Accelerating Future

Dennis Bray: What Cells Can Do That Robots Can’t from Singularity Institute on Vimeo.

Here’s the abstract.

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I have a fairly simple idea for a new kind of wheel that I will describe to you now. It’s not really possible to build a very good one with today’s technology, but it seems as if it could be possible with more advanced fullerene-based robotics.

I got the idea for this wheel while reading about Usain Bolt and the possible limits of human speed. One of the obvious factors that determines speed is the total amount of force applied to the ground per time interval. Humans and other animals with legs can only contact the ground as many times as they have legs per running cycle, limiting the amount of force they can apply.

The classic workaround to this limitation is the wheel, which can apply constant force to the ground as long as its power source holds out. Of course, the wheel has its weaknesses. A wheel can’t operate efficiently over uneven ground, and can’t scale certain obstacles. The solution is to create a “wheel” that consists of a bundle of tentacles, or “whiskers” which can lock together, become rigid, and behave like a solid wheel while moving over flat ground, but can unlock and independently articulate when moving over rougher terrain.

This concept takes the strengths of the wheel and bipedal/quadrupedal/tentacle locomotion and merges them into a single system. The idea wouldn’t work too well with present-day robotics because 1) the fine coordination and control required between the whiskers to merge into a wheel or detach from one another and articulate smoothly over uneven terrain would be a huge challenge by current standards, 2) miniaturization and nanotechnology has not yet advanced to the point where a thin, strong tendril or whisker can quickly be changed from flexible to rigid in a fraction of a second (magnets are not good enough, it needs to be mechanical), 3) the idea works best when the power-to-weight ratio of engines can be improved beyond today’s current standards, and when engines can be made small enough to be installed into the whiskers themselves.

If all these requirements were met, however, you’d have quite a system. Locomotion based on tentacles alone would be very effective for scrambling over rough terrain, locomotion based on wheels alone would be good for the highway, but what if I need both? The whiskerwheel can adjust to be more wheel-like or more tentacle-like based on the demands of the moment. Nano-cilia and lubricants could be used to keep the interfaces between the whiskers clean so they slide past each other fluidly when necessary. The whisker format would also allow the wheel to increase the surface area of its contact with the ground beyond a typical wheel fitting in the same space, improving traction and increasing the total amount of force applied to the ground, increasing speed.

You could even build a robotic system that simply is a whiskerwheel, rather than using a whiskerwheel with a conventional axle-based mounting. A system like that would be a sort of robotic shoggoth.

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Science blogger Greg Fish applauded me for rebuking the “nerd rapture crowd”.

It’s worth pointing out that I am a radical transhumanist obsessed with getting an immortal robot body. There’s nothing wrong with that. I just want to have properly calibrated estimates of the likelihood of actually acquiring such a body and the work required by society to get there.

Notice how the moral valence part of my brain is sectioned off from the model-building part. I can want something really, really bad, and that doesn’t bias my estimated probability of it. (Or at least, I try to prevent it from doing so.) At the same time, I can really fear something, like geomagnetic storms, but that doesn’t lower my estimated probability of its occurrence. What a way to live! (Sarcasm.)

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“These are ideas with tremendous currency in Silicon Valley; these are guiding principles, not just amusements, for many of the most influential technologists.”

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Read the press release.

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“Post-Human Humanitarian Law: The Law of War in the Age of Robotic Warfare”

Indian Yearbook of International Law and Policy, Vol. 1, 2010

Abstract:

This Review Essay, to be published in the Indian Yearbook of International Law and Policy (2010) surveys the recent literature on the tensions between of autonomy and accountability in robotic warfare. Four books, taken together, suggest an original account of fundamental changes taking place in the field of IHL: P.W. Singer’s book Wired for War: the Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century (2009), William H. Boothby’s Weapons and the Law of Armed Conflict (2009), Armin Krishnan’s Killer Robots: Legality and Ethicality of Autonomous Weapons (2009), and Ronald Arkin’s Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots (2009). This Review Essay argues that from the point of view of IHL the concern is not the introduction of robots into the battlefield, but the gradual removal of humans. In this way the issue of weapon autonomy marks a paradigmatic shift from the so-called “humanization” of IHL to possible post-human concerns.

Thanks to Carl Shulman for the link.

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The “Chron”, as my grandfather likes to call it (SF Chronicle) has picked up the exciting robot story of the hour… diarrhea-bot, as its creators have affectionately nicknamed it. Here’s the summary from the original press release:

(PhysOrg.com) — UK researchers have developed an autonomous robot with an artificial gut that enables it to fuel itself by eating and excreting. The robot is the first bot powered by biomass to be demonstrated operating without assistance for several days. Being self-sustaining would enable robots of the future to function unaided for long periods.

The robot, the Ecobot III, was developed by researchers at the Bristol Robotics Laboratory and will be presented at the Artificial Life conference in Denmark in August. The robot eats meals of partially processed sewage, using the nutrients within the mash for fuel and excreting the remains. It also drinks water to maintain power generation.

The robot navigates towards a dispenser filled with the nutrient-rich mixture and “eats” what it needs. The meal is then processed in the robot’s body by bacteria held in a stack of two tiers, each with 24 microbial fuel cells (MFCs).

And, the “money quote”:

Director of Bristol Robotics Laboratory, Chris Melhuish, said MFCs had been tried before but an artificial gut was needed to solve the problem of previous models, which was that humans had to clean up the waste left by bacterial digestion. Melhuish said the robot was called Ecobot III, but admitted “diarrhea-bot would be more appropriate, as it’s not exactly knocking out rabbit pellets.”

I kid, but I really think this is a terribly important milestone. It’s only a matter of time until we build indefinitely autonomous robots, and from there, to indefinitely autonomous self-replicating robots. They will have few natural predators because they will lack meat, though some robots may eventually synthesize artificial muscles out of organics. Hopefully, molecular nanotechnology would be required before journeying too far down this pathway.

How much more energetic autonomy (and otherwise) will be required before pundits take the issue seriously, instead of treating it like a joke?

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Patrick Lin is spreading the valuable message of roboethics:

They have everything the modern policeman could need – apart from a code of ethics. Without that, a Pentagon adviser fears, the world could be entering an era where automotons pose a serious threat to humanity.

The robots need to be hack-proof to prevent perpetrators from turning them into criminals, and a code of ethical conduct must be agreed while the technology is nascent.

The article mentions that there are currently over 7 million robots in operation, about half of them cleaning floors.

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Special moves!

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Hod Lipson, Eliezer Yudkowsky, Michael Belfiore, and Cory Doctorow on an Ontario television station. From an event at the Perimeter Institute last October.

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Speaking of technology intruding into the traditional role of religious authorities…

Coverage and a gallery can be found at AP.

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