The Role of Robots
Just after I blogged about robots, we got this piece hit the news: Robot Dogs Evolve Their Own Language, and my thought is -- what a waste of talents.
Well, I should not call it a "waste". If this is a waste, there are much more human activity are more wasteful than this and, ..., keep going, I will start to question the purpose of life again. People are intrigued by the idea of human like robots, and I can imagine the research attracts many focus and more importantly, necessary fundings, and possible economical incentives. It can be very joyful playing around these robot dogs, which is exactly the meaning of life. However, I can't help thinking that we, as our common interest, are pursuing a not so realistic objective -- Robots that as sophosticated as real human.
The truth is, we are so used to our amazing ability and take the amazing sophistication of our mind too much for granted. Just as we amazed on how "rain man" can posess such a "potential" of memorization and calculation, as we amazed at how a cheetah runs, how strong a spider is, and how a computer computes, ..., we forgot that we are much more sophisticated than any of these. How human mind works is largely a mystery, an amazing mystery. How is it possible to create this mystery in programs? Well, I should not say it definitely since I don't have proof. So it is my guess based on my personal perceptions.
My opinion is, a robot trying to immitating human's sophistication is useless, unless it is for playing purpose, such as a toy. Robot is a tool. If a war ever happens between human and robots, robots can't win. However, if a war happens between two human groups, and one with better robots, that group will be at great advantage. We excels over other lifes by our ability of using tools.
The best tool is not a tool with its own mind. A best tool is the one can do exactly what we intend it to do. A best robot is not a robot that can think for us. A best robot is a robot can interpret exactly what we tell it to do after we went through our thinking process. Leave the thinking to us, and leave the definite tasks to robots.
I have to admin a tool with its life-like simulation is interesting and useful, from an aspect of toys, that is.
PS: After I wrote this, I did a search in the blogsphere, many interesting opinions:
Well, I should not call it a "waste". If this is a waste, there are much more human activity are more wasteful than this and, ..., keep going, I will start to question the purpose of life again. People are intrigued by the idea of human like robots, and I can imagine the research attracts many focus and more importantly, necessary fundings, and possible economical incentives. It can be very joyful playing around these robot dogs, which is exactly the meaning of life. However, I can't help thinking that we, as our common interest, are pursuing a not so realistic objective -- Robots that as sophosticated as real human.
The truth is, we are so used to our amazing ability and take the amazing sophistication of our mind too much for granted. Just as we amazed on how "rain man" can posess such a "potential" of memorization and calculation, as we amazed at how a cheetah runs, how strong a spider is, and how a computer computes, ..., we forgot that we are much more sophisticated than any of these. How human mind works is largely a mystery, an amazing mystery. How is it possible to create this mystery in programs? Well, I should not say it definitely since I don't have proof. So it is my guess based on my personal perceptions.
My opinion is, a robot trying to immitating human's sophistication is useless, unless it is for playing purpose, such as a toy. Robot is a tool. If a war ever happens between human and robots, robots can't win. However, if a war happens between two human groups, and one with better robots, that group will be at great advantage. We excels over other lifes by our ability of using tools.
The best tool is not a tool with its own mind. A best tool is the one can do exactly what we intend it to do. A best robot is not a robot that can think for us. A best robot is a robot can interpret exactly what we tell it to do after we went through our thinking process. Leave the thinking to us, and leave the definite tasks to robots.
I have to admin a tool with its life-like simulation is interesting and useful, from an aspect of toys, that is.
PS: After I wrote this, I did a search in the blogsphere, many interesting opinions:
posted by Hui Zhou at 5:40 PM
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