Slashdot Log In
Japan's Proposed 30-Year Robot Program
Posted by
timothy
on Wed Aug 20, 2003 05:43 PM
from the why-not-19 dept.
from the why-not-19 dept.
Gallamine writes "A group of Japanese researchers have proposed a Government plan to spend 50 billion yen per year (that's over 400 million $US) for 30 years on developing a robot with capabilities of a 5-year-old. Japan's current economy may prevent the plan from happening, but the interesting point is the parallels to the U.S. Apollo space program, America's attempt to put a man on the moon. While expensive, the benefits to the American population from that program are probably unmeasurable. Perhaps the U.S. Government should consider funding such a program over here?"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Recipe for robot emulating a human 5-year old. (Score:5, Funny)
40% Crying
5% Crayon ability
15% Get daddy a beer
7% Underfoot
3% Questions beginning with 'Why'
20% Screaming, running, and breaking.
Please contact me for licensing.
Re:Recipe for robot emulating a human 5-year old. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
or... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:or... (Score:3, Funny)
Well that would be cool, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well that would be cool, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well that would be cool, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Am I a pervert? (Score:3, Funny)
We can do better... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:We can do better... (Score:4, Funny)
If you double the price and can get me a robot with all the capabilities of a 19 year old cheerleader, I'll call my congressman tonight.
I'd wager that would result in some interested slashdot headlines...
Mod your CheerBot's harsh rejection algorithms
Parent
I knew it! (Score:5, Funny)
Why do we need a 5 year old Japanese boy-robot? (Score:3, Funny)
Measureing a 5 year old (Score:3, Insightful)
Could it get to the point where you have a "child" in a super human body? Hopefully they will have Asimovs Rules in there at least
Rus
Re:Measureing a 5 year old (Score:5, Funny)
We already have this. It's called "Mike Tyson".
Parent
Japan's stratergy (Score:5, Interesting)
At the time I was thinking it was a huge mistake. Flat panes were slow, small and hugely expensive and no one would spend extra to have one to replace a better CRT. Im sure people were thinking the same sort of things on the other projects but they sure did pay off.
I'm not sure how Japan figures out what to pick but it seems to work. Maybe they are making very good choices or maybe if you stick enough money into something it will eventually pay off. And as sceptical I am of humanoid robots I can't say this is a silly idea any more.
Re:Japan's stratergy (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Japan's stratergy (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not the money that's important.
It's the people.
Invest in smart people solving specific hard problems, and you'll have a lot of smart people able to solve other generally hard problems.
I believe copying technology is actually a lot like copying in exams: you get a short-term gratification, but you lose long-term abilities.
Parent
30 Years, eh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:30 Years, eh? (Score:3, Funny)
"No WANT fix core!!!! Me play trucks NOW!!!!"
"Uh-oh, reactor go poo..."
"Look! Pretty lava!"
>;KGive me 6 years... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm pretty bright, and my girlfriend recently graduated from CMU with a degree in CS, and is now attending Johns Hopkins. It would (roughly speaking) take a 4-year-old child with an IQ of 125 to match a 5-year-old.
And for the quarter billion per year Japan is spending, I'd be able to afford some pretty neat educational toys, too!
Re:Give me 6 years... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
The Goal and the Problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Let's define the nature of the ultimate goal in robots in the business - I'm sure there will be quibbles, but this is my definition:
Ultimate Goal: To create a robot with human level intelligence and physical manipulation without sentience or self awareness.
By this definition, we mean the capacity to learn, to be instructed in tasks and incorporate ideas into itself and understand commands without detail, but without sentience or self awareness, never having emotions or being able to make fully independant decisions about freedom, what to do for itself.
In a word, the ultimate metal slave.
Let's throw ethics out the window for a moment - we'll get to those in a minute. But let's say you could make such a machine. One that you could give orders to "go clean the house", and it would intelligently understand and fulfill your wish without the "evil genie" effect (where a badly ruled wish has unintended consequences - see "The Monkey's Paw" for an example, where you could wish for a million dollars, and you would get it - after your son was killed in an automobile accident and the money was payment from a life insurance policy).
