Robots: Bringing Intelligent Machines to Life

Rating:
Summary: A really fun book
Review: Research into artificial intelligence has been undergoing a roller coaster ride in the past four decades. Promises were made, but were never fulfilled as to the building of intelligent machines. Both the military and industry were interested in robotics, and industry got what it needed at the time, in the context of manufacturing, but these robots were by no means intelligent. Lately a new wave of optimism in artificial intelligence has appeared, and one will naturally wonder if this optimism is justified. Highly advanced intelligent machines have been predicted to arise in the next two decades, but it remains to be seen if the research in artificial intelligence will allow this to come to fruition.

This brief but insightful book is about the ongoing efforts to build intelligent robots. It gives though a healthy dose of skepticism, and that serves to remind the reader that a lot of hard work is ahead if these types of machines are to be built. The author emphasizes the viewpoint that basing intelligence on the human model as was done in the last thirty years has not resulted in advances in artificial intelligence. Therefore, the author looks to other more simple forms of life to obtain a model of intelligence. Indeed, in the book one finds robots based on snakes, monkeys, flies, cockroaches, grasshoppers, crabs, pikes, birds, orangutans, tortoises, lobsters, crickets, lampreys, dogs, and platypuses. It remains to be seen if this approach will lead to the rise of intelligent machines, but the book does give a highly interesting overview of what has been accomplished to date using this approach. The acceptance of robots and their practical use could perhaps be done best by introducing them as objects we are familiar with. Pet robots or robots that perform useful but restricted functions as already begun in the marketplace, with impressive results.

The author discusses some interesting work on just how to employ robots in the field so that they are able to function and obtain energy autonomously. Anyone who has owned a pet robot understands the aggravation of the frequent need to recharge batteries. The author gives the example of the "SlugBot", which captures real slugs, drops them into a methane-producing biomass generator, which produces electricity for the robot. The engineering difficulties of this approach are enormous of course, and the author is careful to point this out. Farmers though, would appreciate the assistance of these slug-exterminator robots. Other strategies that deal with the "recharging" problem are discussed, such as the one of building "robot ecosystems".

The author also includes a very brief discussion on "robot cars", pointing out that autonomous cars are already a reality. The legal environment though is the only real impediment to their being put into production, as the author points out. This and human factors, such as the trust that an individual must feel in permitting the car to deliver him safely to the destination, will play a major role in the acceptance of robot cars, and robots in general. Humans need to know that the robots are smart enough, and adept enough physically, to assist them in tasks that might bring them physical harm.

Robot toys in the form of "baby bots" are also discussed in the book: the "Robota doll", which was designed to react to touch and handling and to the presence of a human. The author discusses the negative reaction of child development experts to robot dolls, the claim being that children may perhaps be confused about whether the doll is really alive. She raises the question as to whether the money spent on robot doll research would best be spent on child playgroups. Her question is an interesting one, and the answer to it will determine the economic plausibility of developing robots. If a certain need can be met without robots, and at a substantially less cost, there will be no incentive to bring robots to the marketplace, in the area in question. Researchers and business people are going to have to scale down the cost for intelligent robots if they are to become normal additions to the human community.

No book about robots could be complete without a discussion of nanotechnology, and the author does this in the context of the physics. The accelerations and momenta of nanobots is not a problem that researchers need to be concerned with, contrary to the case of large robots. The author also discusses the possibility of using DNA as a "chemical glue" to assemble molecule-size nanobots. This brings in to the picture the use of genetic engineering to assist in the manufacture of these nanobots, a prospect that is utterly fascinating.