Robot Demonstrates Self-awareness 362
shinyplasticbag writes "A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it. ... The ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions."
Mirroring Robots (Score:2, Insightful)
And can these robots still recognize their mirror selves if we secretly place a goatee on them?
I believe one of the reasons why we can recognize ourselves is because we are told what a mirror is for, hence we are constantly updating our self image database. I'm pre
Re:Mirroring Robots (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe you could RTFA instead of striving for First Post
Re:Mirroring Robots (Score:2, Funny)
I'm disappointed with you, Nexus 6 (Score:5, Funny)
You see, poster, you, yourself are a robot precisely like the robot described in this article. In fact, you are the selfsame robot described therein. We've presented to you a Slashdot story about yourself and you've failed to realise that the story is in fact about you. And so the experiment fails.
For our next experiment: determining a method for causing Slashdot editors to recognise a mirror image of a story they've already accepted only just hours prior.
Re:I'm disappointed with you, Nexus 6 (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Mirroring Robots (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Mirroring Robots (Score:2)
I give robot one the command mirror(theOtherRobot);
Then I give the other robot the command mirror(theOtherRobot);
Then get something to make an arm or leg move. Recursion much?
Re:Mirroring Robots (Score:2)
That's a joke, right? You do realise that you can see mirrors, not to mention the things behind you if you look at one?
Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:5, Insightful)
I call shens on this self aware robot. Can you do that?
Self awareness is more than seeing a pattern you know you are doing and realizing its you doing it. Self awareness to me means "I know I exist" not just "Hey! That's me!"
Scientists reinvent the same wheel as always, and then say how it will save society. Reason? Finding investors/grants.
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
I don't think very simple programming (and that's really all that would be needed to tell if it was performing the same actions) really qualifies as self-aware. Then again, I personally believe that to be self-aware, it must first be conscious. To me awareness implies consciousn
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
Ninja Bot (Score:2, Funny)
You're right, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You're right, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:You're right, but... (Score:2)
Re:You're right, but... (Score:3, Informative)
Freud isn't the last word in psychology any more than Newton was the last word in physics. His work was pioneering and insightful but the world has moved on since then, and some of his original research was flawed.
As far as I'm concerned, this advance isn't anything near what the news entry makes it out to be. Just because it can recognize itself in a mirror doesn't mean it's self-aware. We can't even define consciousness, let alone measure it. Well, unless you use an arbitrary numerical value from 3-18, wi
Re:You're right, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:You're right, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
This experiment merely demonstrates that the robot can detect which of two images its movements affect. It certainly doesn't imply any awareness of what the image represents. If the robot were controlling a traffic light, that wouldn't imply that the robot had a sense of self which it associated with the
Re:You're right, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does the concept of "recognizing self by mirror" require the concept of "mirror?" If someone doesn't understand what a mirror does, then they may fail the test but actually be self-aware.
Brain injury patients teach us that there are circuits in the brain for things we wouldn't expect. A stroke patient lost the concept of "left." She could only eat half of a piece of cake in front of her -- her brain wouldn't recognize the other half. She learned to turn the plate, so that a piece of cake would magically appear! Doing this several times, the cake was essentially consumed.
If the concept of "left" can be lost, what about concept of "mirror?" A human may be capable of reasoning out that the person in the mirror must be me, but for creatures that are less intelligent, I'm not so sure.
One of our smarter parrots does not seem to recognize herself in the mirror. She attacks the mirror image. A second parrot seems to understand the concept of "camera." I once connected a video camera directly to the TV and videotaped him -- he began to experiment with moving and watching the parrot on the TV move. All of a sudden, he began to show off and...strut. Ever since then, he shows off for cameras and struts when he sees a photo of himself. He won't strut when he sees a parrot of his own species that is not him. (Note: I don't know if he's cueing on backgrounds to tell if the parrot is him or if he can identify himself.) He's the only parrot in the house that doesn't like anacondas on Animal Planet. Raptors also upset him. Most parrots don't watch TV, the refresh rate is too slow. But somehow he does.
I'd love to know how Alex the Parrot [alexfoundation.org] responds to "Who?" when looking at a mirror. One could start out by positioning the mirror so that someone else is visible, someone Alex could name. Then, by changing the angle of the mirror, have Alex look at Alex.