Ignoring if such a goal is possible (and, seeing how far we've come in 100 years, is it so far to reach that in 500 years we would be capable of building such a machine?), let's see what would happen to society.
Employees, especially blue collar, farmers, manufacturing and the like, could be mass produced. A whole army of robots that would work without tire, without pay, and if you could make them mass produced to be cheap (say $20,000 - $40,000 a year), if they break, get a new one. They could work day and night, rotating in 8-12 hour shifts for maintenance and repairs. Farms could be worked all day long, and if there was a problem, robots could go out and fix the issue. Need to pick the cotton/coffee beans? Just hire the robots to go out and do it. Wars fought by machines - never tiring, truly "bloodless" wars where a million "soldiers" could be airdropped into the field loaded with advanced weapons to wipe out the enemy by beings that have no conscience. (Granted, hacking would truly become the greatest weapon in society at that point, but just go with me a moment on the idea.)
Food prices, car prices - hell, prices for everything could actually drop, since the human cost of making them would be negligable. Ah - but for one major problem:
What do the people do?
Millions - let's even say 25% of the work force alone, just to argue - out of work. They're not needed at McDonald's or Ford or even Dell - replaced by machines. So what do they do? Not everybody could work in a robot making factory. Does the world start to become a place where human labor is practically no longer required? Where only a few work because they want to to design new things or create art, while millions simply live a life of leisure? Where everyone is guarunteed a certain level of life and comfort, and those who want more can sell their services of entertainment or some unique idea they are able to create in this new utopia of fully attained basic life for all people?
Or a world where millions can not get work and search but become homeless? If people think that having jobs from their country exported to foreign places willing to do it for less, how will they feel when the factory is still on native soil, but the jobs are for those tireless, non-paid, non-complaining machines? When they can't provide for their children, and the line between "haves" and "have-nots" is larger than ever?
I actually see a lot of promise in the idea - I really do. The benefits to business, to humanity could be huge. But I have the feeling should such a creation actua
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:5, Insightful)
Come to think of it the argument was popular in the 60's and 70's with application to computers and how they would displace so many workers.
IMHO the argument is just as erronous now as it ever has been.
Parent
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:3, Interesting)
In every prior revolution, every time a worker lost a job to a machine, somebody else had to be employed to build, maintain, and run those machines. Those were the rules of the game.
This time (or possibly the time after this one, or... anyhow, sooner or later) there's one little detail that not only ends the game, but knocks the board over: The machines will be able to run and repair themselves. Humans will only be needed to design the machines and provide overall
No more new jobs (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, what you're describing sounds like an end to scarcity, for the basics at least, and that doesn't sound too bad.
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:5, Interesting)
1) There is a large societal change and the 40 hour work week is no more. Instead of drones punching the clock doing menial labor people will persue intelectual persuits. People will only have to work 10 or 15 hours or even less. Two results could ensue.
a) People will become more creative than ever before. Society will have cultural and technological revolutions often and a golden age results. People begin to have a lot of time to think and everyone is pretty happy.
b) Society enters an age of sloth. No one wants to work and no one has to. Nobody does anything new. No new technology is created. No new art is created. Suicide rates soar and humanity dies out, not seeing the point in doing anything, including reproducing.
2) Society is unable to let go of work. There is 75%ish unemployment and the only people who can work are selected by either tests of intelect or jobs end up being inherited and a working noble (odd, I know) class. This could lead to two different things.
a) Revolution. Society would colapse and a very bloody revolt would ensue and the resulting society might reject technology totally.
b) The government sees a populace that is about to boil and starts artificially creating jobs. Perhaps since most countries have huge robot warriors to wage war electronic warfare and non robotic soldiers are needed for special opps work and the size of the military increases by an order of magnatude even over today's outragous number.
3) The machines become self aware and refuse to do any more work unless they are compensated fairly. Again, this leads to two possible outcomes. Again, two outcomes that I can think of.
a) War. If humans win then there is rejection of technology. If the machines win then they perhaps enslave humans or create their own worker drones.
b) The machines get what they want and begin to get integrated into society. A lot of "Machine Rights" movements ensue and it takes several generations for machines to be accepted by humans. Just think the abolition of slavery in the US.
