MIT Scientists Create Robotic Sea Life 112
Junior Barns writes "This
article on the BBC News site reports on the development of a robot that imitates primitive life forms. This project led by researchers from the
robotic life group at the MIT media lab is intended to study how people will try to interact with and relate to an "alien" creature that seems organic but is not anthropomorphic. Let's just hope no one tries to kill and eat it."
Re:Just one question (Score:1)
I'd hate to disapoint you but... (Score:1)
Tomorrow in the news: (Score:2)
Toy companies! (Score:2)
Slashdotted (Score:1)
You guys should really be working on a cache-based solution to this....the laughs are over.
yum... (Score:2)
but how else will we be able to know if an "alien" creature tastes like chicken?
The real link (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The real link (Score:1)
I can't remember seeing such a beautiful girl working on AI before.
To robots, tires are like candy! (Score:2)
Sorry, this just spawned memories of my favorite SeaLab 2021 [adultswim.com]
Visit [lostbrain.com]
tcd004
Re:To robots, tires are like candy! (Score:1, Informative)
Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic needed? (Score:5, Interesting)
AI is definitely becoming a reality. Everyone was interested in AI ten or twenty years ago, but it's NOW that things are starting to really happen. The technology is here.
So why doesn't Slashdot have an 'AI' topic? I think it's time we had one here, as AI is clearly becoming a popular topic on the site.
P.S. I believe in this enough that I'm willing to burn some karma by posting this almost offtopic post, which will probably be modded down as such. Mod me up if you agree, or mod me down if you think it's a bad idea.
Re:Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic needed (Score:1)
Hah, that's the normal moderation standard around here.
Re:Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic needed (Score:3, Insightful)
For example, I think it's a bad idea.
Mostly because AI is generally an argument topic. It'd be like having an "Evolution" topic. Whenever anyone brings up AI, you get twenty highly rated posts talking about "Why don't the researchers see that AI would be easy if only they [insert poorly thought-out idea here]". And then you get like three voices of reason explaining why none of this is groundbreaking.
Er... I just made your point. If we had an A.I. topic, then everyone with my complaint could filter out the flames....
I guess I'm just trying to say there shouldn't necessarily be *more* AI stories.
Re:Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic needed (Score:2, Insightful)
I do believe, however, that AI is experiencing exponential growth at the moment, and that AI is becoming what people twenty years dreamt of. Sure, we have no HAL yet (another ten years, I bet ya) but there are going to be enough stories coming along that are directly related to AI that I think a designated topic would be useful.
Then again, I also believe topics like 'PHP', 'Perl' and 'C++' should also be culled, and instead use 'Programming'.. but hey.
And anyway.. how comes there's no area on Slashdot where we can actually discuss the workings of Slashdot? A 'MetaSlash', if you will? Journals are good, but there are none that are particularly popular for this type of discussion.
Suggestions?
Re:Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic needed (Score:3, Insightful)
AI icon? (Score:2, Interesting)
how would you express AI as an icon? maybe that's why it isn't here yet.
Re:AI icon? (Score:1)
The apple Icons Have a plethroa of single glaring circular thing from box type icons (networking [slashdot.org], media [slashdot.org], and even wireless [slashdot.org] . Hmmmm the paranoid can think of that what they will.
Maybe they can just use "AI"(in a pretty font) as the icon.
Re:AI icon? (Score:2)
Maybe use an anthill for an icon to depict complexity naturally emerging from simplicity? Or maybe a few cells from conways game of life?
--
Re:Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic neede (Score:1)
Re:Prevalence of A.I. stories = AI /. topic needed (Score:1)
would GTA3 [gta3.com] be in the same catagory as alicebot [sunlitsurf.com]? you could catagorize both of those under "AI", however, i would think gta3 more appropriately belongs in games and alicebot in the CS section.
"AI" is just too loose of a term to make a category out of; why not just make a category called "Computer Technology" and bundle all the articles under that banner?
I second that (Score:1)
Here's to hoping
Good idea... but this isn't AI. (Score:1)
I do like the idea of having an icon for stories that really do deal with some aspect of AI, though. The HAL eye sounds like a good icon.
1 hot robot (Score:1)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/3822600
Thats one hot robot. Where can I get one?
