- Several robots shaped like humanoids or four-legged creatures were being developed by Boston Dynamics, a robotics company bought by Google for $500 million at the end of 2013. For years, Boston Dynamics has been famous for posting online videos showing its walking robots maintaining their balance despite being kicked and shoved by the company’s human employees. One of the latest videos of the Atlas humanoid robot, published in February 2016, triggered a slew of YouTube comments that described the robot as “terrifying” or referenced Hollywood’s “Terminator” films about an artificial intelligence called Skynet destroying humanity. Such reactions apparently made Google’s public-relations team wary of wading into the online debate, according to Bloomberg News.
Honda figured that shit out ten years ago. Far and away, the most important characteristic of robots is "cuteness" because there are effectively zero "robot" stories in the popular culture that do not also contain the word "overlord." Boston Dynamics gets a bye on this one because they've made no bones about the fact that their most likely customer is the military. The military does not buy cute things. Or, apparently, noisy-as-hell-for-no-good-reason things.
What do you think is motivating us as a species to create AI robots? Clearly parts of our species are afraid enough to warrant PR in favor of AI robots before they exist. And yet, still members of our species are actively working to create AI robots while the rest of our species (at least the ones that know that some people are doing this) are tacitly supporting the creation of AI robots by allowing this research. I seriously wonder what motivates humanity to create and allow the creation of AI robots? Maybe we are just lonely talking to only our species and we want another intelligent species who can offer us a perspective outside of our own?
I have a hard time thinking of a thought more depressing than feeling lonely with a world of more than 7 billion.Maybe we are just lonely talking to only our species and we want another intelligent species who can offer us a perspective outside of our own?
Good point. That sentence made me laugh this morning. You are right and there are plenty of people in the world and so an individual need not feel lonely. I was referring more to how one can experience one's self not as an individual but as part of a species. A person can have a whole town or country full of people, but that individual could feel lonely within their social group or they could want to travel to meet someone from a different culture because they want is a fresh perspective. When a person experiences themselves as part of a species, then a specific type of desire for an outside of our species, alien perspective might be attractive for similar reasons-to get a fresh view or contradiction or confirmation of ideas or just to reassure us that we are not alone. There are many researchers currently working to create AI and each of them might have their own reasons to want to create AI: curiosity, scientific renown, wealth, to help humanity find new solutions, etc. But I question our actions as a species: why are we as a big group allowing, funding, and desiring the creation of AI robots?
The problem is communication, understanding each other and trust. Do this exercise: from those 7 billions discard the people who speak a language you don't understand, then discard the people who don't care about you, then discard the people who you don't care about, discard the people that interact daily with you but you don't trust, keep discarding until you are left with a list of people you will share all your secrets with. How long is that list? I will be surprised if it consists of more than 2 people, for most of us it is 0, we are not alone but we feel lonely. A machine will never betray us, it may fail and we can fix it but it doesn't have bad intentions like people do, we feel safer writing our feelings in a text file or in a notepad than telling about them to other people. And what if that text file or notepad could reply to us? A cold, non human reply that helps us feel less lonely sounds promising.
I dunno. That strikes me a bit on par with talking to your dog after a hard day of living. I know that companionship is not actually the end goal of AI or Robotics, but if it was, I think we'd be better off fighting the source of our problems than using technology as a band aid.
Some things are easier said than done, fighting the source of our problems is one of them (at least for me, shyness is a curse), band aid solutions can make us temporary feel better. Edit: I forgot to say I agree with you, it is not the end goal of AI. I just wanted to share my personal reasons for trying to have more accurate AI.
From what I have seen I still couldn't find anything that can be called "Artificial Intelligence", it feels like we are still in a very rough draft version of what we can call artificial intelligence. I haven't seen much progress in AI in the latest years, algorithms seem to be the same (or variations of them), the difference is that computers got faster and have more memory, this allowed impressive things such as brute forcing chess moves to beat the best player but I wouldn't call it "intelligent". Edit: a disclaimer, I haven't read very much about the machine that plays Go, as far as I know it can't use brute force to play the game but I don't know which algorithm it uses.
I'm not cut out for a PR job, because reading this whole line of reasoning "lets stop focusing or publishing these awesome and great creations because idiots are scared of losing their jobs" makes me pretty mad. Let the robots take the jobs, let the people cry and whine that they can be automated by a slab of metal parts and coding. If they can't adapt, let them die. Give them the tools to adapt, of course, the government should have massive, ready, and waiting systems to accept hundreds and thousands of people and train them in new fields and jobs. We shouldn't leave them to losing their jobs and being able to find nothing new, unable to pay for new training. However, once that is done, if you can't deal with the change, you deserve what's coming for you. Google is dead. ___ If robots and AI become better than humanity as a whole I see that as a positive thing, and it will either result in mankind being able to live lives of peace and luxury with no work, or it will result in mankind being replaced by something derived from us, and likely made like us, but is better than us. Both are positive results, so long as the transition between today and tomorrow does not happen with genocide, but through free choice and natural consequences of the forces and effects on society. Google parent company, Alphabet Inc., has decided to put Boston Dynamics up for sale. The decision had more to do with the fact that Boston Dynamics’ walking robots seemed unlikely to lead to a commercial product within the next few years,
No, I think they made the right choice to sell out Boston Dynamics. BD makes robots for the military that can walk and can slowly do slightly more human things like interacting with objects. They're all-purpose robots, similar to the robots we all know from fiction. Which makes sense when you are developing for the military, who hopes to reduce the workload of tons of people in tons of circumstances. They need robots that can walk on any terrain. However, the steps that need to be taken from the current robots to fully capable humanoid robots is enormous. We need leaps in both hardware (what BD does well) and software (what Google does well) to get there. It won't translate well into a product in the next decade or two. Between then and now, I think robotics is much better suited for single-purpose robots that are more advanced, something like this or simple walking robots that can do very simple tasks. My best guess is that selling Boston Dynamic is either - Google figuring out that they don't really have a lot to contribute on the hardware side, or - Google realizing that humanoid all-purpose robots are too far away from reality to be building them. Also, if you think Google discontinues robotics projects because they might be a PR disaster, you haven't followed the discussions around their self-driving car enough.Google is dead.
What did you think Google, a company, was doing before? Their moonshot projects are all products, they're just products that are an enormous financial risk to make. They're not a research group with infinite funding, no matter how much we want them to be that.
And it is likely that it is near impossible to know if a product will become a moonshot without knowing the future. Once you start killing projects because they "wont make profit" you stop being a company that pushes the border, and become one that is happy to remain inside of those borders.Their moonshot projects are all products, they're just products that are an enormous financial risk to make.
...and one that is going to make sense. I'm not saying they should kill everything that doesn't go in the black soon, but I am saying that Google is still a company, not a charity. They didn't kill their AI department - only the part that makes specific humanoid robots. Google is much better at doing the software side, letting someone else figure out the hardware and logistical challenges. Case in point: Google car, Android, every Google app ever. I see this more as Google focusing on where they can innovate the most. Which at the end of the day means they can push more borders and get more done, just not in the humanoid hardware business but in other things like AI.Once you start killing projects because they "wont make profit" you stop being a company that pushes the border, and become one, and become one that is happy to remain inside of those borders