Virtual Robots Fooled By Visual Illusions

Roland Piquepaille alerts us to research out of University College London in which virtual robots, trained to "see" as we do, were duped by optical illusions the same way humans are. Here's one of the illusions the software system fell for.

That's not an optical illusion

[nurb432]

That is just a difference in lighting.

Hoax!

[ynososiduts]

They could just be programmed to look as if they were falling for it! I smell conspiracy!

We are one step closer...

[Digitus1337]

to being able to upset them with goatse. Maybe that is what starts the robot uprising...

Welcome?

[CriminalNerd]

I'm not sure about you guys, but at the moment, I'm kind of doubtful in welcoming our new robotic overlords. I mean, I thought they were supposed to be superior to us and not be fool by petty illusions...

Make them explode

[Bender Unit 22]

show them a Escher staircase.

The colors in the illusion look the same...

[Junta]

But then again, being color blind makes a lot of things look the same that shouldn't be...

I wonder if...

[Zymergy]

they are also susceptible to the illusion of "beer goggles"? ...Next thing you know, your personal robot's software has it waking up in bed with your new Dyson vacuum and a strange Toaster! [There must be a Bender joke in here somewhere] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender_(Futurama) [wikipedia.org]

Re:Nixon?

[Dachannien]

Arrrooooo!

Re:Author of illusions fooled too :)

[Anonymous Coward]

then you will notice slightly a bullshit. :)

A new engrish catchphrase is born!

Re:Hoax!

[johnkzin]

Or, maybe, they're faking it. So that we don't know how advanced they're getting, and wont see it coming when the robot revolution comes.

So, let me go on the record now, saying: I welcome our soon-to-be-evolving robot overlords!

Re: Ban Roland

[shellbeach]

The general explanation, as I have seen it given many many times previously, is that, rather than write a /. story which links to some science/tech article, roland will paraphrase the article in his blog, and link the /. story to his paraphrase. This is a means of gaining ad revenue for himself and his employers (ZDnet, I think?), but it doesn't give any ad revenue to those who actually did and wrote up the research.

Is this true? I don't know. I never RTFA.

The links are to the original story. The "Roland Piquepaille" link goes to his blog, but it's unlikely anyone will be clicking on that one unless they're interested in the guy ... in which case, good for him.

Incidentally, if there are any ads generating revenue on that blog, I'm not seeing them thanks to adblock. I doubt /. is the best place to try to get ad revenue, somehow ...

Re:That's not an optical illusion

[icepick72]

Ya my brain had failed interpretation too ... and ... *sniff* *sniff* ... does anybody else smell burnt toast?

Hmm. What about this one?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how they'd respond to this (http://www.planetperplex.com/img/fake_illusion.jpg) optical illusion.