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Week 4 [06.11-12.11] - Science of intelligent machines

Learning machines that work together like a group of ants or fish? Is it just a dream? Continuous technology development allows AI to be used in various sectors. The use of intelligent machines allows us to automate production and create new solutions and technologies. Therefore, the involvement of robots in the construction of housing or other types of cooperation can be applied in many projects. How can this affect the development of humanity?

I encourage you to watch the TED and tell us what you think. How it will change our perception of the world and where it can be applied.



Questions:

How would you use such programmed robots?
Do you think this is an interesting idea for the development of robotics?


Sources:


Comments

Filip Sawicki said…
This certainly will be the next step in A.I. revolution. Science of intelligent machines is not as popular as statistical machine learning or deep learning right now. I can imagine great technologies that could appear as the research of this subject is going to expand. Apart from construction another field that could greatly benefit from it is healthcare. Just think about nanoscale robots which could fix our own bodies from the inside and destroy cancerous cells even before discovering them by conventional techniques.
Alicja said…
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Alicja said…
Artificial Swarm Intelligence is a very interesting area of AI. It is not a new concept, it has been around since the late 80s, but it has many useful applications. We can see it even more today with the advancement in hardware technologies.

I'm actually currently developing a platform for massive parallelized processing of textual information based on swarm intelligence ideas. The advantages of such architecture are no single point of failure (auto-recovery) and it scalability.

Swarm robotics, except of obvious military uses, seems to bring promising results in the search and rescue operations. Especially in the areas that are dangerous and hard to access for humans. So many rescue workers die while trying to save lives: in the mountains, during the earthquakes, fires or at war. I believe using swarm robotics in such disaster recovery missions would significantly decrease the numbers of fatalities.
Unknown said…
The capabilities of this kind of robot "beings" are truly unlimited. Of course you can use such devices in different fields such as production, medicine, car manufacturing etc.
Nowadays the world os developing itself really fast and in very interesting directions. Of course, robotics is one of them. I think that we need to develop as far as we can and in any direction we can, and then, maybe, we will develop the better world than we have today
Jakub Lisicki said…
Understanding how collectives work and applying these rules in creation of the new AI-based systems is just another approach of trying to make AI better.
Since every single entity in the swarm can be a little different, than another, we could use them for example to make pretty sophisticated decision-making systems, which would be somehow similar to what we encounter in our lives - voting.
I think that every single idea in robotics, which introduces something new is worth researching, and this one is particularly interesting.
Unknown said…
interested to see where this AI stuff goes. Seems like the machines are currently only "good" in a certain domain. Maybe there will be a self-driving car or robot who's also good in playing chess and can learn how to play soccer on its own.
Yevhen Shymko said…
For me the most obvious solution is military. Other then that its hard for me to pinpoint where they may give the most value.
Actually I implemented propagation knowledge protocol and I have to admit it was hard.
I believe something like self driving cars in the future will use something like this to coordinate. And eventually we wont need traffic lights.
Unknown said…
I like the concept of robots working together on something, but the problem is that it's still a concept. Radhika Nagpal in her speech talks about house building and cargo transportation, but I only see a group of robots that can line up in a "K" letter in 11 hours. The only company that really impresses with its robots is Boston Dynamics.
But until I hear something like "maybe one day we could"(and this phrase occurred a lot in this talk), it's still a concept.
Vladlen Kyselov said…
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Vladlen Kyselov said…
Using such programmed robots can be extremely useful in all spheres of human activity. I think development of robotics is one of the most interesting topics nowadays. And combining of several robots actions can be even greater achivement in robotics development. Using robots instead of humans in some kind of work where people have to handle with high weights will be pretty nice i guess. Also, I guess, well programmed robots are able to finish more succesfull medical surgeries.
Unknown said…
Definitely for military purposes. But only as a support, not like an independent units. Machines themselves can be fooled easily, so every military machine should be controlled.
Another search and rescue application I saw was one used by firefighters. A huge problem in house fire rescue operations is the lack of visibility, as the house is often filled with smoke. The firefighters would use a group of simple robots programmed to find wall corners to quickly create a layout of the floor, to give the men entering the house some sense of direction.

