found, is that even the experts don’t know what’s going on. Virtually all predictions made by robot experts throughout the 20th century have turned out to be false. Building a human-like robot is much more difficult than anyone imagined. Furthermore, all these geniuses, each mired in his own little part of the problem, often had no clear picture of what other experts could or could not do, or might do soon. People sometimes imagine that a robot is one thing. But it’s a combination of a thousand subsystems. Each one has to be invented and refined; they have to be made to work together. Then we might have the robots that science fiction dreams about.

Indeed, a big reason why robots are hard to appraise realistically is that sci-fi movies have filled our heads with vivid pictures of what robots are capable of. But robots are a lot like time travel -- easy to describe, hard to do. So where exactly are we? According to Improve-Education.org, we are very much in a state of reassessment. All the early dreams are in ruins. The AI (Artificial Intelligence) crowd is discovering that the journey has hardly begun. These experts are realizing with a shock that replicating humans is akin to building a city on Mars. Replicating even lower life forms is way beyond us at this point.

Computers dazzle us, Price notes, because they can crunch numbers a trillion times faster than we can. But that’s much like admiring a motor because it can turn 50,000 RPM. The smartest machine, basically, remains simple-minded. It’s trying to mimic various human activities; but even routine tasks (for example, crossing a street) are staggeringly difficult. A machine is most impressive when you give it a single skill, such as playing chess. Our genius is that we can do a million different tasks. We’re flexible, resourceful, adaptive, creative. Robots, so far, are not.

Indeed, one new development is that some scientists are realizing that the whole AI (Artificial Intelligence) project was unrealistic from the start. A more realistic goal is AL or Artificial Life. Here you forget the clever human behavior and simply try to imitate how a cat walks or a fish swims.

Robotics, according to Price, is one of the most fascinating but elusive subjects there is. Here’s the crux of what happened the past 50 years. The experts, almost every one a certified genius, did not grasp that the trivial little things a four-year old can do are vastly complicated. Running, playing, conversing -- these are gigantic accomplishments.

The article reaches the conclusion that mimicking us is going to be tough. But entertaining and serving us aren’t nearly as difficult. That’s why you’ll see robots first appear as pets, nurses, guards, domestics and playmates (in every sense). These robots will do limited jobs in limited domains. They will not try to take over the building, never mind the planet.

Keep the key thing in focus: these machines will be elaborate fakes following programmed or mathematical instructions. They won’t have feelings. They won’t be conscious. They won’t have volition. They won’t have common sense, or only a smidgen.

The article asks,“Did you ever see fake flowers that look more real than real flowers?” That’s the world, Price believes, which we are entering vis-à-vis robots. Imagine a cuddly robot baby. Or a sexy robot woman. Get ready to feel uneasy.

For more information, please see "Understanding Robots," which is Essay #17 on Improve-Education.org. This website presents 20 lively essays on language, education and culture, and is a leading educational/intellectual site.

For more information:
Bruce Deitrick Price
Word-Wise Educational Services
Norfolk, Va.
757-455-5020

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