This could be a scene from an almost, but not quite, science fiction movie:
While robopuppy packs hunt down
toxins in a town’s brownfields, guard robots patrol the office
buildings and pelt intruders with paint, while out on the street people meet and dance with robots.

In other robotics news: A new discovery could improve the interface between the human brain
and robotic prosthetic limbs, and a year-old robotic butcher has acquired
new skills and (corporate denial notwithstanding) will probably take even more
jobs from New Zealand meat workers.

Will robots ever replace commercial airline pilots? According to
manufacturers of the military unmanned aerial vehicles operating so successfully
in Iraq and Afghanistan today, there’s no reason why not. “There is nothing
inherently different between (manned and unmanned) aircraft in terms of
aerodynamics. It is only a question of whether there is a will to do it or not,”
said one. While Airbus was adamant that it was “not imaginable to have a drone
airplane full of passengers” and that there would “always be two pilots on our
planes,” Boeing would “probably” make a pilotless passenger plane if it “makes
sense.”

Given the high cost of pilots, the growing ability of autopilots to make
decisions better and faster than pilots, and growing public comfort with
technology, we think it is only a matter of time before pilots join the flight
engineers in the ranks of the technology-displaced. Passengers are well aware
that most of a flight is already automated; perhaps they are also glad of the
reduction in opportunities for the pilot to make a mistake. They are certainly
glad of the reduced cost of tickets from the elimination of flight engineers.

If robots become as capable in the operating room as they have become in the
cockpit — and all the signs point in that direction — then economic and safety
factors must eventually rule in favor of the robots.

Reference: Associated Press (2004). “‘I’m HAL; I’ll
Be Your Pilot.'” Wired News, February 26.

The Human in Humanoid

Hertz is an animated “social robot” head sculpted to resemble as
realistically as possible its maker’s girlfriend. Its skin is made of a
high-tech polymer, and under the skin are miniature electronic motors that
enable to face to “smile, frown or wrinkle its forehead,” writes Matt Slagle.
Behind its eyes are video cameras able “to gaze at a human face and follow you
around, provided you don’t move too quickly or beyond its limited field of
vision.” It also has limited speech skills, and a brain in the form of an
attached laptop.

Its maker’s belief that “The human face is perhaps the most natural paradigm
for us to interact with” is not shared by most other social roboticists,
including the Sony makers of Qrio,
who think that we will be most comfortable with robots that do not
resemble humans so closely that a misplaced facial expression makes us
frightened or uncomfortable. A really lifelike humanoid would need enough
intelligence to be able to gauge and respond appropriately to the expressions of
the people they encounter, says author and inventor Ray Kurzweil, which won’t
happen until about 2029, he thinks.

“The one discernible trend,” writes Lori Valigra in the Christian Science
Monitor, “is that, in the future, machine assistants that interact with
humans will look more like us.” Tokyo University researchers, she notes, have
developed a robot flexible skin containing pressure-sensitive (and, in future,
temperature-sensitive) “organic transistors,” while Vanderbilt University
researchers are working “to integrate the robot’s body and mind.”

Carnegie Mellon University researchers have installed a social robot as a
receptionist. It is not, as they seem to think, the world’s first robot
receptionist — we reported on
one (in Japan, where else) a year ago. But a year is a long time in
robotics, and the CMU receptionist is more adventurous, albeit only a digitally
animated female face on a computer screen atop a cylinder. “She” interacts with
visitors by talking in “underdog character” tones about “her boss, her
psychiatrist and her dream of being a lounge star,” reports the AP’s Judy Lin.
“After a while on the job, she gets testy. But she can be charming too.”
Valerie, as she is called, detects motion and greets approaching
visitors. When not engaged with a visitor, she talks on the phone with her
“motherboard.” Visitors have to type (simple questions only) on a keyboard to
communicate with her, because the lobby is too noisy for voice recognition.
(Perhaps the researchers have not heard of available voice recognition systems
that overcome this problem.)

Peter Plantec, author of Virtual Humans:
Creating the Illusion of Personality believes that social robots will
excel as teachers — never tiring, able to adapt to the student’s abilities and
behaviors, providing access to all the information on the Internet, and
providing friendly companionship. A primitive software incarnation of Plantec’s
ideas has become “a popular pal to residents at a nursing home,” reports Gregory
Lamb also in the Christian Science Monitor. On the dark side, “Some
people develop an inordinate level of trust with these characters. No doubt
unethical people are going to get involved in this,” to run scams to get people
to part with their money or even unknowingly to reveal their personality
profile.

Some owners of Sony’s robot puppy Aibo grow emotionally attached to
them, ascribing them with feelings of their own. Sony and a US animal rights
group say this is nonsense and some researchers agree, but others are not so
sure. The fact of the matter is less interesting than the fact the matter is
being publicly debated.

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s World Robotics 2003
report predicts sales of personal service robots (mainly robot vacuums and
lawnmowers) to almost quadruple over the next few years, from 600,000 sold by
the end of 2002 to 2.1 million by 2006 — and that does not take into account
the potential for sales of humanoid service robots.

That we have reached this level of personal robot sales and a new level of
sophistication and serious scientific research about the human-humanoid
relationship shows how close we are to living in a new world brave beyond Aldous
Huxley’s imagination and rivaling even Shakespeare’s in The Tempest.

Perhaps it also shows that as the implications dawn on us, we are starting to
get nervous.

Reference: Slagle, Matt (2004). “Giving robots a human
face.” Associated Press/Miami Herald, February 1.

Reference: Valigra, Lori (2004). “Advances
could hasten era of household robots.” Christian Science Monitor (via
Seattle Times), February 23.