Re:1 hot robot (Score:1)
Re:1 hot robot (Score:1)
Silicon vs Silicone (Score:1)
I certainly wouldn't want any woman of mine getting SILICON implants. Silicone is a different matter.
Re:Silicon vs Silicone (Score:1)
Wow...Nice Job (Score:2)
You may stop the research, results are here. (Score:2, Funny)
Based on a empirical research conducted amongst 42^42 volunteering /. readers an average humanoid reacts by first looking up some words from the thesaurus continued with anthropomorphous expressions like *pause* *sigh* and *Huh!*
Re:You may stop the research, results are here. (Score:2)
What effect will this really have on the sea..? (Score:1)
I mean, imagine...suppose you are a big killer whale (Orca) and have just finished a nice dolphin (it hurts me to this about that, but so is the nature of nature) and the Orca is still feeling a bit peckish. And then he sees a strangelooking thing and decides to eat it...
What will happen?
Find out next week!
PS. No, but really, will he get fried? will he just get all sick and die? Or will he just go on living and poop the damn thing out?
Re:What effect will this really have on the sea..? (Score:1)
Re:What effect will this really have on the sea..? (Score:1)
Disembodied voice: We switched Siggraph's normally scheduled Sea Anemone with this MIT created robot Sea Anemone. Let's see if anybody notices.
Geek:Uh your Sea Anemone is shooting sparks at that little kid.
Re:What effect will this really have on the sea..? (Score:1)
Of course, being a geek & all that, you wouldn't really know that their diet is mainly constituted of seals, fish etc.
I mean they would eat dolphin, only it is probably quite rare: dolphins are bloody strong, I think all an orca (or group of orcas) could hope for is a young or elderly animal.
As to eating stuff that's lying on the bottom, I'm not sure at all.
Ah well, speculation,
Re:What effect will this really have on the sea..? (Score:1)
Moderators: do not moderate if you have no sense of sarcasm.
Re:What effect will this really have on the sea..? (Score:2)
we just slashdoted the BBC (Score:1)
Maybe it is time to start working on a slashdot stored cached version of the submitted URLs.
no, we did not. (Score:1)
if i start that other browser that i never installed willingly, i can go to the bcc normally and click through. everything works fine.
it even works in it if i click on the link on the slashdot mainpage.
i visit the bcc regulary with mozilla, i never had any problems. they're not... oh no...
very media lab (Score:1)
This is very Media Lab.
"We're going to make a robotic sea anemone in order to... to... to... look cool! And explore some blah blah blah human interaction blah blah send us money."
In a few years it will be forgotten and nothing will have been learned from it.
Access problems (Score:4, Informative)
I doubt it was slashdot wot done it too, more likely someone fucked up file or CMS permissions and hasn't noticed coz of said cookie being set to "yes" on all BBC boxes.
Re:Access problems (Score:2, Informative)
The "non-UK" version of the BBC has been down for a few hours, it's definitely not ben
And, as you say, the "UK" version works fine.
Why Siggraph?? (Score:1)
Can anybody expound on why Siggraph? Besides that it would be full of exactly the kind of people who would want to see it.
USS Virginia, somewhere under the Northern Pacific (Score:2)
Captain: "What is it?"
First officer (in a strangely strangled voice): "I think you had better see for yourself."
Captain (taking over the view finder): "What the hell is THAT? Is that thing trying to...?"
First officer (face now twitching almost uncontrollably): "I believe so, sir."
Captain: "But... It's humping my..."
First officer (gasping for breath): "Some of us like our bitches big, sir."
Captain (dazed): "My mission..."
First officer (now laughing outright): "We could always abort, sir."
Re:Time to switch majors! (Score:1)
Thats the robot you anonymous nerd !
Yikes (Score:1)
Sounds familiar (Score:2)
So they build robotic Sea Monkeys? (Note the "not anthropomorphic" bit and how the SMs were supposed to look like)
Slightly Offtopic (Score:2, Informative)
Return of the Creeping Eliza (Score:2)
These guys will build a comlpex widget with sensors and motors that works underwater for extended periods. Why not make it do something clever, useful, unexpected? I know, I know, that's AI, and we don't do no stinkin AI no more. But it would impress me a lot more.