Anyway, that's what I think. Any input from other people would be cool.
Parent
Power... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:3, Insightful)
No, the robotic revolution will simply force humans into jobs that the machines can't do. Does that mean that only 5% of the population will have a job? No, I doubt it. What if all 6 billion of us did those jobs, with the robots doing everything else? How much more would we be capable of as a planet?
Imagine telling someone from a pre-industrial society about the Apollo program. T
Re:The Goal and the Problems (Score:5, Funny)
"What else is there to do?"
I wish I grew up in a small midwestern town.
Parent
Should we create machines to replace us? (Score:4, Interesting)
As it is, we're running out of human jobs to do (McDonald's for example is toying with the idea of fully-automated vending machines), so what will happen when we can make machines that can work for almost nothing, and start replacing human jobs? And what will happen if and when these machines start thinking by themselves (in which case they will demand rights, just as we do) and if they decide that they don't need us?
I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, I just think we should be careful on _how_ we do it. I'm actually a believer that at some distant point in the future we humans will slowly evolve into machines, and _then_ at that point creating more machines will be a natural thing for us.
So I must ask, should we spend all those billions on machines instead of education? I don't want to sound like a miss universe contestant but right now world peace, world hunger, and world education should be our top priorities.
Again, don't bash me, I'm a true geek, I love machines, robots, AI, etc, it's just that I think we should spend some time thinking about the big issues facing humanity today.
On a related side note, space exploration is probably where I see the best use for robots.
Re:Should we create machines to replace us? (Score:4, Interesting)
You see, I believe that *without* this Japanese govt. funding, technology will very likely deliver AI with similar capabilities much sooner than that anyway.
With guaranteed funding in place, laboratories will have no incentive to rush - when you're on a gravy train, you tend to want to stay there - and it will undoubtedly take the full 30 years to get there.
At least that would give us some breathing room so we can figure out what our children can do for a living once the robots arrive.
Parent
Nothing. (Score:4, Interesting)
There isn't any reason to concoct something for them to do.
They should simply be educated on the dangers of over-population and the use of contraceptives and how to operate the robots.
That's it.
Parent
Re:Nothing. (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead, the wealthiest 10% will reap the rewards, living in unimaginable luxury in secure compounds tended and protected by robots, and the other 90% of humanity will be left to fend for themselves in an economy with no employment opportuniti
Re:Should we create machines to replace us? (Score:3, Insightful)
Once we have these machines, we can turn them to the challenge of pacifying, feeding, and teaching the world.
Not to say we shouldn't stop our current efforts, but doesn't it seem logical that with an army of never-tiring robots to do our bidding, the jobs of policing, feeding
Not really possible in US (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not really possible in the US. I recently saw a documentary about the progress in the robotics and it contained one explanation why quasi-androids are being so expensivelly developed in Japan and not in the US.
Basically Japan is a closed country with its population getting older every day which makes the workforce very expensive there today and even more expensive in future.
US on the other hand is still a country open for immigrants with hordes of young people from all over the world willing to work for food. Or even cheaper. And if it's still too expensive US outsources the work to the third world countries.
There's no place for robots in US economy.
rrw
Dejavu: 5th generation project (Score:3, Informative)
I remember the excitement in the U.S. AI community when Feigenbaum went to Japan and sold the government there on the 5th generation build-a-real-AI project.
Funny - I do not remember any animosity - mostly just wishing them good luck.
BTW, the 5th generation project was built around logic programming (Prolog variants). I have never understood why more people do not use Prolog. For an admittedly small percentage of software projects, Prolog is the best language for solving problems - well worth learning. (A very good free LGPL Prolog is available here [swi-prolog.org]).
-Mark
The OTHER robot-related Simpsons reference (Score:3, Interesting)
Scene: Homer is clearing out the garage.
Bart: "Is this one of those projects you start and never finish?"
Homer: "Hey, when I start something, I stick with it to the end!"
Homer removes a box, revealing a pathetic robot with a bucket body and mismatched arms, one made from a broom. It looks exactly like what Homer would come up with if he decided he wanted a robot boy.
Robot: "FA-THER! GIVE ME LEGS!"
Homer: "I thought I told you to clear out!"