As for the second question, I agree that it's highly likely we're gonna see it become one of the main branches of machine learning in the future. So much of our knowledge comes from observing the future, that the value of cooperation pattern isn't one we could possibly pass on.
The thing is, code or "rules", will never be perfect. The best example would be the concept of coding a robot to keep a house clean. If the owner is the reason the house keeps becoming dirty, the A.I. will subtract the owner from the home (how ever it feels fit) to be able to keep the home clean. The coding would have to be so complex that it would confuse the a.i.. The "rules" would never be perfect, but it would work good enough for many cases i guess.
The idea of nanorobots that would help in the treatment of various diseases is certainly a brilliant idea. I am sure that once it is introduced, and people will be able to live much longer.
Of course this is a concept. Like many others that were once invented (personal computer for example). These days they are used on a daily basis, and have changed many areas of our lives.
Unknown said…
That's a very interesting TED Talk. The future of robotics plus the concept of collective mind is something that can bring us many good if directed and used for problem solving, building instead of destroying or saving our natural enviroment. It reminds me of Rick n Morty episode with hivemind called Unity (anyone? ;)), would recommend it. It can create great good or great danger. But that depends on us, humans.
Vyvyan said…
Concept of collective mind is not a good idea. I mean, of course the power of that machines will be astronomical, but we have to be aware that such AI will be learning without any control. It can be good but it can be dangerous.

Such collective minds was shown in Rick & Morty and Mass Effect Series. First one was mentioned by Piotr Prystupa so I will be focused on Mass Effect Series and race called the Geth.

The Geth was a race of machines which had one purpose - serving people. Sounds simple, huh? Every machine has his own mind but together they was united mind. They was learning and one day the geth asked his master "This that unit have a soul?". People get scared and wanted to exterminate the Geth. With no luck.

My point is, that if we will not be sure about the direction of learning progress of machines that it will be better to not develop such units on big scale.
Unknown said…
I think robots are coming to our homes already. On our eyes. For example robotic lawn mowers or robotic vacuum cleaner. Even the semi-driving cars. They all are of course far from perfect, but it shows the potential.
sasha | s14611 said…
It would be great to have my own robot or group of robots that will build my house... and after that another one... and after that another one :)
Tomasz Morawski said…
Collective AI is interesting concept but it's also quite dangerous. I believe the very first instruction programmed in AI of this kind should be "do not harm". Maybe it would stop them from becoming Skynet.
I believe the most useful way to use such robots is to use them as a brick :) Imagine the house you can freely move from one part of the country to another using only your own PC. You'd also be able to easily rearrange the rooms.
Patryk Pohnke said…
Personally I see an incoming change in job market. Robots will start to work on simple, physical jobs. Together with AI development they will acquire additional skills, which will allow them to do more complicated work. This will bring us, the humanity to the point when we can work on more complicating things without worrying about grass cutting and other jobs no one really likes :) Of couse there are some potential problems, like we have to be sure that machines won't hurt us in critical or unexpected conditions, but I think that so far they are not capable of doing such complicated stuff. So I'm looking forward to have my own robot in my house so it can do all the stuff that I hate to do, but I am forced to :)
Unknown said…
My first thought was to use such robots in various rescue missions. This kind of ai would not have trouble adapting to certain situations where humans or remote controlled machines would fail.

I wonder what the end game for artificial intelligence is. I doubt that anyone will succeed in making fully sapient ai in the next 100 years so maybe advanced collective "consciousness" would be something easier to achieve and possibly more useful.
Unknown said…
Some days ago I vas at the zoo and saw many fishes. They are incredible. They swim and do something together. But I've never thought about fishes or insects as a system that "thinks" and makes decisions. It's interesting. But I wonder where could we use such robots that interact with each other. The only one that comes to my mind is artificial intelligence, but it's something different.
In general AI progress is good for humanity, but we need to be aware of the consequences as eventually we'll lose control over it. It's bound to happen as we can't really assume that actually thinking machine that can improve itself will be bound to improving itself in a way we can understand, so sooner or later it'll simply stop being capable of being understood by humans.

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