Robotic Ecologies

Roland Piquepaille writes "The University of Virginia (UVA) School of Architecture has started a new program about 'robotic ecologies' which wants to answer the question: Will robots take over architecture? As said the program leader, 'This research is not just about architectural machines that move. It is about groups of architectural machines that move with intelligence.' Apparently, buildings tracking our movements and adapting their shape or texture according human presence are not far fetched. Maybe one day, we'll talk to our homes and they'll answer."

Flaws

[biocute (936687)]

What if you could talk to a building and it could talk back?
Then what about the wife we already have?

What if a building could adapt its shape, texture, light, sounds, and heat to your presence?
Only if it can also read our moods. How would it know if I am in the mood to read a book (good light source) or to watch TV (dimmer)?

And most importantly the question every slashdotter wants to know -- What if we want to have sex on the kitchen bench, instead of cooking? Would the building turn down the lights and maybe warm the bench a little?

I'm not expecting a machine to figure things out themselves, but its ability to learn on circumstances is important to serve us appropriately.

I guess it's human's unpredictability that makes robots imperfect.

Re:Flaws

[IgLou (732042)]

You're fine so long as you're not having sex on the counter. In which case the most likely thing would be a floating point error that causes speakers to blare out "Warning! Warning! Unauthorized biological organisms on the cooking surface! Sterilize! Sterilize!" That's when you regret your gas stove that it quickly adapts into a flame thrower.

This post has just saved a life... I know it.

the unblinking eye

[Scrameustache (459504)]

What if a building could adapt its shape, texture, light, sounds, and heat to your presence?
Only if it can also read our moods. How would it know if I am in the mood to read a book (good light source) or to watch TV (dimmer)?

Good choice, Dave, the on-line reviews are very positive.
When you're done, would you like to play a game of chess?

Will bots replace Roland?

[Harmonious Botch (921977)]

1)Make a bot that scans tech-related sites.
2)Upon seeing new content, bot posts it to slashdot.
3)Bribe the editors regularly.
4)Put ads on your site.
5)Link everything to your site.
6)Profit!!

My big fat house

[drgonzo59 (747139)]

So not only will we be fatter, our houses will get nice an fat too the more clutter we stuff into them.

Or perhaps my house will see me opening the refrigerator one too many times and will decide to lock me out of the kitchen.

Didn't shower for 2 days? -- Sprinklers 'on'. There is nothing like living inside a robot that does whatever it wants.

Wait until these houses start talking to each other and decide that we humans are the enemy.

[oblig. cliche] I for one welcome our new intelligent infrastructur

Re:

[Macgrrl (762836)]

So not only will we be fatter, our houses will get nice an fat too the more clutter we stuff into them./i>

This is happening already with the McMansions. The house I live in with just my husband is bigger than the house where I grew up as a child which was a household of four. And we have a fairly small 'new house' conpared with the new estates springing up around us.

What people don't seem to understand is that the bigger the houses, the more resources they consume to build and maintain over their lif

Re:My big fat house

[drgonzo59 (747139)]

I think that bigger houses = more isolation among its inhabitants. Back in the day when people would built a bigger house it was quite often to accommodate extended family (parents, in-laws, brothers, cousins, aunts etc...). Today I see 2 or 3 member families that have houses with 4+ bedrooms. They can go all day without seeing each other and would probably have to IM each other when the dinner is ready.

I grew up in a small two room apartment (that's just two rooms, they are both bedrooms and living rooms and study rooms and offices) in the Soviet Union and sometimes I had my cousins stay over as well. Looking back I would consider my childhood one of the happiest times in my life. We'd all gather in our small kitchen, family members (aunts, uncles and even neighbors!) would drop by unexpectedly for dinner and it was great -- I never though "gosh I need another 4 rooms to live comfortably".

There is a level of intimacy and closeness that is lost as families move into huge mansions and never see each other for days.

Re:My big fat house

[vux984 (928602)]

The reason for this, at least around here, is the disproportionate rise in property value.

At one point, the 'mega home' was dramatically more expensive than a more modest building. In a world where the plot of land is worth 10k, a 100k building costs nearly half as much as a 200k building that's twice the size.

