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 > Robots...thousands of years ago > The Turing Test > Natural and Artificial Intelligences
dimarts, 8 d'abril de 2003
Last week the Japanese city of Yokohama hosted the Robodex exhibition, the foremost venue for robotics held in the Asian country. This year’s event, which was held last Thursday through Sunday, presented the latest developments in 'humanoids', robots that are created to interact and assist in domestic tasks.
Up until now, robots have been used primarily in industry and business, and with outstanding results. However, the desire to make the leap into private homes has long been an ambition in the robotics field. The first steps toward this goal were made by Sony in 1999, with the launch of Aibo, the doggie, a 'robot companion' made of metal and electrical circuits. One benefit over the average pet is that it doesn't have to be taken out daily, and what's more, it can walk and respond to its masters' commands. The Sony innovation was followed two years later by the Japanese Omrom Corporation, which created a kitten that made the same sounds and movements as felines do when petted, and that reacted when their names were called. As can be clearly seen by the Robodex 2003 novelties, these trends have consolidated over the last two years. Sony introduced the 'humanoid' SDR-4X II, which thanks to its speech processor that recognizes up to 20,000 words, can carry on a conversation. Toshiba countered with a personal robot prototype called ApriAlpha, an invention halfway between a ball and R2D2 from Star Wars. ApriAlpha recognizes up to 100 faces, has a voice synthesizer and is able to send images and videos via email using wireless connections. Mitsubishi also joined the product launches. The Wakamaru is a humanoid that measures one meter in height and is specifically designed to facilitate life for elderly or disabled people who require care around the clock. Like Sony’s SDR-4X II, it is capable of carrying on a simple conversation.
 
Robots...thousands of years ago)
+ Aristotle was the first to speak of the enormous advantages to be gained if there were thinking entities.
For all that robots are an invention of the 20th century, the idea of creating machines to relieve the everyday tasks of human beings goes back centuries, even millennia. In fact, the oldest example can be found in Greek mythology, and concretely in the figure of Hephaestus, son of Zeus and Hera, and patron of metallurgy. As explained in the Iliad, this deity commissioned gold statues to assist in the manufacture of Zeus' lightning bolts, as well as all the weapons used by the gods and goddesses of the Greek world. It was also a Greek, the great philosopher, Aristotle, a figure of flesh and blood, who was the first to speak of the enormous advantages to be gained if there were thinking entities that could save men work. Aristotle, an extremely practical man, believed that if that were possible, servants and slaves –a common part of Greek life– would be unnecessary. To wrap up, we should mention that the obsession for futuristic machines even reached our own lands: the great Majorcan writer, philosopher, mystic and missionary Ramon Llull (1233-1315) wanted to create a mechanism that could reason and wouldn’t be prone to the same errors as humans. Thus it should come as no surprise that the Majorcan sage has been declared the patron of computer engineers.
The Turing Test
+ Alan Turing, one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century.
The Englishman, Alan Turing (1912-1954) was one of the great mathematicians of the 20th century and is considered the father of artificial intelligence. Gifted with an extraordinary intelligence, Turing studied at the prestigious Cambridge University (1931-1935), and later crossed the Atlantic to the United States where he completed his academic studies at Princeton University (1936-1939), where he met eminent scientists like Albert Einstein and John von Neuman. Upon his return to Great Britain, he worked for the Government, helping to decipher German codes during the Second World War. And he also took part in the MADAM program, the computer with the largest memory built up until then. Most of all, the Turing name is most associated for the test that bears his name and which, in fact, he designed in order to demonstrate the intelligence of computers. The Turing test consisted of placing a person in a room, and at the same time, another person and a computer were placed in adjoining rooms. The first person had to make a whole series of questions and guess whether the answers he received were from a computer or a person. Turing believed that a computer would be able to deceive the interrogator come, say, the year 2000.
Natural and Artificial Intelligences)
+ Chess player Garry Kasparov tied with the powerful computer Deep Junior.
Artificial intelligence is often talked about: about the possibility that computers are capable of a thought structure that resembles that of human beings. Certainly, in recent years, scientific research has advanced much in this respect. Much has been made of the examples of sophisticated computers with immense databases that allow them to process a multitude of variables and arrive at conclusions that are none too easy for the human mind. Everything considered, many questions remain to be solved. One of these concerns the topic of awareness. There are those skeptics who doubt that computers obtain the same degree of intelligence as humans since they lack awareness, that is, since they are not alive. It is well known that certain forms of intelligence go beyond the ability for abstraction. Nowadays, emotional intelligence is much discussed, something which could be defined as the ability to manage relations with other people. Could computers of the future acquire this and other additional abilities? The answer is… in a few years.
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> De robots, n'hi ha de tota mena i manera. Comprova-ho clicant aquí.
> Vols saber com és el darrer humanoide que ha presentat l'empresa Sony a la fira Robodex? Doncs fulleja aquesta pàgina.
> El test de Turing, fet amb la intenció de demostrar la intel·ligència dels ordinadors, va ésser mot qüestionat quan va aparèixer a la revista Mind, el 1950. Però això no va impedir que Alan Turing el defensés d’una manera prou enginyosa, tal com podràs comprovar, si cliques aquí.
> Vols saber per què el beat Ramon Llull (1233-1315) és el patró dels informàtics. Te'n podràs fer una idea llegint aquest article.
I també...
- Els experts han determinat que hi ha tipus d'intel·ligència diferents. Saps quins? Assabenta-te'n clicant aquest portal. Quina et sembla que és la més important? Per què?
- Saps qui va ésser l'inventor del primer ordinador? I l'any que el va construir? Cerca'n les respostes en aquesta adreça electrònica.
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