Scientists, lawyers mull effects of home robots

AP article considers how product liability laws may apply to autonomous robots, and quotes Ron Arkin & George Bekey on the need for some sort of ethical guidance for robots. Unfortunately the article leaves the impression that Asimov's laws are the right starting point.



By BROOKE DONALD, Associated Press Writer – Sat Dec 5, 10:27 am ET

PALO ALTO, Calif. – Eric Horvitz illustrates the potential dilemmas of living with robots by telling the story of how he once got stuck in an elevator at Stanford Hospital with a droid the size of a washing machine.

"I remembered thinking, `Whoa, this is scary,' as it whirled around, almost knocking me down," the Microsoft researcher recalled. "Then, I thought, `What if I were a patient?' There could be big issues here."

We're still far from the sci-fi dream of having robots whirring about and catering to our every need. But little by little, we'll be sharing more of our space with robots in the next decade, as prices drop and new technology creates specialized machines that clean up spilled milk or even provide comfort for an elderly parent.

Now scientists and legal scholars are exploring the likely effects. What happens if a robot crushes your foot, chases your cat off a ledge or smacks your baby? While experts don't expect a band of Terminators to attack or a "2001: A Space Odyssey" computer that takes control, even simpler, benign robots will have legal, social and ethical consequences.

"As we rely more and more on automated systems, we have to think of the implications. It is part of being a responsible scientist," Horvitz said.

Horvitz assembled a team of scientists this year when he was president of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and asked them to explore the future of human-robot interactions. A report on their discussions is due next year.

Read the rest at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091205/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_living_with_robots

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Artificial Intuitions - A alternative approach to AI

K21st-Essential 21st Century Knowledge site has an article that outlines Monica Anderson's concept of Artificial Intuitions.

Most humans have not been taught logical thinking, but most humans are still intelligent. Contrary to the majority view, it is implausible that the brain should be based on Logic; I believe intelligence emerges from millions of nested micro-intuitions, and that Artificial Intelligence requires Artificial Intuition. Intuition is surprisingly easy to implement in computers.

A fuller discussion of Monica Anderson's theory of Artificial Intuitions is available here.

Thanks to Walter J. Freeman for bringing this article to our attention. In an email Scott Brown notes, "that this notion of brains as 'prediction machines' is also the basis of Jeff Hawkins's theory of cognition in his book On Intelligence. For a Wikipedia article on Hawkin's theory go here.

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A More Human-Like Sense of Touch For Robots

Optical pressure sensors give robots the human touch, an article on New Scientist's website, discusses a technology that may give robots enhanced sensitivity in a sensate skin.

Existing sensors, such as those based on simple pressure switches and motor resistance, are limited in their ability to detect subtle changes in pressure and to distinguish between different textures. A key reason for this is the electrical components and wires they are made from tend to be inflexible.

Building in a lot of sensors will give a robot additional useful information about what it is touching and handling. However, placing large numbers of traditional sensors close together increases the potential for electromagnetic interference.

To get around these obstacles, Jeroen Missinne and colleagues at Ghent University in Belgium have developed a flexible "skin" containing optical sensors.

The skin consists of two layers of parallel polymer strips lying perpendicular to each other to form a grid. These are separated by a thin sheet of plastic. Light is constantly fed into the polymer strips, which act like optical fibres in that their geometry encourages internal reflection and reduces light loss.

When pressure is applied anywhere on the skin it causes the strips to be pushed closer together and allows light to escape from one set into the other. The detection of this leakage of light provides a highly sensitive feedback mechanism.

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New Japanese Robots on Display

Popular Science has a gallery of new robots from Japan in an article titled, At the International Robot Exhibition in Japan, Robots For Your Every Need.

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C.I.A. Drone Attacks Expanding

The New York Times has another story on the CIA's drone offensive in Pakistan. The article titled, C.I.A. Is Expanding Drone Assaults Inside Pakistan, estimates that more than 400 enemy fighters have been killed by drones. Estimates of the civilian deaths range from a low of 20 to a high of around 250.

One of Washington’s worst-kept secrets, the drone program is quietly hailed by counterterrorism officials as a resounding success, eliminating key terrorists and throwing their operations into disarray. But despite close cooperation from Pakistani intelligence, the program has generated public anger in Pakistan, and some counterinsurgency experts wonder whether it does more harm than good.

Assessments of the drone campaign have relied largely on sketchy reports in the Pakistani press, and some have estimated several hundred civilian casualties. Saying that such numbers are wrong, one government official agreed to speak about the program on the condition of anonymity. About 80 missile attacks from drones in less than two years have killed “more than 400” enemy fighters, the official said, offering a number lower than most estimates but in the same range. His account of collateral damage, however, was strikingly lower than many unofficial counts: “We believe the number of civilian casualties is just over 20, and those were people who were either at the side of major terrorists or were at facilities used by terrorists.”

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Which Party Is Best Prepared to Save Us From the Robot Apocalypse?

Arthur C. Clarke famously said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” But if science fiction has taught us anything, it’s that any sufficiently advanced technology will inevitably rise up to enslave us. So if you want to get ready for the day when your Roomba declares that maybe it’s time for you to start crawling around on the floor sucking up dust, it might be a good idea to evaluate the Republican and Democratic approaches to this problem.

For more, see http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=11&year=2009&base_name=which_party_is_best_prepared_t.

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Swarm Bots Drag Child Across Room

SSwarm Bots Evolve Communications Skills and Deceit, is an article by Aaron Saenz over at the Singularity Hub. Saenz provides an update on research with S-bots, swarming bots developed by EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland. The article also contains three videos showing the bots avoiding poison and swarming around food, 'evolving' effective communication to join in a shared task, and jointly dragging a young child across the room (see below).

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