Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!decwrl!netcomsv!seer!tomk
From: tomk@seer.gentoo.com (Tom Kunich)
Subject: Re: MIT Insect Robots
Message-ID: <1992Jun15.175208.12376@seer.gentoo.com>
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 1992 17:52:08 GMT
References: <1992Jun12.091444.21213@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu>
Organization: Brad Lanam,  Walnut Creek, CA
Lines: 58

In article <1992Jun12.091444.21213@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> btaplin@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (Brad Taplin) writes:
>
>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...

All I can say is that you are incredably naive. Forgive me if that sounds
rough, but the only way electric cars are going to make it is because
expectations are going to be reduced, not because electric cars are
going to be improved.

Motors haven't improved significantly. Car construction from 60
years ago could use aluminum almost as efficiently as today. The
Miata that you mention is one of the most deadly cars in a crash on
the roads today, so it's safety is something that is very questionable.

I agree that electric cars are in the future and that battery technology
will improve. But not alot, instead power to weight ratios will improve
_if_ (and only if) the sodium-sulfur batteries and the lithium
primary cells can be developed to be economical. This is still questionablen
and we have yet to address the question of the toxicity and disposal
problems of millions of such batteries since it is now plain that they
won't last very long.
>
>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.

This is the modern way of doing things: if you cannot meet the 
expectations of a definition, simply change the definition and 
then proclaim that you have succeeded.

Would you call an automobile a robot? Robotics implies an
intelligence and I haven't seen much machine intelligence yet.

>There are three obstacles to making robots in whatever shape we
>choose for them: power, utility, and intelligence. Batteries will

There is the most important problem: in a world of cheap human
labor, what is the economical justification for using robots?
Can you not see that the development costs haven't been forthcoming
because it hasn't been economically feasible? The technical
problems are insignificant compared to this
.
