I, Robot
"Gloria had a grip about the robot’s neck that would have asphyxiated any creature but one of metal and was prattling nonsense in a half-hysterical frenzy. Robbie’s chrome-steel arms (capable of bending a bar of steel two inches in diameter into a pretzel) wound about the little girl gently and lovingly, and his eyes glowed a deep, deep red." - If you didn't recognize the narrative, it is from Gloria & Robbie's reunion from the touching ending of Isaac's "I, Robot" first story. If you read "Robbie" before, you are probably, by now, recollecting what actually preceded this very moment of two persons getting together in this happy ending of the most famous Asimov short story. But if you never did, I am encouraging you to do so; if nothing else, then for the simple reason that even though it was written some eighty years ago, the premise is still fresh and valid, just like it was published yesterday.
The word 'robot' was actually coined a couple of decades before 'Robbie' by the Čapek brothers, Karel and Josef, and was first used in Karel's play 'Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti' (Rossum's Universal Robots). Although robots in this play were more androids and cyborgs, in fictitious literature they were not fully mechanical, AI-type automated inventions but rather sort of technologically augmented humans or created biological organisms. Nevertheless, the word stands to this day with its root in all Slavic languages, Serbian included. I remember my grandmother often using the word 'rabota' ('robota' in Czech), which, even though not in use in the official Serbian language, is actually the only possible way to represent the hard work or labor in just one word.
In sci-fi literature and motion pictures, not all robots are equipped with artificial intelligence, emotion chips, and sophisticated technology and created to look exactly like we do. Many of them are made just to do hard work, like in the original Isaac's or Karel's stories, but even though they all have one thing in common. Their own personality. Something that makes the robot unique and has properties only living organisms have. Believe it or not, if you have a vivid imagination or perception of the details of your own surroundings, personality is something even ordinary items can own. Not long ago, when my son was at the appropriate three-year-old age, I bought for him a large helium balloon to play with indoors. At the end of the meter or so of string, I hung a couple of iron rings to weigh just enough for the balloon to float freely in the air. It was fun playing with it, of course, but even more fun was just monitoring what it did on its own. Due to invisible drafts and air circulation in our flat and slight differences in pressure and temperature in different rooms, it was obvious that our 'Balloon Boy', as we called it, never wanted to stay still for a long time, and after a while I noticed that it particularly liked the kitchen. No matter where you floated it initially—in the living room, dining room, or hallway—after a couple of hours it drifted away to its favorite spot and stayed there put. And to do so, it had to pass through several corners and doors and avoid solid items and furniture. Now you tell me, how was our Balloon Boy different from any other home pet? It had a name, it required constant attention (instead of feeding, in this case, adjusting weights to compensate for helium lost), it also had its own favorite spot in the flat, it loved to play and drift, it was cool, and it... well, eventually died. From my point of view, Balloon Boy was no different than any living pet, and with all of his regular activities, 'he' earned his own personality. Not a big one, for sure, but personality-wise it was.
Robbie was designed to serve as a nursemaid, but in the end, from one young girl's perspective, it was a perfect pet or Balloon Boy substitute. He didn't talk but was able to mimic all the personality necessary to be an ideal companion for eight-year-old Gloria. And he was a great listener, something parents nowadays rarely have time or patience to do for their children on a daily basis. Robbie was also the first robot in Isaac's "I, Robot" masterpiece and surely one of the first generations of robots. With later stories and the overall sci-fi genre, within robotics and cybernetics naturally comes artificial intelligence. In this realm, my favorite robot in the entire expanse of science fiction is Commander Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation". He has it all and was as fully functionally self-aware as anyone else in the franchise. But we are far away from such achievement. I mean, creating artificial software design to mimic human beings within the current stage of hardware and software is very much possible. Computers are fast enough to process very detailed responses from the surrounding environment. Sensing tools are also mature enough to visually and audibly acquire all the data for a hypothetical humanoid robot to deal with and to be very close to passing the Turing test. Simply put, I am convinced that very soon we will have artificial Facebook contacts you can add to your friend lists and communicate with in the usual manner and never know that they are not really humans. To be perfectly honest, I will not be surprised if they already exist today and use social networks as a perfect beta testing ground.