Reference: Lin, Judy (1004). “Robot
Receptionist Even Gets Testy on Job.” Associated Press/Mercury News,
February 18.

Reference: Lamb, Gregory M. (2004). “Robots
Get Friendly: As Robots Act More Like People, Will Our Attachments Become Too
Strong?” Christian Science Monitor (via ABC News), February 23.

Reference: MacDonald, G. Jeffrey (2004). “Robotic
Rover: If You Kick a Robotic Dog, Is it Wrong?” Christian Science Monitor
(via ABC News), February 23.

More on RoboScientist

Kimberly Patch of Technology Research News provides more detail about
the “robot
scientist” we reported on last month that can devise a theory, come up with
experiments to test the theory, carry out the experiments, and interpret the
results — all by itself. The results are as good as, delivered faster than, and
cost between three to 100 times less than results achieved by the best lab bench
chemists.

The system is a computer running artificial intelligence software, a
fluid-handling robot, and a plate reader. In an experiment to test gene
functions in baker’s yeast, the robot dispensed and mixed liquids, the plate
reader measured the growth of yeast, and the computer analyzed the results and
instructed the robot to repeat the experiment with different combinations to
test all the hypotheses it had itself generated.

“The next step,” reports Patch, “is to show that the system can discover the
function of genes that are currently unknown.”

Reference: Patch, Kimberly (2004). “Robot
automates science.” Technology Research News, January 28/February 4.

Robodog Packs Hunt Toxins

A pack of robotic dogs from Yale has found arsenic, lead, and other
pollutants in soil beneath a school and nearby homes. Other packs have been
deployed to hunt for toxins in a New York park, Chernobyl radioactive fallout at
sites in Belarus, Australian atomic testing sites, and radioactive waste sites
in Idaho.

The robots (Sony’s Aibo and other robot dogs sold as toys) were
programmed by Yale engineers to sniff out toxins and radioactivity in the
environment. The robots work in packs to cover a larger area, and each is
programmed to follow the robot with the strongest sensor readings. “The result,”
writes Stephen Singer for AP, “is the collection of data from a broad area with
time-specific samples and extensive mapping of the area being surveyed.”

Reference: Singer, Stephen (2004). “Robot
dogs get a conscience.” Associated Press/Australian IT, February 9.

RoboPatrol

Japanese robot maker Tmsuk appears to have upgraded its Banryu
domestic “guard dragon” robot into a commercial-grade guard called
Artemis. Artemis can patrol buildings for eight hours at a
stretch, ride the elevators, and shoot intruders with indelible paint balls or
envelop them in a smokescreen, while sending real-time video to humans at a
remote console who can then take over control of its actions. Artemis is
just over five feet (157cm) tall, weighs about 220 pounds (100kg), and moves
silently at over 4 mph (7km/h). Tmsuk intends to lease the robots for US$36,500
a year.

Reference: Osedo, Hiroshi (2004). “‘Roboguard’
armed and ready to patrol.” Townsville Bulletin, February 18.

Robots Take to the Streets

The Japanese are so far ahead with robots to take care of their aging
population that they are demonstrating and testing them in the streets of a
far-sighted city designated as a “special zone for robot research and
development” where researchers can test out their creations in public so long as
they obtain police permission.

In a recent test/demonstration in the town, researchers from Waseda and
Kyushu Universities, Hitachi, and Tmsuk let loose several types of robot
including one that serves as “a walking stick [to] help the elderly walk” and
one that waved to onlookers then picked up a handbag from a display outside a
store. Others took items out of shopping carts and watered plants.

Reference: Kyodo news service (2004). “Robots
show off their skills in Fukuoka shops.” Japan Times, February 22.

Dances with Robots

An expert swing dancer at MIT is investigating the complex haptic
communication involved in dancing and applying the lessons learned to enhance
human-robot coordination. Her work “could be of importance for sports training
or rehabilitation engineering,” according to a collaborator. Partner dancing is
a complex function of engineering, control, and the communication of aural,
visual, and haptic signals between the partners (such as a push on the hand).
She programmed the movements for a dance into an arm-like robotic device, whose
“hand” human test subjects then held and tried to follow its leads. She hopes
this will eventually lead to a truly interactive robot leader “who could signal
move changes in advance, who could recognize an error in the follower and
execute a different move to compensate for it.”

Reference: MIT (2004). “MIT Student
Dances With Robots.” Press release. published in Science Daily, February 6.

Rats’ Whiskers

Researchers using electrodes to excite individual brain cells in the motor
cortex of anesthetized rats were surprised to discover that it takes only one
cell — not a collection, as previously assumed — to make a rat’s whiskers
twitch. The discovery will likely enhance our understanding of the brain’s motor
cortex and that in turn could lead to brain control of robotic prosthetic limbs
for the disabled.

Reference: Associated Press (2004). “Rat
whiskers study may lead to future robotics.” CNN, February 18.

RoboButcher II

A New Zealand meat company is planning to add more robot workers after a
year’s experience with knife-wielding
robots that remove the pelvic bone from a carcass — one of the most
difficult cutting jobs for human workers. The new robot will divide a whole
carcass into prime cuts. A company executive said the project would “allow the
company to divert human labour from injury-prone parts of the production chain,”
writes Liam Dann in the New Zealand Herald, although “The robots are
unlikely to cost human jobs for now as the industry still faces constant labour
shortages.” The “for now” should send shivers up the spines of workers in the
meat freezers.

Reference: Dann, Liam (2004). “More
robots to wield knives at southern freezing works.” New Zealand Herald,
February 3.