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Robots |
The
technological world is becoming more and more complex, but the idea of
robotics started a very long time ago. In the 18th century,
Henri Maillardet, a Swiss mechanician made a robot called an automaton.
Automata were made to entertain people at parties and were considered
great works of art. Today we have all sorts of robotic gadgets and we even
have made robotic toys for children.
Automatons
were very refined pieces of art. These were not only pieces of art, but
they could actually do the things that they were designed to do. One
automaton was called “The Artist”. It could use a brush to paint a
picture. Another automaton could dance. These automatons were like those
in the beginning of The Nutcracker Suite because in order for them to
work, one had to turn a giant knob in the back of the automaton. One
automaton that is still in existence was called the
“Draughtsman-Writer” and it can write two poems in French and one in
English. It can also draw intricate pictures. One of these pictures
portrayed a ship on stormy seas while another is a complicated picture of
a Chinese structure. The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia restored the
automaton, which had been a total wreck when they received it and they
found that after the four pictures and three poems, the automaton would
always sign its work with “Written by the Automaton of Maillardet” in
perfect French. Henri Maillardet made clocks and other mechanisms as well
as two automatons. Automatons required a lot of patience and knowledge in
mechanics to build. Perhaps that is why automatons made to entertain were
not produced for a long period of time.
The
“memory” of the “Draughtsman-Writer” was contained in the cams,
which are brass disks. Like a self-playing piano, metal picks interpret
irregular bumps on the cams into motions that control the moving hand of
the automaton. Automatons were wondrous machines. They were put in stories
including The Nutcracker and TikTok of OZ. In The Nutcracker, the
automatons were tall slender dancers like giant dolls and in TikTok of Oz,
TikTok was a short, squat clockwork automaton. He talks and thinks almost
exactly like a human.
Now
we have many new automatons. There are Poo-Chi, Meow-Chi and a variety of
many different kinds of animats (animal robot). The companies of some of
these animats even say that their products can be taught tricks. These are
just basic forms of the artificial intelligence that scientists have
developed. Just constructing a robot is difficult. Robots have sensors
that allow them to move around without bumping things. Humans can cope
with unfamiliar environments without all of their senses, just by using a
cane or guide dog. The most sophisticated of robots use stereovision but
then scientists have to work out a solution to the problem of computer
vision first. In order to make primitive navigation choices, most robots
use rudimentary sensors and have to process the minimal information
received from those sensors. To imagine what it’s like to be a robot
with such limited abilities, picture oneself in a big clunky suit that
separates you from the rest of the world. All that one has to navigate
with is a beeping sound that beeps faster if you are getting close to
bumping into something.
There
are two kinds of robots, classic robots and behavior-based robots. Classic
robots depend upon exact imitations to make decisions while behavior-based
robots depend on simple programs. Classic robots are good for performing
fixed, repetitious tasks and that is why they make such good candidates
for working in factories using conveyor belts. Behavior-based robots are
strongly advanced by developments in sensors, motors and computer vision,
so they are used for other kinds of jobs. Behavior-based robots are also
being formed into humanoid shapes.
Humanoid
robots are good for a couple of reasons. If robots have humanoid shapes,
then they will be able to “think” more like humans and humans will be
able to interact better with a robot that looked like one of us than with
a strange-looking robot. Speaking of humanoid robots, there are now those
that are able to make facial expressions. One of these is Kismet. This
robot uses gaze direction, body posture, facial expressions and
articulated babbles to communicate with a human caregiver.
Kismet can respond to whatever its human caregiver tells it and
actually learn from this connection.
The world of artificial life (alive) is evolving at a fast pace and as it matures, new forms of alive will blossom, with us as its witnesses.