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I am starting to get annoyed by the overloaded term "robot." This article is really about automated warehouses. That is interesting, but is sufficiently advance
by protonfish 9y ago
I am starting to get annoyed by the overloaded term "robot." This article is really about automated warehouses. That is interesting, but is sufficiently advanced automation truly robotics? If so, where does it cross that line? Many hobbyist "robotics" (think BattleBots) are just remote-controlled vehicles. Neither have autonomous behavior. It'd be nice to have terms for each but I can't think of what would be appropriate.
- sspiff 9y agoI hope this leads to the revival the use of the truly awesome word "automaton" for autonomous robots!
- protonfish 9y agoCool. I would have preferred "android" but Google's smartphones ruined that.
- canthonytucci 9y agoedit : sorry, this was what I was looking for, https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/ https://www.theincomparable.com/robot/
- kiba 9y agoMy definition of a 'robot' is a machine with motor functions and can make its own decision on how to act in reaction to its environment. For example, a phone isn't a robot, not unless you give it wheels and the ability to act.
- hugs 9y agoBy that definition, a clothes dryer with a humidity sensor is a robot. (And I'm fine with that!)
- eru 9y agoMy favourite robot is a dishwasher. Mostly because it is so different from what some people naively imagine when you asked them to think of a design for a robot to wash dishes.
- jabretti 9y agoAre these people being naive, or are they just designing a better dish-washing robot? The typical "dish washing robot" that people draw does a much better job of washing dishes. It doesn't require me to do all the hard work of scrubbing away all the tricky bits of stuck-on food before entrusting the robot with the work, nor the annoying work of unloading the dishwasher when it's done. I'll take my dish-washing robot over your boring old dishwasher any day of the week.
- 52-6F-62 9y agoI have to try that question on people sometime. Sounds like fun. Also, reminds me of this: Status: Alive http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Amana http://futurama.wikia.com/wiki/Amana
- frandroid 9y agoThe dishwasher is missing the thinking part... It only ever does the exact thing ordered to it.
- eru 9y agoBashing one's head against the wall in a day long debugging session for some hard bug usually cures people of the opinion that "computers only ever do what we tell them to do" is a serious limitation on their range of behaviours in practice.
- frandroid 9y agoThe combinations on my dishwasher can fit in a 12 line lookup table.
- icebraining 9y agoA phone isn't a robot Ahem: https://youtu.be/AKCpqqhe-S4?t=1m https://youtu.be/AKCpqqhe-S4?t=1m
- SurrealSoul 9y agoAny phone with a vibration motor would technically be a robot (vibrate when message received)
- mauimauimaui 9y agoI completely agree the word "robot" is entirely overused in inappropriate ways. However, I evaluated the Kiva system shortly before Amazon acquired the company and can say their system meets your definition and, IMHO, is as robotic as a Roomba.
- bigjimmyk3 9y agoSeconded -- while the decision-making ability is centralized (not in each individual robot) the system as a whole is still able to make its own decisions in many areas.
- the-dude 9y agoIn South Africa traffic lights are called robots.
- blacksmith_tb 9y agoMany traffic lights around the world use buried loops of wire as Hall effect sensors (for example, to register when a car is waiting to make a left turn). So that would pass the sense-think-act test, I'd say, even without considering Smart Traffic Lights[1]. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_traffic_light https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_traffic_light
- patja 9y agoI teach robotics to students age 11 - 14. We have settled on the definition that a robot must do three things: sense, think, act. First thing I do is take away all of the remote controls and tell them they have to program it. I wish that programs like VEX and FLL would do away with the "tele-operated" portions of their competitions. Kids may enjoy it, but too many of them fall into the trap of treating it all like a remote controlled toy and never get very deep into the programming aspect.
- jjjensen90 9y agoHow and where did you get this job? It sounds like my dream job
- SpeciesInvader 9y agoIn Chicago there's a robot store always looking for teachers to help students about that age range (maybe even younger). Can't remember details, but if your city has a robotics store, chances are they can help you get into teaching.
- eat_veggies 9y agoI don't remember FLL having a teleop mode. Back when I did it, it was fully autonomous, but things may have changed since then. However, FTC, supposedly the grown up version of FLL, had both teleop and autonomous, and with the way it was scored, all you really needed was a solid teleop to crush regional competitions, so we ended up doing way less programming than in middle school FLL. I believe VEX worked the same way, but I only did it one year, so my memory of it is fuzzy.
- greenleafjacob 9y agoIsn’t it FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition)? It’s kind of simplistic to say all you need is a good teleop period. In many competitions some teams that had worse teleop were picked because they could consistently score in autonomous, which is pretty good EV.
- 9y ago
- pizza234 9y agoThis question/doubt has very interesting consequences. An argument against the thesis that "robots" will lead to catastrophic loss of jobs, is that the concept of "robot" in a strict sense (intended as a sudden similarity to human intelligence/capacity) doesn't really exist, because "robots" are simply a form automation - and civilization has been incrementally developing automation for 250 years by now.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoSince robotics are almost a field of AI it seems like it has inherited the premise that once it has been completed or in production it ceases to be called robotics .