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BotSpot® Bi-Weekly Newsletter May 9, 2001 Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto I blame shag carpeting for this problem. The "problem" is the incredible lack of presence of robots in our daily lives. It's the 21st Century, for goodness sake. Forget the flying cars--where are all the robots? As the ME of BotSpot, I often get messages that ask questions about robots, androids, and the like. I polite correct each one of the writers by telling them that bots refers to the software of artificial intelligence. Robots are hardware designed to emulate human activity, not necessarily human thought. A bit of an oversimplification, but it gets the job done. A recent interview reminded me that the differences between bots and robots are not as wide a gulf as one might think. Eventually, someone is going to build a functional and useful robot model. What do you think are going to be the brains of this device? The problem with robots, as I understand it, is that we are trying to build something that will function as a utilitarian device in an environment designed specifically for us: our homes and offices. That's a pretty tall order. While indoors may seem a more controlled environment to us (because that's the whole point), it is actually rather difficult for a machine to navigate. There's hard floors, carpeted floors, furniture, toys strewn about, running children, pets, and the most evil robot torture device of all: stairs. Even when you come up with a device that can physically navigate all of this, it has to be smart enough to figure out how to react to each obstacle appropriately. Ideally, such a robot will also need to manipulate things. Try engineering a machine that can perform this mundane function: "please fetch me a soda." Initially, I think, robotic devices are going to be more cerebral than physical. They are going to be more of the type of device that you speak to and get information, not a cold can of pop. "Please make reservations for two at the Chez McDonald's," might be the kind of request these robot helpers will perform. Natural language recognition is going to play a huge part in this technology. So will rapid decision-making. Both of these are a big part of bot work that's going on. Soon we will see a merger of bot technology into the thinking processes of robots. Once this kind of merger takes place, then I think we will see more specialized robots: machines that will perform specific tasks, like just mowing the yard or just painting the house. After some improvements in software-hardware integration, who knows? Maybe more general purpose robots will come into production. Futuristic nonsense? No, ultimately I think this day will come. But before that day, expect much more emphasis on bots and agents handling information tasks rather than physical ones. News Stories PriceGrabber
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