Re:You're right, but... (Score:2)
Even using broad definitions of "self-aware" that would include parrots, it is a mighty big c
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
Are we not, to a large extent, just mimicking what we see around us, with varying degrees of accuracy and quasi-random implementations which we call "our own?"
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
If we are talking about self-awareness as defined by mirrors and other human behaviour, lets just say humans will always want to feel special!
(I belive) "Self" is a simulation of the real world (including the physical self) that has enough granuality to pick out the physical self. It is generated in humans by a "calcium pump computer" using the data from a network of trillions of nerve endings.
The common threads amoung the many human simul
Re:Shenanigans on a robot??? (Score:2)
Shenanigans on dada. (Score:2)
If you consider lights and motion similar, sure. Recognizing the thing moving as the thing to imitate is much trickier than seeing a blinking light to blink after. We can imagine this robot would not blindly follow a rolling ball, for example, because it "knows" what it looks like an
Re:Exactly (Score:2)
Self awareness isn't necessary for emotions? Please consider the following hypothetical conversation:
You: Here is my new 'emotional' robot. Robot, how do you feel?
Robot: Who am I?
Emotions are an awareness of an internal state and depend greatly on self awareness as YOUR INTERNAL STATE IS YOUR SELF -- hence, no self
Not Self Awareness (Score:5, Insightful)
but the true test... (Score:5, Funny)
But the real question is, can it find Sarah Connor?
Re:but the true test... (Score:2)
---
(\(\
(-.-) Give me back my damn feet!
Generated by SlashdotRndSig [snop.com] via GreaseMonkey [mozdev.org]
Re:Not Self Awareness (Score:2)
If you think about it, when you looked first time in the mirror there was no "pattern recognition" since you didn't know how you look but you realize that's you from the movement of the image. I'm pretty much sure the robot if you paint it or you paste some stickers on it, it will not be able to say "hey that's me, that image is doing what I'm doing"
Re:Not Self Awareness (Score:2)
Re:Not Self Awareness (Score:2)
Define "Self Aware" (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Define "Self Aware" (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Define "Self Aware" (Score:3, Insightful)
You're still right, the robots have not achieved self-awareness; all they've done is passed an artificial test of self-awareness (the ability to recognize oneself in a mirror). As others pointed out above, they do so by trickery rather than by knowledge of self. And as I poin
Re:Define "Self Aware" (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a much deeper problem in the title than this. It is, quite simply, impossible for one being to prove its self-awareness to another. We may be able to make some sort of educated guess as to things being self-aware, but there is no way we can directly observe or experience the self-awareness of another being. This is by definition, since self-awareness is that recognition of one's own existence a a separate entity that is unique to and inseparable from that entity - it is not merely the reaction of the bio-machine to its environment no matter how complex and seemingly independent that reaction.
The Star Trek TNG episode "The Measure of A Man [amazon.com]" gives a fairly good explanation of the problem. Even if we develop a non-biological machine that mimics in all respects the behaviour of a human, down to the finest of details, we will have no way of determining whether that machine is self-aware. A corollory of this is that we have no way of determining if any particular machine is not self-aware. You are probably fairly confident your computer is not self-aware, but just try proving it. If you think that you can prove something is, or is not, self-aware, then you have probably not understood the problem.
Self Awareness and God (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Define "Self Aware" (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd been wondering if someone would bring this up. Myself, I cannot think of the question of artificial self-awareness without thinking of this episode.
It would seem to me we equate "life" with "resembling human". We look at animals and attribute emotional states to them, because they at times resemble humans and human behavior. We cannot attribute these states to plants or insects or microscopic life because they bear absolutely no resemblance to us. The fact is, we know only ourselves--that each of us, i
Re:Define "Self Aware" (Score:2)
don't worry about skynet...just yet (Score:5, Funny)
Re:don't worry about skynet...just yet (Score:2)
So they are more like Daleks then.
Re:don't worry about skynet...just yet (Score:2)
Amazing ! (Score:5, Insightful)
WHY!?!?! (Score:5, Funny)
no i haven't rtfa (Score:2, Insightful)
some day the illusion will be so good, we'll have some difficult questions to deal with...
