Discovery News
'Thinking' Robot Teaches Itself a Task
Instead of performing tasks based on a computer program, this robot problem
solves on the fly.
Tue Oct 11, 2011
The Gist :
* A Japanese researcher has developed a system that allows a robot to
solve problems.
* With the algorithm, the robot uses its knowledge to complete tasks
it has been asked to do.
Robots that learn from experience and can solve novel problems -- just like
humans -- sound like science fiction.
But a Japanese researcher is working on making them science fact, with
machines that can teach themselves to perform tasks they have not been
programmed to do, using objects they have never seen before.
In a world first, Osamu Hasegawa, associate professor at the Tokyo
Institute of Technology, has developed a system that allows robots to look
around
their environment and do research on the Internet, enabling them to "think"
how best to solve a problem.
"Most existing robots are good at processing and performing the tasks they
are pre-programmed to do, but they know little about the 'real world' where
we humans live," he told AFP. "So our project is an attempt to build a
bridge between robots and that real world.
The _Self-Organizing Incremental Neural Network_
(http://haselab.info/soinn-e.html) , or "SOINN," is an algorithm that allows
robots to use their
knowledge -- what they already know -- to infer how to complete tasks they have
been told to do.
SOINN examines the environment to gather the data it needs to organize the
information it has been given into a coherent set of instructions.
Tell a SOINN-powered machine that it should, for example: "Serve water."
Without special programs for water-serving, the robot works out the order
of the actions required to complete the task.
The SOINN machine asks for help when facing a task beyond its ability and
crucially, stores the information it learns for use in a future task.
In a separate experiment, SOINN is used to power machines to search the
Internet for information on what something looks like, or what a particular
word might mean.
Hasegawa's team is trying to merge these abilities and create a machine
that can work out how to perform a given task through online research.
"In the future, we believe it will be able to ask a computer in England how
to brew a cup of tea and perform the task in Japan," he said.
Like humans, the system can also filter out "noise" or insignificant
information that might confuse other robots.
The process is similar to how people can carry on a conversation with a
traveling companion on a train and ignore those around them, or can identify
an object under different lighting and from various angles, Hasegawa said.
"Human brains do this so well automatically and smoothly so we don't realize
that we are even doing this.
Similarly, the machine is able to filter out irrelevant results it finds on
the web.
"There is a huge amount of information available on the Internet, but at
present, only humans are making use of such information," he said. "This
robot can connect its brain directly to the Internet."
Hasegawa hopes SOINN might one day be put to practical use, for example
controlling traffic lights to ease traffic jams by organically analyzing data
from public monitors and accident reports.
He also points to possible uses in earthquake detection systems where a
SOINN-equipped machine might be able to aggregate data from numerous sensors
located across Japan and identify movements that might prove significant.
In a domestic setting, a robot that could learn could prove invaluable to a
busy household.
"We might ask a robot to bring soy sauce to the dinner table. It might
browse the Internet to learn what soy sauce is and identify it in the
kitchen,"
said Hasegawa.
But, cautions the professor, there are reasons to be careful about robots
that can learn.
What kinds of tasks should we allow computers to perform? And is it
possible that they might turn against us, like in the apocalyptic vision of
Stanley Kubrick's film "2001: A Space Odyssey."
"A kitchen knife is a useful thing. But it can also become a weapon," he
said.
While Hasegawa and his team have only benign intentions for their
invention, he wants people to be aware of its moral limits.
"We are hoping that a variety of people will discuss this technology, when
to use it, when not to use it," he said. "Technology is advancing at an
enormous speed.
"I want people to know we already have this kind of technology. We want
people with different backgrounds and in different fields to discuss how it
should be used, while it is still in its infancy."
--
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