Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!btaplin@silver.ucs.indiana.edu
From: Brad Taplin <btaplin@silver.ucs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Re: MIT Insect Robots
Message-ID: <1992Jun12.091444.21213@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Summary: Points taken, but questioned.
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 1992 09:14:37 -0500
Lines: 66

tomk@seer.gentoo.com (Tom Kunich) writes:
>btaplin@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Brad Taplin) writes:
>>Mars terraforming come to mind...
>Mars would be better terraformed very simply by dropping massive
>amounts of various life-forms selected for survivability and capable
>of initiating the Gaia principles. This would require a minute
>percentage of the capital that the Time magazine version of terra-

I was not referring explicitly to the Time magazine version, which
I have not read. I do expect there will come a time in the distant
future (century or three), if indeed the terraforming of Mars does
occur, that various robots will prove very useful in the process of
making a areas liveable and scouting out the new landscape. I agree
that the requirements of the early stages of terraforming differ,
but since my statement was not limited to any given stage in the
process I fail to see why we should exclude any such robots from
the picture. Nevertheless, that was an example, not the point...

>Electric cars are no more economically attractive now than they've
>been for the last 50 years. The only increase in efficiency has been
>in slightly better controls. This hasn't increased the overall 
>efficiency of the electric car substatially. This technology 
>_as_well_as_all_robotics_ is limited by energy storage methods that
>simply cannot rival living bodies.

Better batteries are being inventied as we speak, and both solar and
fusion power are potential sources of energy far more attractive for
a variety of reasons than fossil fuels. Electric motors have improved
and car construction has advanced to the point that light weight need
not come in a tin can. The Miata is small, light, and durable. A car
built like that, with said batteries and motors, from a factory that
makes wise use of robotics, ergonomics, and just-in-time inventories
marks a step up from the toys of fifty years ago. The components may
be the same in principle, but the principles were never flawed, just
the components. Such cars will within decades be cheaper to buy and
run than gas-powered contemporaries, cleaner, quieter, and durable.
But THAT wasn't the point, either. Just another illustration...

>>The Japanese car companies maintain profitability partly by making
>>their production lines robot-controlled and able to handle fifty
>>different models, refitting on the fly. This primitive example of
>I consider these production lines _not_ robotic, but, rather, automated.
>They are not robot contolled either. They are computer controlled

Should not a robot contain a computer? I'd consider the computer
essential, both for involuntary motor control and for processing
the information necessary to determine what to do next. In these
factories, the fact that the appendages and the processor are in
different places hardly negates the factory's function as a robot.
It coordinates numerous tasks, and can change its functioning in
a limited way without physical alterations. The refitting is of
the parts coming down the line and the presses producing parts.

There are three obstacles to making robots in whatever shape we
choose for them: power, utility, and intelligence. Batteries will
get better as research time and money pours into making cars that
won't destroy our atmosphere. The utility will expand as engineers
dream up new robot designs, and the intelligence, if we choose to
call it that, will improve with cheaper, tighter, better computer
hardware and more functional, flexible software. All these things
will take time, but when these advances lead to mass production
the market will undoubtedly drive the prices down. The greatest
challenge will be the software. We're better engineers than gods.
-- 
btaplin@silver.ucs.indiana.edu or simply btaplin@ucs.indiana.edu will
appreciate your intelligent suggestions, anecdotes, comments & offers.