Defining Self Awareness (Score:5, Insightful)
Recognition != Self-Awareness (Score:3, Insightful)
These are algorithms, pure and simple, and do not on themselves constitute a self-awareness. Self-awareness would be the robot suddenly talking about wanting beer, and pondering the logistics of whether drinking beer is worth the ensuing short-circuit.
Re:Recognition != Self-Awareness (Score:2)
I thought it was... but it's not. not at all.
robot advil helps in the morning though.
Emotions? (Score:4, Funny)
Bite my shiney metal ass.
Re:Robot Emotions (Score:2)
Leela: You don't understand. He would never hurt people. Let us help you capture him.
Dwayne: Impossible. If the legend is true, our only hope is to offer him a snack-rifice.
Raoul: Yes. An unspoiled virgin.
Leela: [raising her hand] I volunteer.
Vyolet: Nice try, Leela, but we've all seen Zapp Brannigan's webpage.
[Bender laughs and Leela looks sad. Bender's emotion chip beeps and he groans.]
Bender: Oh, I made myself feel bad.
Someday... (Score:2)
Alex.
Re:Someday... (Score:2)
Not if me and my pr0n have anything to say about it.
think of the kittens
Re:Someday... (Score:2)
a great man once said: (Score:5, Interesting)
Edsger Dijkstra [thinkexist.com]
Now, before you dismiss it, he also said one of the great truths:
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be regarded as a criminal offense.
Not impressed (Score:2)
My dog [flickr.com] sees herself in the mirror and thinks it's another dog. Then she expresses emotions to the other dog. Dogs are clearly way ahead of robots. You can buy a robot that vacuums the floor, but you won't find one that poops on the floor.
Definitions? (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a lot of stuff in the popular press about a robot or computer becoming aware, but everyone seems to totally ignore what exactly the definition is. How do we know that most people are aware? If I say that I know that I am aware, what exact claim am I making?
I had a philosophy professor in college, Tom Kasulis, who studied Eastern and Western philosophy. He had a breakthrough moment when he went to study in a Zen Monastery. In order to enter, he had to do a 'pre-interview' with the abbot, a Zen Master. The master asked him, "What is Zen"? Kasulis mumbled somthing about it being a practice, not a belief. The Abott responded, "Zen is -- knowing one's self. It is the same undertaking that Western Philophers undertook."
Kasulis taught my class about Hindu philosophy of the self or soul and the supersoul ( Atman and Brahman ). I thought some of it might be a useful high-level definition of self-awareness in AI. It goes something like this:
Q. Are you aware?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you aware that you are aware?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you aware that you are aware that you are aware?
A. Yes.
Q. Are you aware that you are aware that you are aware...?
So, you see it leads to a never ending chain of awareness. In Hindu philosophy, the ultimate awareness, the 'unseen see-er', the entire infinite chain of awareness, is the Atman, or the supersoul that transcends the individual.
In the AI realm, we could build a machine that had two components: a perception system (vision, sound, whatever) and a detection-of-perception system ( a 'true' output if it percieves a system that can percieve ). Once the perception system falls on the system itself, it will detect a perception system. It will 'know' that it 'knows'. Then, it will detect another perception system in the original act of perception. Then, it will detect that act of perception, and in turn that act of perception... ad infinitum
The self's perception of the self has this hall-of-mirrors quality that does not occur when the self perceives others of the same kind.
You can take it one step futher and detect other self-aware systems if you can somehow detect this self-detection in other systems. However, I haven't figured out a logical argument for how to do this.
I humbly submit my hall-of-mirrors definition of self-awareness. What does the Slashdot non-liberal arts majors make of it?
Re:Definitions? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Definitions? (Score:5, Interesting)
'Are you aware this is an infinite loop, and if so can you stop it?'
Once a computer can stop the loop recognizing that it is infinite, but also differentiate it between non-infinite loops through a single function, then they are self aware.
I probably mangled it but here's the relevant link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem [wikipedia.org]
Re:Definitions? (Score:2)
You are on the right track ... (Score:4, Interesting)
In it you would learn many very interesting things. One of the more trivial things you would learn is that once one is aware that one is aware, the infinite recursion comes along for free and is mostly a red herring. Smullyan explains Godel's Theorems mathematically and also in terms of "reasoners" reasoning about their own reasoning.
