Well, there is massively more $$ going into robotics dev than into AGI dev, and no one seems remotely near to solving the hard problems
Which is not to say it's a bad area of research, just that it's a whole other huge confusing R&D can of worms So I still say, the choices are -- virtual embodiment, as I advocate -- delay working on AGI for a decade or so, and work on robotics now instead (where by robotics I include software work on low-level sensing and actuator control) Either choice makes sense but I prefer the former as I think it can get us to the end goal faster. About the adequacy of current robot hardware -- I'll tell you more in 9 months or so ... a project I'm collaborating on is going to be using AI (including OpenCog) to control a Nao humanoid robot. We'll have 3 of them, they cost about US$14K each or so. The project is in China but I'll be there in June-July to play with the Naos and otherwise collaborate on the project. My impression is that with a Nao right now, camera-eye sensing is fine so long as lighting conditions are good ... audition is OK in the absence of masses of background noise ... walking is very awkward and grasping is possible but limited The extent to which the limitations of current robots are hardware vs software based is rather subtle, actually. In the case of vision and audition, it seems clear that the bottleneck is software. But, with actuation, I'm not so sure. The almost total absence of touch and kinesthetics in current robots is a huge impediment, and puts them at a huge disadvantage relative to humans. Things like walking and grasping as humans do them rely extremely heavily on both of these senses, so in trying to deal with this stuff without these senses (in any serious form), current robots face a hard and odd problem... ben On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 11:42 AM, Philip Hunt <[email protected]>wrote: > 2008/12/20 Ben Goertzel <[email protected]>: > > > > It doesn't have to be humanoid ... but apart from rolling instead of > > walking, > > I don't see any really significant simplifications obtainable from making > it > > non-humanoid. > > I can think of several. For example, you could give it lidar to > measure distances with -- this could then be used as input to its > vision system making it easier for the robot to tell which objects are > near or far. Instead of binocular vision, it could have >2 video > cameras. It could have multiple ears, which would help it tell where a > sound is coming from. > > The the best of my knowledge, no robot that's ever been used for > anything practical has ever been humanoid. > > > Grasping and manipulating general objects with robot manipulators is > > very much an unsolved research problem. So is object recognition in > > realistic conditions. > > What sort of visual input do you plan to have in your virtual environment? > > > So, to make an AGI robot preschool, one has to solve these hard > > research problems first. > > > > That is a viable way to go if one's not in a hurry -- > > but anyway in the robotics context any talk > > of preschools is drastically premature... > > > >> > >> > On the other hand, making a virtual world such as I envision, is more > >> > than a > >> > spare-time project, but not more than the project of making a single > >> > high-quality video game. > >> > >> GTA IV cost $5 million, so we're not talking about peanuts here. > > > > Right, but that is way cheaper than making a high-quality humanoid robot > > Is it? I suspect one with tracks, two robotic arms, various sensors > for light and sound, etc, could be made for less than $10,000 -- this > would be something that could move around and manipulate a blocks > world. My understanding is that all, or nearly all, the difficulty > comes in programming it. Which is where AI comes in. > > > Actually, $$ aside, we don't even **know how** to make a decent humanoid > > robot. > > > > Or, a decently functional mobile robot **of any kind** > > Is that because of hardware or software issues? > > -- > Philip Hunt, <[email protected]> > Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. > See http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html > > > ------------------------------------------- > agi > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > -- Ben Goertzel, PhD CEO, Novamente LLC and Biomind LLC Director of Research, SIAI [email protected] "I intend to live forever, or die trying." -- Groucho Marx ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=123753653-47f84b Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
