Robots

       

Robots Among Us

It is not the mechanical “body” that is unattainable; articulated arms and other moving mechanisms adequate for manual work already exist, as the industrial robots attest. Rather it is the computer-based articial brain that is still well below the level of sophistication needed to build a humanlike robot.

The challenge facing roboticists is to take general-purpose computers and program them to match the largely special-purpose human brain, with its ultraoptimized perceptual inheritance and other peculiar evolutionary traits. Today’s robot-controlling computers are much too feeble to be applied successfully in that role, but it is only a matter of time before they are up to the task.

Molecular biology and neuroscience are steadily uncovering the physical mechanisms underlying life and mind but so far have addressed mainly the simpler mechanisms. Evidence that simple functions can be composed to produce the higher capabilities of nervous systems comes from programs that read, recognize speech, guide robot arms to assemble tight components by feel, classify chemicals by articial smell and taste, reason about abstract matters, and so on. Of course, computers and robots today fall far short of broad human or even animal competence. But that situation is understandable in light of an analysis, summarized in the next section, that concludes that today’s computers are only powerful enough to function like insect nervous systems. And, in my experience, robots do indeed perform like insects on simple tasks.

Though dispiriting to articial-intelligence experts, the huge decit does not mean that the goal of a humanlike articial brain is unreachable.

Commercial mobile robots have found few jobs.  The largest class of commercial mobile robots, known as automatic guided vehicles (AGVs), transport materials in factories and warehouses. Most follow buried signal-emitting wires and detect end points and collisions with switch.

It costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to install guide wires under concrete oors, and the routes are then xed, making the robots economical only for large, exceptionally stable factories. 

The most advanced industrial mobile robots,for instance, laser-sensed bar codes—and by preexisting features such as walls, corners and doorways. The costly labor of laying guide wires is replaced by custom software that is carefully tuned for each route segment. The small companies that developed the robots discovered many industrial customers eager to automate transport, oor cleaning, security patrol and other routine jobs. Alas, mos buyers lost interest as they realized that installation and route changing required time-consuming and expensive work by experienced route programmers of inconsistent availability. 

  Physical properties include shape, weight, strength, texture and appearance of things, and ways to handle them. Psychological factors, applied to humans and robots alike, include goals, beliefs, feelings and preferences. Developing the simulators will be a huge undertaking involving thousands of programmers and experience-gathering robots.