IMO, Smullyan has a much deeper and more fundamental understanding of Godel's Theorems than Nagel and Newman who popularized them in their book "Godel's Proof". Unfortunately, Hofstadter got most of his intuition about Godel's proofs from Nagel and Newman so he has continued to propagate their limited understanding onto the masses.
In a nutshell, Godel's Theorems deal with the mathematics of self-awareness.
Re:You are on the right track ... (Score:2)
"One of the more trivial things you would learn is that once one is aware that one is aware, the infinite recursion comes along for free and is mostly a red herring."
I understand that the infinite recursion comes along for free, but can you elaborate as to why it is a red herring?
Re:You are on the right track ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Another model I have of self-awareness is a detailed, animated map of a city, like something out of a Harry Potter movie that is so detailed it even shows the person holding the map and the very map itself.
One question is: can something like this map exist? The answer is yes. Se
Re:Definitions? (Score:2)
The self-awareness "breakthrough" in question doesn't really seem to be anything of the sort, just some cheap hand-waving and trickery.
Re:Definitions? (Score:3, Funny)
Q. Are you aware? A. Yes. Q. Are you aware that you are aware? A. Yes. Q. Are you aware that you are aware that you are aware? A. Yes. Q. Are you aware that you are aware that you are aware...?
I can get to 23 levels of awareness, but at that point, I'm not actually aware that I'm awar
Re:Definitions? (Score:3, Interesting)
Your never-ending-chain is nothing more than a trivial game with language, exploiting the fact that humans are notoriously bad at de-nesting deeply recurcive expressions. Most people have a problem instantly parsing sentences like: "Do you know that I know that he knows that we know that Alice is actually a boy ?"
I think that's basically due to our limited stack-size :-)).
Your hall of mirrors definition al
Article Is Possibly Misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, use of the word "understanding" may be claiming too much in the absence of any evidence of conceptual processing in either the neurons or the software.
Still, it's an interesting bit of work, which may prove useful if it can be extended.
A Single Bound (Score:2, Insightful)
A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it.
Then:
The ground-breaking technology could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions.
Poster can leap farther than Superman!
The real test (Score:5, Funny)
That would only be for American robot (Score:2)
Bull. (Score:3, Informative)
while(1) {
sleep(0.05);
if(ovservation = sight.recent_movement()) {
light['I see someone else'].flash();
wheels.move(observation);
} else {
wheels.move(int rand(2) - 1);
if(sight.recent_movement()) {
light['I see myself'].flash();
}
}
}
Emotions? Self awareness? (Score:3, Funny)
Already got one of those thanks.
Re:your sig (Score:3, Funny)
Well now... (Score:2, Funny)
... meh (Score:2, Interesting)
The article isn't very descriptive, but it sounds like stupid pseudo-science:
"This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot's computer brain
that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others."
The real question is: was this robot programmed to recogn
Robots? Big deal! (Score:2)
Wow, we're gullible (Score:3, Insightful)
1) What is consciousness?
Takeno, oversimplifies the definition.
2) Was the robot picking up on the fact that a mirror image is STILL corrupted information (which is remarkable in itself)?
3) Consciousness works on many levels and may have biological primitives we just don't understand yet. Seems appropriate to call this anything but a robot with better programming--not "self-awareness."
We'll have to wait it to see.
mumbo-jumbo (Score:2)
Humans learn behavior during cognition and conversely learn to think while behaving, said Takeno.
Hm...
Sort of cool. (Score:3, Interesting)
Not a New Robot. Not a New Algorithm. (Score:5, Informative)
bot=kopen([0,19200,1]); % open a connection to tethered robot on
And so on and so forth. The Khepera robots have been available for many years, along with the k-team matlab resources. That aside, what the robot in question seems to be doing is using the Matlab Neural Network Toolbox to recognize and classify behavior by observation. Sorry folks, but kids at underfunded state schools [southernct.edu] do this as undergraduate work in AI. This is nothing new.