Today, those plots of land aren't 10k, they're 400k. After you put a 100k building on it its 500k. Or for 600k you can get build a house twice the size. As a result it just doesn't make sense to build a small house on such expensive property.

Metropolitan Living Homes

[Corvus9 (300802)]

There was an Alternate Reality Game created for the A.I movie that involved "living homes" going insane, murdering, and being murdered. This game was arguably more creative and involved than the movie.

The ARG site is gone, but there are still some notes on the living homes at the Cloudmakers [cloudmakers.org] site.

homes as a species

[anarchy_man3 (768249)]

I was discussing with one of my friends about how we don't use houses, houses use us to build them and spread across the world. Houses as a species have evolved to adapt to all parts of the earth and even into space. Dude, like whooaaah...

Re:

[IgLou (732042)]

Ok, you're scaring me. Well would houses have a natural predator?? Man, I don't want to get eatin' by my house getting eatin'!

Re:

[Scrameustache (459504)]

would houses have a natural predator?? Man, I don't want to get eatin' by my house getting eatin'!

They do, the highway bypass [bbc.co.uk].

Re:

[robably (1044462)]

The same goes for socks. Ooooh... Fear your socks...

Or how about this: God was just man's way of bringing himself in to existence, and man is simply the robot's way of bringing themselves in to existence... and just as we got rid of God, the robots will get rid of us...

Dude. Fear the robots. And socks.

Re:homes as a species

[crabpeople (720852)]

"I was discussing with one of my friends about how we don't use houses, houses use us"

Are you perhaps in Soviet Russia?

Contextual instructions

[tttonyyy (726776)]

When I utter the instruction, "Squash!" to my building, I sincerely hope it delivers a diluted, fruit-flavoured drink rather than attempt to compress me into a small cube...

Re:

[PequalsNP (1108219)]

Don't worry, we have beta testers to work out that sort of thing. By the time it makes it to market, the obvious ways of killing you will be gone, only the sly self-aware HAL style of killing you will remain.

oblig

[Digitus1337 (671442)]

I for one welcome you to my new house overlords.

No good

[iamdrscience (541136)]

I think this is a bad idea. Robots should always be smaller than people because that way it's easier to fight back when they go crazy and try to kill you. If C-3PO whigs out it's no problem, just hit him with a baseball bat, but when you've got robots as big as buildings, you're just asking for trouble.

YOU live in it!

[Lazerf4rt (969888)]

What if a building were equipped with sensors to track your movement through a space and could adapt its shape, texture, light, sounds, and heat to your presence?

So, we're talking about a thousand-ton slab of moving floors and sliding walls, changing its heat and lighting... with you inside it? Constantly transforming and shapeshifting, all running off some intern's Java program?

All I can picture is that garbage-compactor scene from Star Wars.

Open Source

[ushering05401 (1086795)]

If the extent of control descibed in TFA becomes reality the control systems better be OSS or I am gonna hafta take up hacking bigtime.

It's bad enough that my house's alarm system has built in maintenance overrides that I am not supposed to know about. Now magnify the potential impact in the TFA's future world by oh.. a couple orders of magnitude.

Regards.

Not even close to the tagline, with good reason

[Stone Rhino (532581)]

What possible benefit could you get from this sort of reconfiguration that would justify the enormous expense of automation? This isn't going to influence your average stick-frame house, it's going to be a curiosity and maybe a minor influence here and there. All the applications they've described are pretty specialized, and it doesn't indicate that your whole house will be restructuring itself anytime soon.

The reliable Stanislaw Lem

[toby (759)]

Prefigured responsive buildings in his wonderful Return from the Stars. [abebooks.com] Highly recommended.

Re:

[Craptastic Weasel (770572)]

"Maybe one day, we'll talk to our homes and they'll answer."

Basement! I need a status report! Set sunlight shields to block! And where the heck is the virgin I ordered in the holo deck?

Re:

[Opportunist (166417)]

Oh, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be illegal to interefere with the growing process, the "house genes" will certainly belong to someone who'll dictate to you what you may do to your house and what you must not.

Re:

[Icarus1919 (802533)]

Rule #1: No sex in the champagne room.