01.17.07
The CPU *IS* a bug: ‘roach controlled robot
Who needs AI when you can just plug a cockroach into your robot?
Now, i’m not going into the ethics of this, and the youtube comments are a major mix of “that’s cool” to “that’s so wrong”… which is to expect. My favourite was along the lines of “why not just train monkeys to use machine guns”. Okay - why not? ;p
The youtube linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwZD59Ic9T8
The authors web page + notes etc http://www.conceptlab.com/roachbot/
Jonathan said,
January 17, 2007 at 6:32 pm
wow. I suppose this raises all the ethical questions about where science crosses the line into plain old cruelty. Things like this will continue to be developed, not all of which will be as humane, and even fewer will be witnessed by humanity, until one day someone draws the line.
Until that line is drawn, I await Robot Wars to jump on this bandwagon of potential profit.
Coolest. Show. Evar.
Lucien said,
January 18, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Ethics is such a hard thing to define. Who’s to say this was humane in the first place? Strap a bug to a golf ball and shine bright LED’s in it’s face. Okay, so it’s just a cocroach, but…
But if we put the ethics aside for while, surely this is a great way to go. Why spend years developing AI if we can go ahead and use forms of intelligence that have already proven themselves over hundereds of thousands of years?
Why bother with Ant Colony Optimisation if we can just use real ants?
Surely the cost/benefit ratio is hugely in favour of using an off the shelf brain instead of developing a new one?
And don’t we already have trained monkeys with guns? I’m sure I saw some on the news the other day in some place called Iraq ;)
Jonathan said,
January 18, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Ooh, now we’re getting political and we all know that’s not where we want to be. On the topic of military though, DARPA net is developing some rather.. interesting.. things. When I can find a link, it’s definitely blog worthy stuff.
They have a tendency to think differently to us. Where we might think “How can I stop this man from getting a bullet in the head?” They prefer to ponder “How can we make him keep going if he has a bullet in his head?”
Creepy stuff.
Also, Horseshoe crabs (one of the oldest, un-evolved (no, I don’t think that’s a word.) life forms on earth) have been used in various brain-probing experiments, even to the point where scientists have been able to capture what they see on a television screen.
They see in black and white.
Xavier said,
January 22, 2007 at 10:19 pm
“And don’t we already have trained monkeys with guns? I’m sure I saw some on the news the other day in some place called Iraq ;)”
+1, feel the buuuurn.
I’m going to put the ethical approval stamp on this. It will only get dicey when we start trying to use more developed (chimpanzee and up) brains, as long as treatment equatable to torture is avoided. Bugs don’t feel so you can’t torture them. Or was that fish? Where are my science notes…
Joshau Hayes said,
January 23, 2007 at 6:24 am
Hahaha, I’m just going to have to be different and laugh at that one and not take it too seriously. Jokes and ethics aside, it poses interesting questions like those posed by Lucien.