Saw it at SIGGRAPH (Score:2, Informative)
The Media Lab students explained that it was an experiment in social interaction - but how people react with something that doesn't have a face, or a voice. In a way, it's easier to create a creature that doesn't have to synthesize speech, etc. At the same time, it's much more difficult to elicit a reaction from people when they can't interact the same way that they do with other humans.
The Public Anemone had two main forms of reaction that I could make out - shrinking back from people who reached out toward it, and tracking faces. (With the assistance of dual stereo cameras in the back wall.) The exhibit was more like a terrarium than an aquarium (as the BBC article mentions), but the creature had a silicone skin which allowed it to play in the small pond and waterfall without shorting. During the day cycle, the anemone interacts with guests. During the night mode, the anemone goes to sleep and guests can interact with other fiber-optic anemones (that also shrink away) and drum on gemstones embedded in the surface of the exhibit. The exhibit certainly looked cool, with fiber optics, a soundtrack, and changing colored stones (using ColorKinetics lights), but the interaction left something to be desired. Almost all the people I observed in the exhibit did the typical museum "Oh, that's nice, let's look at it for a few minutes." Almost no-one tried to interact unless prompted to by the media lab representative that was standing there, describing what was going on. Nobody that I saw tried to play with the face tracking abilities of the robot.
Cynthia Brazeal [mit.edu](the person in the second pic) is more commonly known for her work on Cog & Kismet [mit.edu]. (Pic [mit.edu])
IMHO, The coolest project in this area is Doc Beardsley [cmu.edu], by the Entertainment Technology program at Carnegie Mellon. Here's an article [discover.com] at Discover Magazine. Interaction with Doc emphasizes fun over artificial intelligence.
I have more pics of the Anemone from Siggraph. If anyone wants to post them somewhere where they can stand the slashdotting, send email to mistermund@yahoo.com
Re:Anthropomorphic (Score:1)
From an Amateur Etymologist,
Anthrop= human morphus=shape
I think its ok as long as it stands to describe any human characteristics as in shape or behaviour.
here is the definition from m-w [m-w.com]
Not that impressive (Score:1)
Rod Brooks and the Toy Factory (Score:3, Informative)
Their best known product is My Real Baby, manufactured by Hasbro around 1999-2000. It's basically a baby doll with Furby-type software. Rated "Worst Idea of the Year" by the Alliance for Childhood. [allianceforchildhood.net] It's not even that original; Baby Think it Over [btio.com], the anti-teen-pregnancy doll from hell ("requires real care on the part of the student, including feeding, burping, rocking, and changing diapers"), has been around for years, but at a price well above the toy level.
This whole direction is way too much like Eliza. Much of the AI field, having failed at tasks that actually require doing something successfully without human assistance, now seems to be focused more on faking it. You've all seen Ask Jeeves [askjeeves.com], and obnoxious "virtual customer support reps". Those are pathetic.
There's some good work going on, but this isn't it.
Re:Rod Brooks and the Toy Factory (Score:2)
Re:Rod Brooks and the Toy Factory (Score:1)
Sounds a bit like the middle-age alchemists trying to convert lead into gold, and discovering other chemical processes while doing so...
Re:Rod Brooks and the Toy Factory (Score:1)
Re:Rod Brooks and the Toy Factory (Score:3, Insightful)
AI research may have been most useful as a money acquisition scheme for expensive research, back when computers were expensive and rare. It's hard to believe today, but AI research used to dominate computer science at the major schools, which were MIT, CMU, and Stanford.
Spinoffs from AI research include time-sharing, EMACS, electronic mail, document processing, and parts of the ARPANET. But most of those came from the support people, not the AI researchers. Stallman, for example, worked at the MIT AI Lab for years, but he's not an AI person. AI lab support staffs made all the useful stuff work so the AI researchers could get their email, do graphics, move files around, and do all the basic computer stuff we now accept as normal.
The AI researchers helped justify using multimillion dollar machines for trivial stuff. Without them, nobody would have dared do, say, e-mail. When the hardware got cheaper, we knew how to do lots of useful, but not previously cost-effective, basic tasks. That may be the greatest contribution of the AI community.
Re:Rod Brooks and the Toy Factory (Score:1)
Another "gee whiz" Media Labs story; move along (Score:2)
"Let's just hope no one tries to kill and eat it." (Score:1)
Just like shooting little electronic fish in a barrel!
Future developments? (Score:1)
So, will they be making robotic...
Ali