| Wednesday's Child |
[Jan. 7th, 2009|08:25 am] |
Is home from school today, as we're about to have a snowstorm. The local TV station is predicting between six inches and a foot, and all the schools closed pre-emptively. They can blame it on the weather, yeah, but I think it has more than a little to do with the fact they have classrooms full of children just coming back from two weeks of vacation, and that's just an awful, awful thing.
Today's a nicely busy day: lots to do, and that's a good spot to be in. Let's see how much gets accomplished before the power goes out -- if it does. If there's ice in the snow, then alas, connectivity. It was nice while we knew ya.
I wanted to talk about robots, so let's start there.
For a very long time, I could not figure out a logical reason to have robots, and this bothered me. I mean, I was raised on science fiction. One of my fondest memories is leaning on the side of my Daddy's recliner, reading the most recent copy of Analog over his shoulder. A steady diet of Asimov and Bradbury should have pre-disposed me (at least on a functional level) to the concept of robots.
But it didn't. For close to thirty years now, I haven't been able to name one real-world application where my first reaction would be "Have the robot do it." We've an abundance of people around; they're cheap, plentiful, and in the right light, expendible -- from a strictly utilitarian point of view, it is far more cost effective and pragmatic to have people do a job than to design and build a robot to do it.
There's the objection that there are jobs like sweeping for anti-personnnel mines: it is far better to have a robot blown to smithereens than a person, the argument goes. This argument hinges on attaching a relatively high value to the life of the person getting blown up. Substitute high-value people with low-value people (and yes, I see the slippery slope here, this is part of the reason why I am not Queen of the Universe) and you mitigate the benefits of having to create and build robots to do the mine-sweeping. (Because frankly, let's build amazing technology so it can get blown up doesn't make much sense to me.)
Who would the low-value people be? I can hear the hackles going up; my own hackles sympathize. Perhaps mine-sweeping duties should be assigned solely to those convicted of a second violent crime, or a third: if you know that what you're doing isn't going to give you another 15-30 which will really buy you 8 inside, but instead a scenario which will more than likely result in your immediate and technicolor death, you're far more likely to behave yourself.
Anyway, digression, since I'm not actually Queen of the Universe, and it is highly unlikley that we as a society will ever adopt the approach I'm positing here. Plus I don't know how many landmines are actually encountered by our soldiers at the moment, especially compared with the number of convicts that fit my criteria or robots designed to do said mine-sweeping.
(One wonders, as an aside, why remote control cars wouldn't work just as well as a robot?)
Point being, my poor imagination had yet to conceive of a reason where a robot would be the best solution to a problem and there wasn't a human based work around.
But then I thought about kittens. (Not War Kittens, just regular, cute Kittens) Like most people, I rather like kittens. They're cute, they're insane, and they make you feel good to look at them. They're probably loaded with pheremones or mind control rays, so when they pee in your shoes, you say, "Oh, you cute little wubby wub darling, the cat box is over here, you poor darling, is it too big for you, let me build you some steps!" rather than going ballistic.
Yet there is a drawback to kittens, which is they grow up to be cats. I like cats conceptually, but am not so fond of them in reality. (This is also my thought process on most professional sports) I'm not a particularly great cat owner: my cats don't get luxury beds or coddling or what have you.
So having a kitten, which inevitably results in a cat, benefits neither of us. I wind up with a cat, which I don't actually want, and the cat winds up with me, which is hardly a great propositition for them, either.
It could be argued that I am the problem in the equation here, but that would require a level of self-examination I'm not willing to endure.
Not when there's an alternative.
What would the alternative be, you ask?
Robot kittens! If some robotics engineering type could design a robot kitten that looked like a kitten, acted like a kitten, and was kitten like in all aspects -- and never grew up into a cat -- now that would be some cool shit. I would buy a robot kitten. Robot kittens would bring more joy to the universe, which is always good. And more importantly, robot kittens would have an off switch. They'd never pee in your shoes. (Unless you paid more for the authentic pee in your shoe version, which would probably help prices in the ammonia commodity market immensely)
There you have it. The result of over three decades of thinking on this topic: robot kittens.
Tomorrow, world peace.
Later, a Hardscrabble Hope post. But for now, it's time for onward, upward, forward!
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| Comments: |
I have to disagree with your objection to using mine-sweeping robots, namely that they're "amazing technology". All you really need to sweep for mines is something with the equivalent tech of a $10 remote-control toy car. It rolls forward, doesn't get blown up, you can walk behind it. You'd probably need to build it low to the ground and weight it more than the average toy, but still, cheap and easy, not amazing and high-tech.
