Aye, Robot!
Yes there was Hal, and he kind of took over from the helpless humans dependent upon him, but he represents an anomaly; besides, he was not a robot, merely a cerebral computer. Computer scientists have now gone a few steps further. They've constructed a robot whose mechanical synapses match and best those of the finest human brains.
Weren't we once solemnly informed that computers, or robots, or robot-computers could never think, only regurgitate what they were inputted with?
Wrong, oh so wrong! Humans are nature-made, and we are fabulous constructions, to be sure, but humans have managed, through their inventive genius to fashion a robot, a robot-computer capable of cerebrally outmanoeuvring the brightly inventive thought processes of scientists themselves. Now that is difficult to believe, but it would appear to be the truth.
British researchers have published their experiences and have entertainingly informed the world at large that they've been successful in producing a machine - oh, all right - an intelligent robot that proved capable of reasoning, formulating independent theories and through that process discovering scientific knowledge that had previously eluded scientists for the past 40 years.
No kidding, this is no April Fool's twist. The robot's name? Adam. Cute, isn't it? Adam, it would appear, thought out where a specific gene within yeast might be found and then developed his own experiments to prove the theory. The gene in question reveals new facts about the genetic makeup of that most common of baker's secrets: baking yeast.
"On its own it can think of hypotheses and then do the experiments, and we've checked that it's got the results correct", according to Ross King, professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales, lead researcher on this project. The findings have been published in the respected journal Science. Along with another paper from Cornell University in New York.
Where Hod Lipson and Michael Schmidt developed a computer program able to work out fundamental physical laws behind a swinging double pendulum. The Cornell robot was able to decipher the laws of motion and other properties brought to us by Sir Isaac Newton. Input? Without any prior instruction in physics, the Cornell robot crunched numbers to arrive at the right answers.
What this robot effectively did was accelerate the rate - through carrying out repetitive tests that would drive a researcher crazy - at which scientific principles can be highlighted behind the data. The Aberystwyth scientists are planning another robot - name? Why, Eve. And don't you know it, she'll be brainier than Adam; and will be tasked with searching out new medicines.
Our Brave New World.
Weren't we once solemnly informed that computers, or robots, or robot-computers could never think, only regurgitate what they were inputted with?
Wrong, oh so wrong! Humans are nature-made, and we are fabulous constructions, to be sure, but humans have managed, through their inventive genius to fashion a robot, a robot-computer capable of cerebrally outmanoeuvring the brightly inventive thought processes of scientists themselves. Now that is difficult to believe, but it would appear to be the truth.
British researchers have published their experiences and have entertainingly informed the world at large that they've been successful in producing a machine - oh, all right - an intelligent robot that proved capable of reasoning, formulating independent theories and through that process discovering scientific knowledge that had previously eluded scientists for the past 40 years.
No kidding, this is no April Fool's twist. The robot's name? Adam. Cute, isn't it? Adam, it would appear, thought out where a specific gene within yeast might be found and then developed his own experiments to prove the theory. The gene in question reveals new facts about the genetic makeup of that most common of baker's secrets: baking yeast.
"On its own it can think of hypotheses and then do the experiments, and we've checked that it's got the results correct", according to Ross King, professor at Aberystwyth University in Wales, lead researcher on this project. The findings have been published in the respected journal Science. Along with another paper from Cornell University in New York.
Where Hod Lipson and Michael Schmidt developed a computer program able to work out fundamental physical laws behind a swinging double pendulum. The Cornell robot was able to decipher the laws of motion and other properties brought to us by Sir Isaac Newton. Input? Without any prior instruction in physics, the Cornell robot crunched numbers to arrive at the right answers.
What this robot effectively did was accelerate the rate - through carrying out repetitive tests that would drive a researcher crazy - at which scientific principles can be highlighted behind the data. The Aberystwyth scientists are planning another robot - name? Why, Eve. And don't you know it, she'll be brainier than Adam; and will be tasked with searching out new medicines.
Our Brave New World.
Labels: Science, Social-Cultural Deviations
posted by Pieface @ 7:12 PM
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