Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!munnari.oz.au!bruce.cs.monash.edu.au!monu6!awfuchs
From: awfuchs@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (A.W. Fuchs)
Subject: Re: MIT Insect Robots
Message-ID: <1992Jun20.015635.29593@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
Organization: Monash University, Melb., Australia.
References: <1992Jun16.065514.2629@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1992Jun18.175623.15359@seer.gentoo.com>
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 1992 01:56:35 GMT
Lines: 59

In <1992Jun18.175623.15359@seer.gentoo.com> tomk@seer.gentoo.com (Tom Kunich) writes:

[ stuff about electric cars deleted ]

>>Actually, robots in my understanding never have been required
>>to be truly intelligent in the strong-AI sense, just capable.

>This is a fair assessment. And I agree with you. What has been
>fairly well established on this net, though, is that robots
>are being discussed as the widely self-modifying devices that
>Asimov described. And they are using automobile assembly robots
>as examples. I am trying to point out that this isn't a
>good comparison nor is the science very transferable. 

I'm not sure what "truly intelligent in the strong-AI sense"
means, but about self-modifying or self-evolving devices...

I agree it seems pretty far-fetched at the moment, but human-
assisted machine evolution doesn't.

[ stuff deleted ]

>>Development in this country is limited because we're myopic
>>fools. The Japanese have plans for 150 years down the line.
>>Of course it will take time. Time will justify my optimism.

>Hasn't the Japanese failure in the developement of the
>fifth generation computer taught anyone anything?

The possible lessons are many. One may be that it is often
necessary to make large research investments to eliminate
certain avenues of investigation, allowing people to turn 
their focus elsewhere.

[ he suggests that some people's ... ]

>work that is so far out in the probability index that it is
>more in the realm of fantasy.

Remember the original Star Trek series ? Remember the "Tricorder"?
Looks like an Apple Newton (or whatever it's called) with some
sensing gear on board. Remember the little slabs they'd stick
in the console to bring up colour images and vast amounts of
data? Looks like the 20 mb "floppies" available today with a
bit of JPEG compression, maybe.

Beware of making statements like "man will never fly", "man
will never fly under his own power", "the sound barrier will
never be broken" and so on. In 1975 a Powerbook 170 with wire-
less LAN etc. etc. was really science fiction. Cellular phones?
Need I go on? 

Andy

Andrew W. Fuchs
Faculty of Computing & Information Technology
Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

--- awfuchs@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au ---
