Industries: Robots

Robots Advance

Last week, I explained how humans might soon be learning things from robots. Today, I’d like to explain why robots might become a more integral part of life faster than most people expect.

Yesterday, Technology Review published an interesting article entitled: ”Robots Learns to Use Tools.” What is really intriguing about the article, which describes a new robot called the UMass Mobile Manipulator or UMan for short, is that the robot is employing sophisticated algorithms to teach itself how to deal with unfamiliar objects.

One of the major barriers to date with robotics is that programmers have had to write complicated software code to help robots deal with almost every contingency that it might encounter. For example, for a household robot to be effective, it needs to recognize every item that might conceivably be in someone house—everything from a pair of scissors to a flower vase. This is no easy chore.

In the near future, however, robots need not necessarily know how to handle every object; they merely need to learn how to deal with that object in an
appropriate fashion. Using the scissors as example, UMan can study the device and then can tinker with the blades until it understands how they are connected and how the object operates. Presumably, the robot will then know that it would be inappropriate to “run with scissors.”

The implications of self-learning robots could be quite profound—especially if they can learn faster than humans. For instance, if they can recognize and learn how things operate, they might be finally able to practical household servants—ala Rosie the Robot in the Jetson’s. They could also become more practical instruments in the agricultural industry if they can determine between which fruit or vegetable is ready to be picked or whether it needs to stay on the vine a little longer. Similarly, robots will become more effective warriors in battlefield situations if they can rapidly adapt to the enemy’s changing behavior; and there is no reason why they can’t soon be used in a variety of other fields, including the construction industry and the health care industry.

Interested in some other future-related posts about robots? Check out these recent posts:

Learn from Robots
Meet Your Future, Shape-Shiting Robotic Butler
Hospitals Robotic Future
Will Robots Have Tails?
Is the Future of an ATV a Robot
The Robot Will See You Now

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

An Opposing View: Learn from Robots

Earlier today, I wrote this piece: Learning From Robots. For an opposing view of why robots might never make good teachers, I’d invite you to review this piece from Gizmodo.

My only response is that history is littered with examples of scientists who said certain things were “impossible.”

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Meet Your Future, Shape-Shifting Robotic Butler

One of the fun things about being a futurist is trying to understand how the convergence of various emerging technologies might lead to the creation of radically different products in the future.

For instance, consider these two articles which, on their face, appear to have little in common with one another. The first article announced that four robotics companies in Japan are uniting in an effort to create a mainstream market for robots. (For fans of accelerating technological change, please note how they hope to increase by ten-fold the number of domestic robots employed in Japan by 2013). The second article discusses how researchers at the The Franhofer Institute in Europe are making impressive progress in having computers anticipate human needs.

Now, one of the largest markets for robots in Japan is to have them serve the country’s growing—and rapidly aging—population of senior citizens. If the new alliance of Japanese robotic companies—which is known as the Federation for the Market Creation of Next-Generation Robots—gains access to some of the “human anticipation software” that the Franhofer Institute is developing, it is reasonable to believe that soon robots will not only be able to perform basic functions they will also be able to anticipate many of their owners needs.

If one further considers that iRobot is now developing a shape-shifting robot and that Hasbro Electronics is building a robot capable of serenading you, it is even possible that your robotic butler of the future will be able to sing you a catchy tune while cleaning those hard-to-reach places in your kitchen.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Air Force Needs to Change

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting review of the new book, Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel. It is a history of the world’s first machine gun. Interestingly, although the gun was patented during the Civil War and Mr. Gatling urged the Union Army to adopt it—arguing that it would "save lives, wounds and sickness, by lessening the numbers subjected to the perils of war"—nobody listened. It wasn’t until the Spanish-American War in 1898—almost 40 years after its invention—that it was first deployed.

This little lesson in history is directly applicable to a new, modern weapon—unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Recently, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates complained that the Air Force was not adopting the use of UAVs—also known as drones—fast enough. He further argued that the Air Force generals who weren’t adopting the technology were unnecessarily putting airman’s lives at risk.

Gates is right. UAV’s can now fly for hours over enemy territory and, if necessary, fire and drop an assortment of weapons. Perhaps it is time that a great many Air Force generals who learned the importance of using fighters and bombers to engage and suppress the enemy now “unlearn” that behavior. The sooner they do, the fewer American lives the military will unnecessarily put at risk.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Reach for a New Future

Building off my two last posts --- AI: Getting Better All the Time & Why Mind Over Matter Matters -- I’d ecourage you to check out this amazing video. If a person can already contol a robotic prosthetic arm this well today, just image what we’ll be able to do tomorrow.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Artificial Intelligence: It’s Getting Better All the Time

A couple of newsworthy piece have gotten me to thinking about the Beatles’ hit song, “It’s getting better all the time.” The two articles that triggered the connection to the songs’ lyrics are both related to rapidly emerging field of artificial intelligence and I think the saying “getting better all the time” is a phrase we all need to keep in mind as we move into the future.