However, what is still behind rapid development in computer science is power and mechanics. These days Boston Dynamics' Atlas's new upgrade is going viral, and if you haven't already seen what it can do, please take a couple of minutes to watch the above video. It is amazing what they achieved in only a couple of years of development from the first 'Petman' bipedal robot initially constructed for testing chemical protection suits. Still, even though walking and handling simple labor is vastly improved, motion and sophistication are yet to explode in some sort of technical breakthrough that would allow continuous operation without the need to recharge often and, of course, to have more human-like motion abilities and be able to do various actions, from as sensitive as operating smartphones to as bulky as carrying heavy sacks and boxes. And at the same time, to look like one of the chess players from the above photo. Or both of them. Until then, there will be no fear of some futuristic robot uprising in Boston Dynamics, especially against those test people from the Atlas video.
To conclude this post without mentioning industrial robots would not be really fair. They have been among us for years and doing their job with great perfection. Honestly, one of the 'always on' TV channels playing in our living room is 'Discovery Science', and I simply can't get enough of those shows "How It's Made" and "How Do They Do It?" especially with all those automated industrial lines with heavy usage of robots and machines. Cybernetics is one great engineering, and it literally expanded exponentially with microcontrollers and industrial software. With a little regret of missing the opportunity to pursue a career in robotics, I remember those couple occasions in school when I participated in a competition in building a controllable circuit board with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, an amazing one of the first home computers I owned for years back in the eighties. It had an extension connector, designed for accessories, with 8 pins fully controllable with its famous PEEK & POKE commands. I used it to programmatically control electronic relays capable of controlling the flow of heavy electronic AC current.
Now, even though industrial robots are already ready to go to another planet (and a couple of them have already been sent to Mars and successfully did or still do their jobs), androids are still not on the horizon. Should I dare to predict the first commercial humanoid robot on the market? Let me put it this way: the human body contains 200+ bones, 600+ skeletal muscles, and more than 300 joints. When we reach a scientific breakthrough in using artificial muscles and power systems able to operate a vast number of joint and bone movements, it will not be long before we see the first Robbies in hardware stores.
Image credits:
http://www.templates.com/blog/robots-people-striking-3d-perspective/
http://www.blutsbrueder-design.com/
http://dailyinbox.com/next-decades-manufacturing/
The word 'robot' was actually coined a couple of decades before 'Robbie' by the Čapek brothers, Karel and Josef, and was first used in Karel's play 'Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti' (Rossum's Universal Robots). Although robots in this play were more androids and cyborgs, in fictitious literature they were not fully mechanical, AI-type automated inventions but rather sort of technologically augmented humans or created biological organisms. Nevertheless, the word stands to this day with its root in all Slavic languages, Serbian included. I remember my grandmother often using the word 'rabota' ('robota' in Czech), which, even though not in use in the official Serbian language, is actually the only possible way to represent the hard work or labor in just one word.
In sci-fi literature and motion pictures, not all robots are equipped with artificial intelligence, emotion chips, and sophisticated technology and created to look exactly like we do. Many of them are made just to do hard work, like in the original Isaac's or Karel's stories, but even though they all have one thing in common. Their own personality. Something that makes the robot unique and has properties only living organisms have. Believe it or not, if you have a vivid imagination or perception of the details of your own surroundings, personality is something even ordinary items can own. Not long ago, when my son was at the appropriate three-year-old age, I bought for him a large helium balloon to play with indoors. At the end of the meter or so of string, I hung a couple of iron rings to weigh just enough for the balloon to float freely in the air. It was fun playing with it, of course, but even more fun was just monitoring what it did on its own. Due to invisible drafts and air circulation in our flat and slight differences in pressure and temperature in different rooms, it was obvious that our 'Balloon Boy', as we called it, never wanted to stay still for a long time, and after a while I noticed that it particularly liked the kitchen. No matter where you floated it initially—in the living room, dining room, or hallway—after a couple of hours it drifted away to its favorite spot and stayed there put. And to do so, it had to pass through several corners and doors and avoid solid items and furniture. Now you tell me, how was our Balloon Boy different from any other home pet? It had a name, it required constant attention (instead of feeding, in this case, adjusting weights to compensate for helium lost), it also had its own favorite spot in the flat, it loved to play and drift, it was cool, and it... well, eventually died. From my point of view, Balloon Boy was no different than any living pet, and with all of his regular activities, 'he' earned his own personality. Not a big one, for sure, but personality-wise it was.
