Newsgroups: comp.robotics
Path: brunix!uunet!pipex!sunic!liuida!jalma
From: jalma@ida.liu.se (Jalal Maleki)
Subject: Re: "That's not robotics; that's toy building"
Message-ID: <1993Aug13.113359.9962@ida.liu.se>
Sender: news@ida.liu.se
Organization: CIS Dept, Univ of Linkoping, Sweden
References: <CBHzGn.DI6@cs.uiuc.edu> <247cg1$9e4@wampyr.cc.uow.edu.au> <GERRY.93Aug10100832@onion.cmu.edu>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 1993 11:33:59 GMT
Lines: 38

gerry@cmu.edu (Gerry Roston) writes:

> ... deleted stuff ...

>Defining what is meant by robotics is itself a challenge. My
>definition, which is certainly no better than any of the others goes
>something like this: A robot is a device that uses sensors to
>understand the world it is in and actuators to act on the world using
>the information it gathered from its sensors. The fact that this
>definition applies to many (most?) biological life forms, i.e.,
>animals, does not bother me at all.  (Read Hans Moravec's book... he
>blurs the line to an even greater extent.)  However, it has been
>pointed out that my definition also describes a toaster, which is
>certainly not (?) a robot.

Yes, defining a minimal robot is indeed a challenge. But perhaps more
of a challenge for a philosopher than an engineer. In my openion,
giving a proper definition of a minimal robot would require answers to
philosophical questions such as "self" or "ego" relative to the "world
outside", the concept of "action", and "deliberation". Otherwise, the
concept of a robot would be too general and general definitions are not
useful. As Herbert Simon pointed out in his talk at AAAI93, general
systems theory died because it was too general.

I think a proper (that is specific enough) definition of a robot should
exclude things like thermostats that sense and react and actually cause
changes in the world without knowing what the hell is going on and why
and when and for what purpose actions were performed. Let's leave these
questions for people who worry about the definition of intelligence and
conciousnous and just enjoy building robots that amaze us anyway.

> ... deleted stuff ...

>Gerry Roston (gerry@cmu.edu)

Jalal Maleki

(neither a philosopher nor a robot builder)
