AI Factory Boss Will Tell Workers and Robots How To Work Together (fastcompany.com) 54
tedlistens writes from a report via Fast Company: Robots are consistent, indefatigable workers, but they don't improvise well. Changes on the assembly line require painstaking reprogramming by humans, making it hard to switch up what a factory produces. Now researchers at German industrial giant Siemens say they have a solution: a factory that uses AI to orchestrate the factory of the future, by both programming factory robots and handing out assignments to the humans working alongside them. The program, called a "reasoner," figures out the steps required to make a product, such as a chair; then it divides the assignments among machines based their capabilities, like how far a robotic arm can reach or how much weight it can lift. The team has proved the technology can work on a small scale with a test system that uses just a few robots to make five types of furniture (like stools and tables), with four kinds of leg configurations, six color options, and three types of floor-protector pads, for a total of 360 possible products.
Siemens's originally gave its automated factory project the badass Teutonic moniker "UberManufacturing." They weren't thinking of the German word connoting "superior," however, but rather of the on-demand car service. Part of their vision is that automated factories can generate bids for specialty, limited-run manufacturing projects and compete for customers in an online marketplace. "You could say, 'I want to build this stool,' and whoever has machines that can do that can hand in a quote, and that was our analogy to Uber," says Florian Michahelles, who heads the research group.
Siemens's originally gave its automated factory project the badass Teutonic moniker "UberManufacturing." They weren't thinking of the German word connoting "superior," however, but rather of the on-demand car service. Part of their vision is that automated factories can generate bids for specialty, limited-run manufacturing projects and compete for customers in an online marketplace. "You could say, 'I want to build this stool,' and whoever has machines that can do that can hand in a quote, and that was our analogy to Uber," says Florian Michahelles, who heads the research group.
and it comes down to this (Score:2)
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I was just thinking about the part where a robot directs other robots that work next to humans. What could possibly go wrong?!
Metal robots and meat robots fall in love and create a metal meat robot.
.
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Metal fever or robosexual?
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They start building skynet
in Germany the mandated to cover a standard set of (Score:2)
in Germany they are mandated to cover a standard set of benefits, which includes most procedures and medications There are also limits on out-of-pocket expenses
The value of a project manager. (Score:5, Interesting)
"The program, called a "reasoner," figures out the steps required to make a product..."
Can't believe it took us this long to determine a project manager could be replaced by AI rather easily...
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The thing here is that the "Teutonic Marker" would have been "ÜberManufacturing" or "UeberManufacturing", which looks and sounds quite different to a German native speaker than "UberManufacturing". They would never have used the former.
No it won't (Score:2, Insightful)
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Consider NLTK, AIML, and Blender3d for Robotics applications. Are your solutions 3 Laws Safe?
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Re:No it won't (Score:5, Insightful)
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Actually, there are non-intelligent planning algorithms. Take away the BS reporting, and you see a pretty nice one of these at work here.
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I've been calling this method a "process compiler", by analogy to software compilers. You have a high level process in manufacturing, and want to convert it to individual steps for machines or people to execute, taking into account what their capabilities are, and schedule availability. The need for this comes up with flexible manufacturing, where you are not making a long series of identical items. To make it work, you need metadata on the CAD parts files, that identify materials and heat-treating and s
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I think this is a pretty good analogy.
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Anything with "AI" in it is bullshit. There is no AI, and likely never will be. All we have are parlor tricks and algorithms.
This comment is as insightful as sacrificing virgins to help with the next harvest. We know with nearly 100% certainty we will have AI at some point. We already know human-level intelligence is possible, so it is only a matter of time until it can be recreated artificially. The only thing stopping AI is the extinction of our species before we figure it out.
Obligatory from circa 2000 (Score:1)
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Also, for a similar concept, see http://www.f3.to/omega/
Having an AI boss == bad idea. (Score:2)
If the human isn't in full command, bad things tend to happen.
I see where this is going (Score:2)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Manna (Score:3)
So if the human workers have nothing to do... (Score:2)
will the AI let them dance in order to earn money on youtube?
Manna strikes again (Score:1)
Yeah, wait'll they form an AI union! (Score:2)
We'll see how the AI factory boss performs siting across the table from the AI union.