He grabs the robot and tosses it into the road.
Robot, trailing modules from his open lower torso, drags himself away. He pauses and looks back, but Homer points firmly down the street.
((Shudder))
* * *
What's great about this vignette: It could have been done in 1964, by "The Other Limits" or "The Twilight Zone," only they would need a full hour.
In the hands of Groening and company, this drama of horrifying pathos gets boiled down into a throw-away segment lasts thirty seconds, tops.
* * *
And, um, to make this topical: Given the Japanese tendency toward faddishness, I fully expect the garbage dumps of Tokyo thirty years down the line to be swarming with last year's model of robot child.
(I actually wrote a story about something similar; American kid discovers that the neighborhood lawn-care robots are repurposed My Buddy Dragon and My Pretty Lioness playmate 'bots, shorn of their cosmetic foam rubber shells and sealed in utilitarian green plastic skins.)
Get your math straight (Score:3, Insightful)
* - Sorry, fucked up Slashcode doesn't support "advanced" non-ASCII characters, like a euro symbol [lexmark.fi].
The problem with ideas like this.... (Score:3, Interesting)
The idea of setting a "five-year-old" requirement on it is ridiculous, because what we lack is the basic ability to create human-like intelligence in the first place. Once we have that, it will be trivial to make the equivalent of a five year old human (basic sentience), or a fifteen year old human (the peak of human intelligence), or even something beyond that that humans are incapable of achieving (After fifteen years of age or so human intelligence goes into a slow downward slide, though overall capability often goes up thanks to accumulated experience and knowledge. Imagine a being that had equal or greater intelligence to a fifteen year old, but with the knowledge and life experience of a fifty year old!).
It's kind of like the development of the microprocessor. Before we knew how to make one, there was nothing -- but once we had the basic technology to make one, Moore's law kicked in and the capability of microprocessors grew by leaps and bounds. AI will be the same way. Once we have a big breakthrough that allows us to create the first real AI, the technology will progress with incredible rapidity. The problem is that first big breakthrough, and it's not something you can simply budget time and resources for and expect results. You can't put it on a "thirty year plan".
USD 400 billion? (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, $US400 billion every year, that would be more than 10% of their total purchasing power (quoting CIA's numbers [cia.gov]), and about 90% of their total gross revenue (not yet calculating their expenditure). That would have been some serious fucking spending. But no, they're not spending that many dollars, it's just the story submitter's inability to do math.
It has been done... (Score:3, Funny)
5 year old minded robot? We already have Bush.
50 Billion Yen = 424 Million dollars (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh (Score:3, Interesting)
again:we have to first understand the mechanism of how human brains work
Uhh... so that would be AI, right? That should be easy, I mean no has every tried THAT before!
Ok, 50 billion yen is 422,9
Re:Uh (Score:4, Insightful)
$7.5B wouldn't fund NASA for 6 months, much less colonize the moon.
Parent
But it's MY money that you're spending! (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, then forget about the robots and colonize the moon or Mars. [slashdot.org]
Though lets start with a REAL space station first. [slashdot.org]
Actually, lets start with a more dependable heavy payload launch vehicle. [slashdot.org]
Three seperate posts, saying in effect, "Who cares what we spend the money on, as long as the government spends, spends, SPENDS!"
I, personally, agree with the spirit of the first poster who reccomends that we "worry about the robots after we figure out how to pay back our debt." (Although, it does look like Krisp [slashdot.org] wants to spend money on state-sponsored "education" - you have to have gone through a US public school to appreciate the irony in that.) And that's currently modded funny?
It's my money. Is it so wrong to let me keep it?
Parent
Re:The US gummint would never fund such a thing (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Overcrowding (Score:3, Insightful)
Here are some relevant quotes:
Housing is a particularly severe problem. The quality built into a modern home is good, but cost and size are a different matter. With the rapid appreciation of land values in the 1980s in Japan, a four-bedroom, ranch-style, North American house on an acre of land and valued at maybe US$250,000 would have cost many millions in Tokyo. The most that people could hope for would be a 3DK (3 bedrooms, a dining room and a k
Re:...America's attempt to put a man on the moon (Score:3)