Rise of the Machines
Rise of the Machines
I have always had a fascination of advances in technology and have often wondered if we would ever see thinking machines that could move about in much the same way we do.
Ever since I realised that we run in a very different way to which I thought and what popular opinion would have us believe I have been captivated by the apparent simplicity of the act of running and the difficulty of putting it into practice. The conscious mind gets in the way a lot of the time when your body just needs to act and quickly!
I have been familiar with the concept of using body weight and gravity to get around and I find myself studying different creatures and objects on this world with a new found fascination. It is amazing how our brains have developed in such a way that they react to changes in environment, controlling our limbs with millisecond precision. When we run, as I said in my earlier post it is just a sustained fall where we balance it such that we are forever just catching ourselves from falling then recreating the fall in order to sustain movement. Ideally we should do this ‘automatically’ without any conscious thought delaying any of the processes involved. The mechanics are simple; we pull our foot off the ground straight up under our hips the moment our subconscious detects that we have reduced pressure on the ball of the foot. This occurs when our centre of gravity has moved over the support of the foot and we commence falling once again. Thus the foot needs to be removed from the ground as quickly and efficiently as possible so that it can be used again in a subsequent step. There is no need for forwards or backwards motion of the foot and this is where most of us go wrong -- it is much less efficient and wastes much time and energy.
What if we built a machine that walked, how would we make it move on legs? Well, a bit like this…
Some more Big Dog videos. I just can’t stop looking at it!
Asimo
You could say that Asimo is closer to us in that it is a bipedal machine, a humanoid robot. However, the movements seem a little more fluid yet somehow not as natural looking as Big Dog. It looks like Asimo is trying to run like most people do -- pushing himself forwards with the legs instead of using an unbalancing technique. Asimo pulls his foot off the ground from way behind him which indicates a late pull which makes him have to put the foot down in front of himself quickly, effectively putting the brakes on. I may be wrong but it looks like there is something missing. Either the robot is trying to force itself along or it isn’t pulling the back foot from the ground quickly enough or it hasn’t got the benefits of muscles and soft tissues or even hydraulics that can simulate muscle elasticity and give some srpinginesss to his steps.
The BigDog robot seems to move much more naturally which may be a combination of differences in how it computes moves, how quickly it pulls its feet from the ground and energy return through simulating muscle elasticity. It is a startling machine to look at and think when they can get it to exploit a greater lean it may well run faster than we have seen anything run. Of course this is all pure specualtion on my part. I think we are in the brink of truly amazing technology though and as Man researches these things he will come to learn more about himself.
Computational Knowledge Base
That’s all well and good having machines that can run about. Technology has yet to give us the computing power necessary to make a machine capable of thinking or calculating meaningful data on the move so it can use it to its advantage in a war situation for example, surely?
Actually we are making quite massive leaps in this field too. Very recently Wolfram Alpha was launched which is a search engine with a massive difference. Do a serach and you will see what I mean.
http://www37.wolframalpha.com/
Just imagine a war robot using data or knowledge in this way to find its way around -- anywhere. All it needs to do is ask its Big Brother Wolfram Alpha!
Of course that’s not thinking, it is data retrieval on the machine’s part or anyone’s part who just presses the search button. It is nevertheless a very impressive system.
We have autonomous aircraft that seem to do a reasonably good job at getting around though, already and they must have some kind of artificial intelligence built in. What about the next step though? What about artificial intellects that are capable of true thought much like we think rather than simply doing “clever calculations”? What if a machine was capable of guessing or behaving intuitively? Or even lying? Impossible I hear you say. Maybe and maybe not. I was astounded when I read this book. I believe this is the future of computing and it will change how we use and interact with computers completely…
Get the book and read it if this stuff interests you. It is quite fantastic.
http://www.onintelligence.org/
A very interesting video here too that gives you the gist of it. It’s an hour long so get yourself a drink and relax. 
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2500845581503718756
Yes the man who brought you the Trio may also be responsible for bringing you Terminator.