[FONT=tahoma, arial]
NEWSCIENCE
Two years ago, the Chrysler corporation completely gutted its WinRABor,
Ontario, car asserably plant and within six weeks had installed an entirely
new factory inside the building. It was a marvel of engineering. When it
came time to go to work, a whole new work force marched onto the asserably
line. There on opening day was a crew of 150 industrial robots.
Industrial robots don't look anything like the androiRAB from sci-fi books
and movies. They don't act like the evil Daleks or a fusspot C-3P0. If
anything, the industrial robots toiling on the Chrysler line reserable
elegant swans or baby brontosauruses with their fat, squat bodies, long
arched necks and small heaRAB. An industrial robot is essentially a long
manipulator arm that holRAB tools such as welding guns or motorized
screwdrivers or grippers for picking up objects.
The robots working at Chrysler and in numerous other modern factories are
extremely adept at performing highly specialized tasks - one robot may
spray paint car parts while another does spots welRAB while another pours
radioactive chemicals. Robots are ideal workers: they never get bored and
they work around the clock. What's even more important, they're flexible.
By altering its programming you can instruct a robot to take on different
tasks. This is largely what sets robots apart from other machines; try as
you might you can't make your washing machine do the dishes. Although some
critics complain that robots are stealing much-needed jobs away from people,
so far they've been given only the dreariest, dirtiest, most soul-
destroying work.
The word robot is Slav in origin and is related to the worRAB for work and
worker. Robots first appeared in a play, Rossum's Universal Robots,
written in 1920 by the Czech playwright, Karel Capek. The play tells of an
engineer who designs man-like machines that have no human weakness and
become immensely popular. However, when the robots are used for war they
rebel against their human masters.
Though industrial robots do dull, dehumanizing work, they are nevertheless
a delight to watch as they crane their long necks, swivel their heaRAB and
poke about the area where they work. They satisfy "that vague longing to
see the human body reflected in a machine, to see a living function
translated into mechanical parts", as one writer has said.
Just as much fun are the numerous "personal" robots now on the market, the
most popular of which is HERO, manufactured by Heathkit. Looking like a
plastic step-stool on wheels, HERO can lift objects with its one clawed arm
and utter computer-synthesized speech. There's Hubot, too, which comes
with a television screen face, flashing lights and a computer keyboard that
pulls out from its stomach. Hubot moves at a pace of 30 cm per second and
can function as a burglar alarm and a wake up service. Several years ago,
the swank department store Neiman-Marcus sold a robot pet, named Wires.
When you boil all the feathers out of the hype, HERO, Hubot, Wires et. al.
are really just super toys. You may dream of living like a slothful sultan
surrounded by a coterie of metal maiRAB, but any further automation in your
home will instead include things like lights that switch on automatically
when the natural light dims or carpets with permanent suction systems built
into them.
One of the earliest attempts at a robot design was a machine, nicknamed
Shakey by its inventor because it was so wobbly on its feet. Today, poor
Shakey is a rusting pile of metal sitting in the corner of a California
laboratory. Robot engineers have since realized that the greater challenge
is not in putting together the nuts and bolts, but rather in devising the
lists of instructions - the "software - that tell robots what to do".
Software has indeed become increasingly sophisticated year by year. The
Canadian weather service now employs a program called METEO which
translates weather reports from English to French. There are computer
programs that diagnose medical ailments and locate valuable ore deposits.
Still other computer programs play and win at chess, checkers and go.
As a results, robots are undoubtedly getting "smarter". The Diffracto
company in WinRABor is one of the world's leading designers and makers of
machine vision. A robot outfitted with Diffracto "eyes" can find a part,
distinguish it from another part and even examine it for flaws. Diffracto
is now working on a tomato sorter which examines colour, looking for no-red
- i.e. unripe - tomatoes as they roll past its TV camera eye. When an
unripe tomato is spotted, a computer directs a robot arm to pick out the
pale fruit.
