Mars Lander's Robot Arm Shuts Down To Save Itself 214
Cowards Anonymous passes along a PCWorld article that begins, "The robotic arm on the Mars Lander found itself in a tough position over the weekend. After receiving instructions for a movement that would have damaged its wrist, the robotic arm recognized the problem, tried to rectify it and then shut down before it could damage itself, according to Ray Arvidson, a co-investigator for the Mars Lander's robotic arm team and a professor at Washington University in St. Louis."
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, does this mean that the Mars Lander was programmed to comply with the Three Laws?
No. The second law translates to "Follow orders." The third law is "Don't get hurt (unless it conflicts with the second law)." If the lander had followed Asimov's laws, it would have followed the order and hurt its wrist.
In other words (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words the Mars Lander performed as programmed. News at 11.
Human Error? (Score:5, Insightful)
Works As Designed (Score:4, Insightful)
I think it's amusing that after more than 30 years of Microsoft's quality control, when a computing device works as designed, it's a news worthy article. Think about it, I have a device that works as expected, can I be on the news too?
Re:In other words (Score:4, Insightful)
The article doesn't even contain the word "Phoenix". WTF? If they're gonna talk about one of the landers, they should at least mention its name.
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:2, Insightful)
"If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire."
Re:In other words (Score:1, Insightful)
This is a robot lander you tool, not a calculator, a processor or an OS.
I find this interesting coz someone at NASA had the brains to add this sort of shit to the configuration unlike the git who couldn't tell the difference between metric and imperial units which caused one of the landers to crash. My faith in NASA has been restored.
Re:Works As Designed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't want an expensive robot to go breaking itself just because you're a bit careless giving it orders. Most devices are designed this way. Users are stupid. Even the smart ones. Even if I want to do something fairly harmless, like close an application without saving, the computer will stop me and check that's what I actually want to do.
Obligatory clippy. (Score:3, Insightful)
what if this kind of code makes it into every piece of space equipment, and then by some fluke we are faced with the possibility of breaking a robotic wrist to deflect a space rock off an earth intercept course.
They should at least have a little clippy pop up and say "it looks like you want to break my robotic arm, are you sure you want to do that?" "are you absolutely sure?"
Re:Does anyone else think... (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference between the Mars lander and a car building robot is one of function.
The car building robot is programmed to do one task. It spends all day, every day, welding specific spots, on a car which is in a specific location.
The Mars landers have to content with an unknown environment, where they could be asked to do a wide variety of things, with any number of possible consequences.
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:5, Insightful)
As the decision tree gets huge, just about any tiny action will eventually lead to tragedy, or [odius] being elected.
There is no real safety under the sun.
Re:Human Error? (Score:3, Insightful)
What I don't understand is I've read several times recently that they have a mockup lander that they run ALL commands through to make sure they will work as intended, before uploading instructions.
So why wasn't this problem caught before it was sent to the lander? Sounds like they are covering up for someone taking a shortcut and getting bitten as a result.
Sheer Luck? (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)
...my Roomba, on a daily basis, recognizes stairs as a threat and refuses to fall down them. I guess I don't see the "big deal" here, sounds like a built-in protective measure worked as expected. The technology is no less awesome, but still, it functioned AS DESIGNED.
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you want the robot to sacrifice itself for you... Then order 2 preceding order 3 is VERY useful.
Such a case would be covered by the first law.
If you want to sacrifice the robot to save one of your other possessions, then the priority of the second law over the third is very useful.
Re:Shut down before it could damage itself? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, US robots rented its robots for a long time, I'm not sure they want them to break...
Leasing a robot was sufficiently expensive at the time that it more than covered for the specific repair. They also had the option to cease leasing to a particular client if he turns out to be destroying them on a regular basis.
In addition, a robot placing the orders of a human above its own self-preservation is a nice marketing point if you're trying to overcome the "Frankenstein Complex" that made humans afraid of them.
Re:In other words (Score:1, Insightful)
Phoenix is the only active lander on Mars. Spirit and Opportunity are rovers.