Yesterday, the New York Times published an interesting piece on the artificial intelligence ethics conference organized by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. The meeting was held in February at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on Monterey Bay in California.

The group of scientists addressed the ethical implications of creating autonomous intelligent robots. (The article cites several examples that already exist, from predator drones to computer viruses. It links to another NYT article from June 2009 on the development of robots that can find power sources and recharge themselves.)

The interesting thing about this article is how it shows once-skeptical scientists coming to the conclusion that the public needs to be aware of the increasingly important role AI will play in our lives and to reckon with the possibility of a coming Singularity. (The author also notes that some futurists’ writings on the Singularity have become nigh religious, as if it were the Rapture.)

The article links to an overview on the “AAAI Presidential Panel on Long-Term AI Futures.” Be sure to check out the AI Topics page at AAAI’s Web site as well.

Alas, the global recession has finally trickled down to our artificial friends. In Japan, robots will soon be on the welfare lines.

Remember my post about getting a bipedal robot on the moon by 2012? With robot unemployment levels this high, that’s starting to look like a robot dream deferred…

Isn’t this just asking for it? I mean, you know that once a robot tastes dead man-flesh, it’s just going to want to know what live human tastes like.

Admittedly, there is a potential upside to independent robots that feed on biomass, but I think it might be wiser to allow them to dine only on inorganic material, like Nissans.

Given the limits of bipedal locomotion, it always surprises me how obsessed the Japanese are with two-legged robots. Granted, the market there is focused on human interaction and caring for the elderly and disabled: Japan’s population is aging fast and their birthrate is extraordinarily low so they need friendly androids as receptionists and nurses.

But why put a humanoid robot on the moon? … Ah, yes. I see. Because it would be cool as shit.

For some time, my friend Christopher and I have been infatuated with the song “Tokyo Storm Warning” (Track 3 on the Elvis Costello and the Attractions album Blood and Chocolate). For the longest time, we thought one of the lines was “Japanese got Jesus robots tellin’ teenage fortunes, for all we know and all we care they might as well be Martians”—which we agreed was really a cool line. Later, we were disappointed to learn that the line is actually “Japanese God-Jesus robots…” which seemed decidedly less cool and a little nonsensical.

Until now… (Click here for a short explanation or here a cheesy video.)
You gotta love Japan.

This video and short article on Gizmodo provides a great overview of the work of roboticist Hirose and his team at Tokyo Tech. His designs are elegant and ingenuous, and his robots accomplish tasks in ways that push the envelope of the imagination. Plus, Isaac Asimov himself would get a boner watching Hirose’s watersnake robot swim around…

See Jon Stewart interview P. W. Singer, author of Wired for War.

Designer Matt Kirkland has exposed the skeletal structures of several popular toys. See what’s hiding beneath the fluff here.

Tasks that seem to like second nature to us are often extraordinarily difficult to replicate in robotics. Honda has been working for decades to make it’s Asimo capable of walking upstairs, and even with rigorous programming in a controlled environment the results have sometimes been disappointing.

Other non-humanoid attempts have had more success with locomotion over varied surfaces. One famous example is Rodney Brooks’s Genghis, which uses augmented finite state machines (AFSMs), simple programs that react to simple states in conjunction to accomplish complex tasks like walking.

Early in 2008, Boston Dynamics released the now famous video of its robot walker, Big Dog. Given the difficulties of making a machine walk on any surface with the acuity of a mammal, their work is quite impressive.

Keep in mind that it takes a human being months of diligent effort and experimentation to get this “simple” task down pat, and some people never really get it right. For my money, though, this effort by Seedwell is one of the best – and definitely the funniest.

The inventor of the word “robotics,” Isaac Asimov wrote hundreds of stories, books, and essays that have had an enormous influence on robotics and artificial intelligence, both in fiction and in real life. Numerous sources cite the original “Three Laws,” which were first explicitly stated in Asimov’s 1949 short story “Runaround.”

Fewer readers, perhaps, are familiar with Asimov’s Zeroth Law, which he added later. This law – “A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm” – is the implicit basis of the film version of I, Robot.

Next to no one, however, is aware that the great master of science fiction and futurist thought wrote a total of 30 Laws.