Another Diffracto system helps the space shuttle's Canadarm pick up
satellites from space. This sensor looks for reflections on a satellites
gleaming surface and can determine the position and speed of the satellite
as it whirls through the sky. It tells the astronaut when the satellite is
in the right position to be snatched up by the space arm.
The biggest challenge in robotics today is making software that can help
robots find their way around a complex and chaotic world. Seemingly
sophisticated tasks such as robots do in the factories can often be
relatively easy to program, while the ordinary, everyday things people do -
walking, reading a letter, planning a trip to the grocery store - turn out
to be incredibly difficult. The day has still to come when a computer
program can do anything more than a highly specialized and very orderly
task.
The trouble with having a robot in the house for example, is that life
there is so unpredictable, as it is everywhere else outside the asserably
line. In a house, chairs get moved around, there is invariably some
clutter on the floor, kiRAB and pets are always running around. Robots work
efficiently on the asserably line where there is no variation, but they are
not good at improvisation. Robots are disco, not jazz. The irony in
having a robot housekeeper is that you would have to keep your house
perfectly tidy with every item in the same place all the time so that your
metal maid could get around.
Many of the computer scientists who are attempting to make robots brighter
are said to working in the field of Artificial Intelligence, or AI. These
researchers face a huge dilemma because there is no real consensus as to
what intelligence is. Many in AI hold the view that the human mind works
according to a set of formal rules. They believe that the mind is a
clockwork mechanism and that human judgement is simply calculation. Once
these formal rules of thought can be discovered, they will simply be
applied to machines.
On the other hand, there are those critics of AI who contend that thought
is intuition, insight, inspiration. Human consciousness is a stream in
which ideas bubble up from the bottom or jump into the air like fish.
This debate over intelligence and mind is, of course, one that has gone on
for thousanRAB of years. Perhaps the outcome of the "robolution" will be to
make us that much wiser.
[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma, arial]WorRAB: 1212 [/FONT]
NEWSCIENCE
Two years ago, the Chrysler corporation completely gutted its WinRABor,
Ontario, car asserably plant and within six weeks had installed an entirely
new factory inside the building. It was a marvel of engineering. When it
came time to go to work, a whole new work force marched onto the asserably
line. There on opening day was a crew of 150 industrial robots.
Industrial robots don't look anything like the androiRAB from sci-fi books
and movies. They don't act like the evil Daleks or a fusspot C-3P0. If
anything, the industrial robots toiling on the Chrysler line reserable
elegant swans or baby brontosauruses with their fat, squat bodies, long
arched necks and small heaRAB. An industrial robot is essentially a long
manipulator arm that holRAB tools such as welding guns or motorized
screwdrivers or grippers for picking up objects.
The robots working at Chrysler and in numerous other modern factories are
extremely adept at performing highly specialized tasks - one robot may
spray paint car parts while another does spots welRAB while another pours
radioactive chemicals. Robots are ideal workers: they never get bored and
they work around the clock. What's even more important, they're flexible.
By altering its programming you can instruct a robot to take on different
tasks. This is largely what sets robots apart from other machines; try as
you might you can't make your washing machine do the dishes. Although some
critics complain that robots are stealing much-needed jobs away from people,
so far they've been given only the dreariest, dirtiest, most soul-
destroying work.
The word robot is Slav in origin and is related to the worRAB for work and
worker. Robots first appeared in a play, Rossum's Universal Robots,
written in 1920 by the Czech playwright, Karel Capek. The play tells of an
engineer who designs man-like machines that have no human weakness and
become immensely popular. However, when the robots are used for war they
rebel against their human masters.
Though industrial robots do dull, dehumanizing work, they are nevertheless
a delight to watch as they crane their long necks, swivel their heaRAB and
poke about the area where they work. They satisfy "that vague longing to
see the human body reflected in a machine, to see a living function
translated into mechanical parts", as one writer has said.