The first article discusses how intelligent computers can now “see” human traits with an impressive success rate of 82%. In other words, a computer can, with a good degree of confidence, now tell if you are happy, sad, angry or confused. (By way of comparison, I can only wish I was half as accurate in assessing my wife’s many moods.)

At a minimum this suggests that artifical intelligence will become an even more integral component in a host of daily activities, including customer service, computer games and educational software, than it already is. Imagine, for instance, if an educational computer system could tell if a child was confused about a certain concept in biology and then reexplain it to him or her in a way that the child could understand. This compelling future is on the way because such computers are, in fact, “getting better all the time.”

The same is true with regard to computer models that can now predict what word you are thinking. This article discusses the work researchers at Carnegie Mellon are now doing in applying fMRI technology to scan the brains of users. Although the computer model currently only tests for 60 words and is just 75% accurate it, too, is “getting better all the time.”

Now consider what will be possible when artifical intelligence can create a computer that can not only read our facial expressions but also our minds. It almost blows your mind, doesn’t it?

No? Then perhaps this article, entitled ”Scheme to Let Robot Take Over Brain-Computer Interface” will. It discusses how researchers at CalTech have created a miniature robot which is using sophisticated algorithms to more effectively place brain-neural chips inside the brain.

As one researcher says, “the idea of actually putting this in the human brain is far off,” but both the underlying robotic technology and algorithmic software are “getting better all the time.” It is only a matter of time before computers can really get inside your head.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Why Mind Over Matter … Matters

Yesterday, the journal Nature reported researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine had successfully tested a robotic arm which was controlled using only the signals from a monkey’s arm. (A good overview of the technology can be read in this article: ”Mind over Matter: Monkey Feeds tself using its Brain”.)

The test was not the first such test but it does suggest that the technology is getting better and will likely someday soon be used to aide people with spinal cord injuries or other debilitating diseases such as Lou Gehrig’s disease or MS.

I would, however, encourage people to think beyond these immediate applcations. Michael Berger of Nanowerk recently had a very thoughtful—and thought-provoking—piece entitled Nanotechnology, transhumanism and the bionic man, in which he discusses how technologies which were initially created for the disabled could become a platform for “the acceptance of transhumanist ideas and products.”

He is right and the aforementioned brain-neural technology is a perfect case in point. In the beginning, it will be sold as a tool for the disabled but as the technology continues to improve it will eventually be viewed by some people (but not all) as a way to perform at a higher level—both mentally and physically. I discussed this idea briefly in this piece entitled ”Pong and the President’s Brain” a few months ago, but the issue is worth thinking about in greater detail.

The benefits of such a technology are obvious to me, but so too is the concern that brain-neural/robotic technology will first be adopted by the “haves” and it will give them an even greater advantage over the “have-nots.”

I wish I had a grand solution for balancing the positive benefits of the technology with its potential costs—which I would define as the unfair advantage between those who can afford the technology will have over those who cannot initially afford it.

I’d be interested in hearing the thoughts of whether you have the same concerns; and, if so, how you think society might address this issue.

P.S. For those interested, here’s a short one-minute video of the monkey “thinking” a banana into its mouth:

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

Stretchy, Solar Shoes? Who Knows.

Ecogeek recently uncovered that Apple has filed a patent on a solar-powered iPod. Time will tell if the idea ever comes to fruition, but if it doesn’t I’m confident that something else will. One idea that I believe we will see in the near future is solar-powered clothes. The U.S. Army is already developing solar textiles and advances in the area of stretchable silicon suggests that even shoes could become solar collectors.

One additional application that we should see before long is shoes that “grow” with the wearer. According to this article, one company is already manufacturing shoes that can be manually adjusted as a child’s foot grow. Looking at the picture, though, they don’t look that comfortable. If, however, the shoes could gently stretch as the young wearer’s foot grows that’s seems a little more practical.

If someone can then combined a shoe that both collects energy and grows—well, that could be a real winner.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane … No, It’s Super Robot

There’s that old saying that if walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it’s a duck. Well, in the future, things are going to get a little more confusing. Soon, devices will walk like humans; feel like humans and see like humans, but that won’t mean it is a human.

To this point, I simply refer you to a handful of articles that were published only this morning. The first explains how researchers at Delft University in the Netherlands have developed a robot that walks like a human. The next article documents how researchers have constructed a new pet robot that communicates with humans only by touch. Lastly, there was this report outlining how advances in image recognition technology is improving to the point where computers and robots will soon be as good (and eventually even better) than humans at recognizing the images around them.

If you consider how all of these advances are likely to converge with one another, it is easy to understand how robots might soon be seeing, feeling, walking and even jumping their way around us.

To this last point about jumping, check out this short video which demonstrates how a tiny robot can already leap—kind of like Superman—“taller than the tallest building”:

Looking for more bits of inspiration from the animal kingdom? Check out these past posts:

Will Future Robots Have Tails
Bettle Biomimickry
A Little More Bio-inspiration
Follow the Ants
To Survive ... Change Diets
Swarm Intelligence Gets Even Smarter
Biomimickry at its Best

Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, robotics, RFID, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

Enjoy this post? Bookmark at the following sites.

                           

Email This Article To A Friend   View/Add Comments