… or maybe not!

It is the old Dalek problem – but worse. What we really need to do is redesign the world so it is more suitable for our robotic overlords. Or, maybe it is already happening … [Full-Paranoid Mode Engaged] … Wifi spots everywhere, access ramps, under-tarmac charging loops, barcodes on everything, CCTV cameras on all corners! [Disengage]

I worked in both AI and robotics and I have to say we are a long way off from robot AIs that can take over the world. Take over the internet maybe, but not the world. Even if we had an AI that was more intelligent (whatever that means) than a human – it is not a “singularity” as some researchers claim. Its just a better computer that still can’t get up some stairs.

You’ll have to excuse my rant.

The other morning on BBC1 Breakfast they trundled out iCub from the project I worked on 7 years ago. Except it was just an upper torso with the worst interaction program running that you can imagine. I mean it did some speech recognition and response (Siri anyone?) and a basic face following algorithm that we knocked out in an afternoon when the very first iCub head came back.

Worse still there was a long-haired hippy in the background controlling the whole thing Wizard-of-Oz style.

So Rubbish. So embarrassing. I can’t even say.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 17th, 2015 at 12:01 am and is filed under RoboGeek Episodes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.