Robbie was designed to serve as a nursemaid, but in the end, from one young girl's perspective, it was a perfect pet or Balloon Boy substitute. He didn't talk but was able to mimic all the personality necessary to be an ideal companion for eight-year-old Gloria. And he was a great listener, something parents nowadays rarely have time or patience to do for their children on a daily basis. Robbie was also the first robot in Isaac's "I, Robot" masterpiece and surely one of the first generations of robots. With later stories and the overall sci-fi genre, within robotics and cybernetics naturally comes artificial intelligence. In this realm, my favorite robot in the entire expanse of science fiction is Commander Data from "Star Trek: The Next Generation". He has it all and was as fully functionally self-aware as anyone else in the franchise. But we are far away from such achievement. I mean, creating artificial software design to mimic human beings within the current stage of hardware and software is very much possible. Computers are fast enough to process very detailed responses from the surrounding environment. Sensing tools are also mature enough to visually and audibly acquire all the data for a hypothetical humanoid robot to deal with and to be very close to passing the Turing test. Simply put, I am convinced that very soon we will have artificial Facebook contacts you can add to your friend lists and communicate with in the usual manner and never know that they are not really humans. To be perfectly honest, I will not be surprised if they already exist today and use social networks as a perfect beta testing ground.
However, what is still behind rapid development in computer science is power and mechanics. These days Boston Dynamics' Atlas's new upgrade is going viral, and if you haven't already seen what it can do, please take a couple of minutes to watch the above video. It is amazing what they achieved in only a couple of years of development from the first 'Petman' bipedal robot initially constructed for testing chemical protection suits. Still, even though walking and handling simple labor is vastly improved, motion and sophistication are yet to explode in some sort of technical breakthrough that would allow continuous operation without the need to recharge often and, of course, to have more human-like motion abilities and be able to do various actions, from as sensitive as operating smartphones to as bulky as carrying heavy sacks and boxes. And at the same time, to look like one of the chess players from the above photo. Or both of them. Until then, there will be no fear of some futuristic robot uprising in Boston Dynamics, especially against those test people from the Atlas video.
To conclude this post without mentioning industrial robots would not be really fair. They have been among us for years and doing their job with great perfection. Honestly, one of the 'always on' TV channels playing in our living room is 'Discovery Science', and I simply can't get enough of those shows "How It's Made" and "How Do They Do It?" especially with all those automated industrial lines with heavy usage of robots and machines. Cybernetics is one great engineering, and it literally expanded exponentially with microcontrollers and industrial software. With a little regret of missing the opportunity to pursue a career in robotics, I remember those couple occasions in school when I participated in a competition in building a controllable circuit board with the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, an amazing one of the first home computers I owned for years back in the eighties. It had an extension connector, designed for accessories, with 8 pins fully controllable with its famous PEEK & POKE commands. I used it to programmatically control electronic relays capable of controlling the flow of heavy electronic AC current.
Now, even though industrial robots are already ready to go to another planet (and a couple of them have already been sent to Mars and successfully did or still do their jobs), androids are still not on the horizon. Should I dare to predict the first commercial humanoid robot on the market? Let me put it this way: the human body contains 200+ bones, 600+ skeletal muscles, and more than 300 joints. When we reach a scientific breakthrough in using artificial muscles and power systems able to operate a vast number of joint and bone movements, it will not be long before we see the first Robbies in hardware stores.
Image credits:
http://www.templates.com/blog/robots-people-striking-3d-perspective/
http://www.blutsbrueder-design.com/
http://dailyinbox.com/next-decades-manufacturing/
