last nights robotics show on abc tv

[Phil]

Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot.
And this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

 

[John]

"Phil" <c2247237@tyldd.com> wrote in message
news:8bb9349b-bd25-44dc-81be-c17e124495c4@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com...

Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot.
And this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

And the usual fusion/AI-style predictions. "5, 10 years from now we'll have
real robots!".
Like they said 40 years ago.

 

[Bruce Varley]

"Phil" <c2247237@tyldd.com> wrote in message
news:8bb9349b-bd25-44dc-81be-c17e124495c4@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com...

Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot.
And this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

DARPA again. Limitless funds for anything that the military sponsors think
will help them win wars. It looks like there's no effective quality audit on
the research, some of the stuff they had is the sort of thing I bash
together with used bits and pieces in my back shed.

I thought the Jap effort showed them up in a pretty poor light too.

 

[terryc]

On Thu, 24 Sep 2009 21:10:05 -0700, Phil wrote:

Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot. And
this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

I could not work out if it was a trash doco or a classic example of a
puff piece for self/company/MIT gone badly wrong.

Basically, I think we were not given the specifications for "the robot".
What we saw was badly over engineered and very poorly designed for the
task at hand.

I also loved the continual robot references when they were clearly
talking about remote controlled machines.

 

[terryc]

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:03:52 +1000, John wrote:

"Phil" <c2247237@tyldd.com> wrote in message
news:8bb9349b-bd25-44dc-81be-
c17e124495c4@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com...

Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot.
And this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

And the usual fusion/AI-style predictions. "5, 10 years from now we'll
have real robots!".
Like they said 40 years ago.

I'm still waiting for the flying car. It is due to come first.

 

[KR]

On Sep 25, 2:10 pm, Phil <c2247...@tyldd.com> wrote:

Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot.
And this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

This sort of program is probably exciting and high tech and a promise
of the end to all of their life's problems
..............to the average non-technical person.
This effect would increase, the lower the IQ and common sense of the
person.


I don't think the thing was presented as a "technical" program, rather
more like examining "ways to package robots in a way to make them
socially acceptable, saleable and profiable" . Finding potential uses
for deep pocketed organisations.

 

[KR]

On Sep 25, 6:19 pm, "Bruce Varley" <bxvar...@weastnet.com.au> wrote:

"Phil" <c2247...@tyldd.com> wrote in message

news:8bb9349b-bd25-44dc-81be-c17e124495c4@u36g2000prn.googlegroups.com...



Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to boot.
And this is offloaded as some sort of a technological breakthrough?

DARPA again. Limitless funds for anything that the military sponsors think
will help them win wars. It looks like there's no effective quality audit on
the research, some of the stuff they had is the sort of thing I bash
together with used bits and pieces in my back shed.

I thought the Jap effort showed them up in a pretty poor light too.
-------------------------

Its also interesting the cultural differences presented *in this
program* too.


Based on the program content the US can only think of robots for use
in purposes of violence, espionage, death and evil, whereas Japan
thinks primarily of them from a point of view of age carers, helpers,
home assistants.

 

[Terry Dawson]

On Fri, 25 Sep 2009 06:37:31 -0700 (PDT), KR <kenreed1999@gmail.com>
said:

On Sep 25, 2:10 pm, Phil <c2247...@tyldd.com> wrote:
Did anyone catch it? What a load of rubbish. The robot could not
even
pick up a stone let alone play the game. Poor motor control to
boot.

I didn't see the documentary, but I heard an interview with the
aussie expat former head of MIT robotics and artificial intellligence
labs on radio national. He talked briefly about that research, which
was apparently focussed on the task of picking up irregularly shaped
objects. Nothing to do with "Go" other than it uses stones and is
fiddly to play without disturbing other pieces. The millitary funded
this work for some reason I can't remeber. This guy left MIT and
created the company that invented the "Roomba" automated vacuum.

I don't think the thing was presented as a "technical" program,
rather
more like examining "ways to package robots in a way to make them
socially acceptable, saleable and profiable" . Finding potential
uses
for deep pocketed organisations.

In the interview he talked at some length about social acceptability
of robots and how it varies country to country. He talked about the
focus of south-east asian robotocists on creating "companion" robots
and how he believed they wouldn't be accepted in the US or Australia.

I've no idea who commissioned the doco but I sense it may have
centred around this particular person, apparently he's regularly
contributed to the ABC for robotics docos.

Terry

 

[Phil Allison]

"Terry Dawson"

I didn't see the documentary, but I heard an interview with the
aussie expat former head of MIT robotics and artificial intellligence
labs on radio national. He talked briefly about that research, which
was apparently focussed on the task of picking up irregularly shaped
objects. Nothing to do with "Go" other than it uses stones and is
fiddly to play without disturbing other pieces. The millitary funded
this work for some reason I can't remeber. This guy left MIT and
created the company that invented the "Roomba" automated vacuum.

In the interview he talked at some length about social acceptability
of robots and how it varies country to country. He talked about the
focus of south-east asian robotocists on creating "companion" robots
and how he believed they wouldn't be accepted in the US or Australia.

I've no idea who commissioned the doco but I sense it may have
centred around this particular person, apparently he's regularly
contributed to the ABC for robotics docos.

** The doco is Canadian:

http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/natureofthings/2008/robotrevolution/

Rodney Brooks hails from South Australia and is a pure math grad and holds a
PhD in computer science.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks

The dude is a theoretician and the suggestion that he is an " engineer " is
an misconception.

I found the show less than inspiring.



..... Phil

 

[Terry Dawson]

On Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:38:43 +1000, "Phil Allison"
<phil_a@tpg.com.au> said:

Rodney Brooks hails from South Australia and is a pure math grad
and holds a
PhD in computer science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_Brooks
The dude is a theoretician and the suggestion that he is an "
engineer " is
an misconception.

He certainly didn't lay claim to the title himself. I get the
impression it's always been a team effort, not surprisingly.

Disappointingly his accent is terribly corrupted by his years in the
US. Funnily enough the one word that seemed unaffected was "mate".

I found the show less than inspiring.

Sounds like I caught the more interesting of the two.

Terry