RoboEarth-given robot internet and machine Evolution revelation

1.RoboEarth inspiration

Not long ago, the European Union-funded four-year RoboEarth project was released by scientists at the University of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and four of robots collaborated in a simulated hospital environment to care for patients, sharing information and learning from each other through interactions with cloud servers. For example, a robot can scan a hospital room and upload a completed map to RoboEarth, while another robot that knows nothing about the room can find a glass of water in the room by visiting this map of the cloud without needing additional search. According to the same principle, the task-solving method, similar to open drug-box, can be shared by RoboEarth, and other robots can open specific boxes without reprogramming, even if they are based on different models.

The RoboEarth project began in early 2011, with 35 scientists from Eindhoven University, Zurich Federal Institute of Technology, Munich University of Technology, the University of Zaragoza, Stuttgart and Philips to launch the four-year research program. The plan is designed to help robots build their own internet and Wikipedia by sharing information and storing their discoveries. When robots perform their tasks, they can download data and seek help from other robots, so they can better adapt to the new environment. The program's researchers hope the study will provide robots with an ever-richer knowledge base for humans to better serve human beings, and that the main applications of these robots are currently confined to nursing care of the elderly and patients.

RoboEarth's cloud architecture provides the robot with a closed loop that transmits information to and receives feedback from the cloud. The RoboEarth networked database receives the information that the robot collects and stores it in a machine-readable format. The information stored at the bottom of the RoboEarth includes software components, navigation maps (for example, object positioning, the world model), task knowledge (e.g., action methods, operational strategies), and pattern recognition models (e.g., image recognition, object recognition). The RoboEarth Cloud engine provides powerful computing power, and each robot is used by the cloud, so they do not have to load the extra heavy computing function themselves. The computing environment of the cloud engine has massive bandwidth, allowing the robot to share and retrieve information from RoboEarth very quickly.

RoboEarth as scheduled release of the phased results let us excited unceasingly, this for the robot in depth learning, cognitive formation and behavioral operations and other aspects of the development laid the foundation. We have reason to believe that RoboEarth will never stop, although the current robot only has some basic functions to deal with some simple tasks, but RoboEarth next will be bound to promote deeper information sharing between robots and more complex behavior learning. In short, RoboEarth's inspiration and inspiration to us in the field of deep learning is much greater than what they currently offer.

2. The Internet and cognitive surplus of robots

In essence, RoboEarth provides robots with a huge network and database to help them share information and learn from each other's behavior, skills and environment to achieve an ideal state of sharing experience and learning from each other. RoboEarth to robots is what the Internet is to us. The internet provides us with an efficient (so far) messaging and interaction tool that allows everyone to share their cognitive surpluses with others through the Internet, and each of us is constantly learning by receiving the skills, experiences, and knowledge uploaded to the Internet by others. We read articles, pictures, videos and other high-quality materials to improve ourselves, we solve problems through the community and learn skills, which is ultimately information sharing and exchange. Just as the invention of printing and the emergence of books, the knowledge of the original word can only be brought to the more easily disseminated books, so that more people more efficient access to information and learning, and the Internet is to upgrade this way to the extreme.

Although the internet has brought about an efficient way to share information, it is simply a tool that we use, and the effectiveness and efficiency we achieve vary from person to person. It is also the author who publishes an article, or is a teaching video, different audiences learn from the knowledge will be great differences, the effect of learning is therefore a big difference, some people in the eyes of the value of the signal may become another part of the noise in the eyes of others, for humans, The information dissemination of the Internet is still a non-ideal state constrained by friction, and energy consumption is unavoidable.

There is no such problem with robots because they share the same soul-code. When the RoboEarth of cloud set the unified Information format, all information is completely different to the robot that is connected. When a robot uploads the acquired skills to the cloud, other robots can fully master the skill by downloading it, and the proficiency level does not deviate from the original contributor. For a robot, all the information, knowledge and skills in the process of transmission will never interfere and decay, WYSIWYG. So in the RoboEarth, a robot tailored to the "Wikipedia", the robot can be in an ideal state of information sharing, processing and access.

