| {{B}}The Robot
Man{{/B}} According to Hans Moravec,universal robots will take over all the physical activities that we engage in,leaving us with little to do. Moravec sees four generations on the road to true universal robots. The first generation will be here by 2010 and will consist of free-ranging robots that can navigate by building an internal mental map of their surroundings. In new situations they'll be able to adapt, unlike today's mobile industrial robots. These robots will have the computing power to cope with simple speech and text recognition,and will be used for tasks such as domestic cleaning. The second generation will arrive around 2020 and will be distinguished by the ability to learn. Second generation robots are programmed with sets of primitive tasks and with feedback that provide"pleasure" and "pain"stimuli. For example,a collision provokes a negative response,a completed task would be positive. ove forward another ten years to 2030 and you get to generation three. This robot can build internal simulations of the world around it. Before beginning a task, it can imagine what will happen in order to predict problems. If it has a free moment,it can replay past experiences and try variations in order to find a better way of doing things next time. It could even observe a person or another robot performing a task and learn by imitation. For the first time,we have here a robot that can think. By the time we get to generation four in 2040, Moravec predicts that robots will be able to match hu- man reasoning and behaviour; generalise abstract ideas from specific experience; and, conversely, compile detailed plans of action from general commands such as'earn a living' or 'make more robots' The Moravec manifesto(宣告)runs something like this. As robots start to become useful in generation one,they'll begin to take on many tasks in industry. Driven by the availability of this cheap and tireless labour force,the economy will boom and the demand for robots will grow so rapidly that they will soon become low-cost commodity items. So much so that they'll move into the home,where the domestic robot will relieve us of many chores. With increasing automation in generations two and three, the length of the average working day will plummet,eventually to near zero. Most people will be unemployed as robots take over not just primary industry, but the service economy too. Moravec sees the fourth generation as an opportunity to surpass our human limitations. These future machines will be our "mind children". Like biological children of previous generations, they will embody humanity's best hope for a long-term future. |