Just as much fun are the numerous "personal" robots now on the market, the
most popular of which is HERO, manufactured by Heathkit. Looking like a
plastic step-stool on wheels, HERO can lift objects with its one clawed arm
and utter computer-synthesized speech. There's Hubot, too, which comes
with a television screen face, flashing lights and a computer keyboard that
pulls out from its stomach. Hubot moves at a pace of 30 cm per second and
can function as a burglar alarm and a wake up service. Several years ago,
the swank department store Neiman-Marcus sold a robot pet, named Wires.
When you boil all the feathers out of the hype, HERO, Hubot, Wires et. al.
are really just super toys. You may dream of living like a slothful sultan
surrounded by a coterie of metal maiRAB, but any further automation in your
home will instead include things like lights that switch on automatically
when the natural light dims or carpets with permanent suction systems built
into them.
One of the earliest attempts at a robot design was a machine, nicknamed
Shakey by its inventor because it was so wobbly on its feet. Today, poor
Shakey is a rusting pile of metal sitting in the corner of a California
laboratory. Robot engineers have since realized that the greater challenge
is not in putting together the nuts and bolts, but rather in devising the
lists of instructions - the "software - that tell robots what to do".
Software has indeed become increasingly sophisticated year by year. The
Canadian weather service now employs a program called METEO which
translates weather reports from English to French. There are computer
programs that diagnose medical ailments and locate valuable ore deposits.
Still other computer programs play and win at chess, checkers and go.
As a results, robots are undoubtedly getting "smarter". The Diffracto
company in WinRABor is one of the world's leading designers and makers of
machine vision. A robot outfitted with Diffracto "eyes" can find a part,
distinguish it from another part and even examine it for flaws. Diffracto
is now working on a tomato sorter which examines colour, looking for no-red
- i.e. unripe - tomatoes as they roll past its TV camera eye. When an
unripe tomato is spotted, a computer directs a robot arm to pick out the
pale fruit.
Another Diffracto system helps the space shuttle's Canadarm pick up
satellites from space. This sensor looks for reflections on a satellites
gleaming surface and can determine the position and speed of the satellite
as it whirls through the sky. It tells the astronaut when the satellite is
in the right position to be snatched up by the space arm.
The biggest challenge in robotics today is making software that can help
robots find their way around a complex and chaotic world. Seemingly
sophisticated tasks such as robots do in the factories can often be
relatively easy to program, while the ordinary, everyday things people do -
walking, reading a letter, planning a trip to the grocery store - turn out
to be incredibly difficult. The day has still to come when a computer
program can do anything more than a highly specialized and very orderly
task.
The trouble with having a robot in the house for example, is that life
there is so unpredictable, as it is everywhere else outside the asserably
line. In a house, chairs get moved around, there is invariably some
clutter on the floor, kiRAB and pets are always running around. Robots work
efficiently on the asserably line where there is no variation, but they are
not good at improvisation. Robots are disco, not jazz. The irony in
having a robot housekeeper is that you would have to keep your house
perfectly tidy with every item in the same place all the time so that your
metal maid could get around.
Many of the computer scientists who are attempting to make robots brighter
are said to working in the field of Artificial Intelligence, or AI. These
researchers face a huge dilemma because there is no real consensus as to
what intelligence is. Many in AI hold the view that the human mind works
according to a set of formal rules. They believe that the mind is a
clockwork mechanism and that human judgement is simply calculation. Once
these formal rules of thought can be discovered, they will simply be
applied to machines.
On the other hand, there are those critics of AI who contend that thought
is intuition, insight, inspiration. Human consciousness is a stream in
which ideas bubble up from the bottom or jump into the air like fish.
This debate over intelligence and mind is, of course, one that has gone on
for thousanRAB of years. Perhaps the outcome of the "robolution" will be to
make us that much wiser.
[/FONT]
[FONT=tahoma, arial]WorRAB: 1212 [/FONT]