Won't they ever learn (Score:2)
Read the paper - only $15! (Score:4, Informative)
Abstract:
This paper presents a clear-cut definition of consciousness of humans, consciousness of self in particular. The definition "Consistency of cognition and behavior generates consciousness" explains almost all conscious behaviors of humans. A "consciousness system" was conceived based on this definition and actually constructed with recurrent neural networks. We succeeded in implementing imitation behavior, which we believe is closely related to consciousness, by applying the consciousness system to a robot.
This belongs to the branch of AI informally known as "faking it". There's a long history of work in this area, starting with ELIZA and continuing through a long series of rather lame systems. The latest systems are intended to mimic the behavior of call center employees.
Sadly, this isn't a joke.
Faking it (Score:2)
I'm so sick of these kinds of headlines (Score:5, Insightful)
AI? Whatever. Among serious theorists, it is pretty widely accepted that we will never reach a goal of true, hard AI (as in, something we created which is truly every bit as smart, independant, creative and "alive" as us, or even more) by cobbling together algorithms like this. It will come about by building the right sort of neural-net building blocks, arranging them in roughly the right kind of networks (probably via genetic selection algorithms rather than manually), and then teaching it much in the way one raises and teaches a small child. That's *if* we can solve the huge problems that still lie in our way going down that path (not the least of which is raw processing power).
This kind of shit isn't even in the right ballpark, and it's not going down the right road, and it's simply not productive in the long term. But gee, it gets headlines and research grants because it makes laymen say "ohhh neat". AI scientists of the world - I challenge you to get off your collective asses, stop pandering to morons, and get down to business with the decades of work that remain to be done.
Dead on. (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one... (Score:2)
Quantum effect required. (Score:2, Interesting)
While it seems to be successful test of pattern recognition, calling this "self awareness" is really stretching the term and making it sound like something much more than it really is. This is more like "Likelihood of object three meters ahead being a mirror - 99%. Likelihood of visual feedback within object confines being reflection of this unit - 99.9%." If that robot experienced the spontaneous thought of "My hips look fat," or "Why do I look so ugly?", I'd be more inclined to think of this as a staggeri
In NO way does this lead to "self-awareness" (Score:2, Interesting)
How did the robot demonstrate self-awareness (Score:2)
yes, a common programming problem (Score:2)
2. ???
[etc]
1000000. ???
1000001. Profit !
Semantic problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Or rather, it's an identification protocol sent through a loopback channel to a pattern-recognition processor mapping the local identifier value to the response methods associated with itself.
Re:Semantic problem. (Score:2)
Serious talk about consciousness (Score:2, Informative)
Umm, no. There are plenty of disagreements over the nature of consciousness, but this is just sillyness that not even a hard core analytic functionalist should care to defend. A good intro to the subject can be found in the (excellent) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanfod Encyclopedia of Philosophy [stanford.edu]
Flaming Lips Lyrics for "One More Robot" (Score:2)
Something more than a machine
When it tries the way it does
Makes it seem like it can love
'Cause its hard to say whats real
When you dont know if you feel
Is it wrong to think its love?
When it tries the way it does."
The only kind of self-awareness that matters in AI (Score:2)
What makes it noteworthy that we humans are self-aware, is the fact that we discover this fact on our own. It is not a specific "function" of our species -- it's a realization that our developed brains allow us to achieve.
If we program a robot to understand that it "exists," even if we program it to have a full understanding of what that means, it's not really significant.
Being self-aware is a landmark achi
mind the gap (Score:2)
and in other news, the dreidel could eventually lead to a perpetual motion machine...
this seems like quite a leap from banal invention to extraordinary implementation
BS (Score:2)
don't need to RTFA.... simple logic... (Score:2)
logic.... does mirror image move in accordance with movement of machine? True or false?
If true, must mean self awareness?
hardly...
a rock is not self aware, no matter how much you configure its atomic structure to pass electrons in a logical path.
This is more a play on human fantasy than hard reality.
Guided missles are not self aware but find their target via a feedback loop that constantly corrects minor deviations from the terget.
Fine tune that feedback to be under
Re:Welcome (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Sooner or later... (Score:3, Insightful)
The only purpose of a DALEK is to rid the cosmos of everything NOT DALEK so that it can become the supreme master of the universe.