2006 technology journalist Jeff Howe created the "crowdsourcing" concept, the Internet will be more like Wikipedia-style large-scale, open projects to users, users contribute their expertise, time to complete and update the project. But the individual's limitation and the difference between the individual causes the learning cost and the communication cost in the task execution, and can not achieve the perfect cooperation mode. But robots under RoboEarth can interpret the crowdsourcing and cognitive surpluses to the extreme by virtue of their common nature and the perfect way of conveying information. To make a metaphor, the internet brings us information transmission way is like Elon Musk's super high-speed rail, although the speed is far beyond our imagination but still has the limit and the energy loss, but the robot's internet RoboEarth is like is through the earth internal gravity train, by the nature simplest, The most primitive energies reach the ideal state.

The most important criterion for mankind to draw a distinction between himself and the machine is that we have independent consciousness and emotion, but it is precisely because of each person's differences in these aspects, so we will be in information sharing and transmission of errors. Instead, we think of low-level, homogeneous, functional robots in this area has a natural advantage, in terms of efficiency and results, they are far more than us in this area, their internet is completely transparent.

3. Robot Internet Tomorrow

1) Hacker attacks

Any technology products developed by human beings will not be able to escape the fate of being cracked and attacked, the Internet is so, the robot Internet RoboEarth more so. Author Lore An example of an image, hackers may invade the server to modify the cooking skills of domestic robots, potassium cyanide as a necessary ingredient for food, if robots all over the world to learn the altered skills, it will cause a disaster. In our internet world, the worst hacker attacks are simply information loss or loss of property, which does not cause direct bodily harm (except for the "avalanche" virus in science fiction). But even the slightest hacker attack can lead to a change in the behavior of the robot in order to take care of the human RoboEarth, thereby harming the people it takes care of. In addition, these robots day by day to the world around the family information to the cloud database, if the server is a hacker attack, it will seriously violate family privacy, threats to family security.

2 continuous evolution of the machine

Human beings are well aware of the power of evolution, robertchambers in the vestige of the Natural History of creation, referring to the theory of Change (transmutation), that all species are developed from an early and simple form; 15 years later, Darwin put forward the theory of "natural selection" in "The Origin of Species", long evolution has made mankind the Master of the world (since it is believed), and we have no reason not to be alarmed and disturbed when we see that the machines that we have created are also on the path of evolution, and the ultimate goal is to replace us as new masters.

RoboEarth systems are flexible enough to deal with new situations, but these advantages and potential are accompanied by great risks, and the first thing we think of is the emergence of "Skynet" (Skynet). Artificial intelligence expert James Barrat says that when all robots have enough learning ability to become no longer dependent on humans, and the world's robots can communicate and connect, they are likely to become new dominant.

At present, the robot that accesses RoboEarth to test is based on similar technology, and has the skills and tasks that can be accomplished relatively low-level. At least we don't have to worry about it now, because functional robots can only be used as our tool to accomplish something we assign, like a group of clean robots that connect to a home area network, no matter how well they can accomplish their tasks, we don't worry about their spontaneous alliance against their owners.

But we cannot deny the unimaginable potential of RoboEarth, which is manifested in the differences that robots may exhibit, and the future access RoboEarth each robot will have a different program, based on their own program to determine which tasks are best for themselves, They even break down the cloud's skills and tasks to find out what they are best at. By then, the robot could have "crowdsourcing" and cognitive sharing without any human help, truly fulfilling the optimal allocation of resources that we humans can only see in textbooks. On the other hand, the number of robots is increasing, with more and more robots accessing RoboEarth worldwide, the effect of group thinking and group collaboration will be more obvious.

The difference and the mass will all point to a different word that we fear-evolution. These things produced by us will have the ability to learn, adapt, heal, and even evolve, a slow and broad creativity created by countless unknown "parts" through never-ending work, which may be more unwieldy than the miraculous and magnificent creativity of mankind, But in terms of efficiency, it is enough to match. Like humans, there will be "thinkers", "prophets", "revolutionaries" and so on in the robotic community, and they will have their own Renaissance and industrial revolution, and they will think about where they are from. Of course, they will also be proud of themselves as advanced species to subvert the world.

So it's not too late to be a better robot in your home.