That's true, if you've got your troops on foot, or if you're sweeping for mines in an area where troops are going to be rather than in an area where they're deployed to harm civilians, or left behind from previous conflicts.
I think many of the robots currently being used in this application are far more sophisticated than the average remote control car: some are equipped to remove and disable mines, which is obviously more complex than getting blown up.
It's a value question, too: is the best use of a society's resources developing the technology to have a robot (or souped up remote control car) do this job or is there another solution to the problem? You could reduce prison overcrowding, virtually eliminate recidivism, provide a powerful deterrent to heinous crimes, save a fortune on housing, benefits for and care of a segment of our society hell bent on destroying it...
Which of course raises a gazillion ethical questions, and is a good indication of why I shouldn't be in charge of the universe.
Robot kittens, on the other hand, would just be cool.
Happy Birthday, Birthday girl!!! Hope you have an awesome day.
A little like Pournelle's "Smart Crowbar" technology?
As long as I am commenting here - I think there is a major philosophical weakness with the death penalty, and therefore certainly using humans as disposable trash.
I know.
There are a million problems inherent in the example. There are a million problems inherent in the death penalty.
Yet if I have to send someone out sweeping for mines -- or any other certain death mission -- why should it be the soldiers who have committed to saving our society rather than those who have repeatedly demonstrated only contempt for and a desire to destroy it?
We're treating people as trash either way. It's a question of which ones. And meanwhile, devoting tremendous resources to preserving those who deserve it the least.
That's assuming one agrees that soldiers can ever save a society through violence....and that they signed up out of idealism rather than desperate poverty, the draft or forced conscription.
It's arguing that there are at least two types of people; those who play by the rules, for whatever motivation, and those who don't.
I do not believe those types are equal, and I believe we celebrate the latter at the expense of the former.
You roll a tank over them. The armor on a tank is proof against a mine, and no one gets hurt.
You are too funny! (And also very strange.)
Aren't dishwashers and washing machines robots, in that they perform a task independently? And what about the robots in car assembly plants?
Or are you talking specifically about human-like robots, or those that move around from place to place?
I'd much rather have a robot doing the damn dishes, I have to say!
![[User Picture]](http://l-userpic.livejournal.com/61195369/7661600) | From: ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cbpotts
2009-01-07 03:17 pm (UTC)
Good Question! | (Link)
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I have to parse that out: I think there's a line between machines and robots, and I'm not sure what exactly that line is.
I was thinking more autonomous, multi-tasking devices, but that is not a good definition. Let me ponder and come back to you.
I suggest that you look at the iRobot homepage. It covers most of the types of robots that you have discussed so far, plus a few, and they are the folks who do all of the U.S. government bots. These are lot more that just remote controlled toys, some of them are capable of actually "smelling" for explosives. http://store.irobot.com/corp/index.jspI think that my favorite is the virtual visiting robot. Yes, you can now have a robot that will visit the in-laws for you! There is also the subculture of folks who dress up their Roombas (vacuuming robot) in various forms of drag, in order to simulate a pet.
thank you for this. I sorely needed a weirdly amusing and thought-provoking post today.
Using humans in jobs that destroy their health or could instantly end their lives is positively medieval. It's also very common. Asimov used his robot stories to demonstrate that he valued human life, and he wanted to persuade us to do the same. However, his characters loved their robots as trusted friends and wanted to protect their existences too.
Re the high-tech, high dollar value aspect: last year's robo-kitty will eventually become as inexpensive as an electronic calculator.
You are right. There are days where, sadly, I have not progressed much beyond the medieval mentality; I wish I were alone in this.
"classrooms full of children just coming back from two weeks of vacation, and that's just an awful, awful thing"
add to that the idea that there is snow coming down, and you have the molotov cocktail of school administration....
As for robots, two things:
while humanoid robots may not be necessary, the point is that robots can be programmed to do the same thing, over and over again, exactly the same way, and stop when they encounter something outside pre-programmed tolerances. And, in generally, they will do this every time, and keep doing it *the same way every time* barring hardware/software failure. They can often manage to do this sort of thing much *faster*, or in some cases much *slower* than meat people, and at vastly smaller or larger scales. Human beings are really not that good at doing complex or finicky tasks over and over exactly the same way.
As for robot kittens: they have actually developed a robot seal pup for use in nursing homes. Here the advantage is that you have something that can be programmed to behave interactively like a pet, but doesn't require attention when not in use (the automobile vs. horse paradigm: when you aren't using your car, you don't have to feed it) | |
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amused