Artificial Intelligence
Why do easy tasks become challenging and complex tasks become easy for robots?
Will there ever be robots that have human-like capabilities?
This question becomes more critical as ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence projects come to light. At the same time, the imagination of the engineering world has turned to creating a robot that thinks and acts like a human. The journey has yielded a few results so far: We know that artificial intelligence can mimic the brain's complex thought process and creativity, but a robot can’t tie a shoelace. This is because human thought processes in robots can be created with limited computational support, but simulating seemingly simple human actions, such as tying a belt or picking up a dropped bag, requires a lot of computation.
Moravic Paradox
This is called the ‘Moravic Paradox’. According to many experts, producing a fully intelligent robot is impossible.
Gonzalo Zabala is a robot researcher. Speaking to BBC Mundo, he said that humans have evolved over millions of years to be able to perform simple tasks such as balance, so replicating them at a computational level is currently impossible. The reverse is easy. He says that the thought process can easily be put into a robot. British scientist Alan Turing is one of the founders of artificial intelligence.
He published several papers during his short career, one of which raised several important questions and presented a theory on the difference between robots and humans. This theory has helped engineers and researchers in the process of developing artificial intelligence.
Rodney Brooks, a professor of robotics at MIT, says engineers focused on creating programs to make robots appear human.
However, until the late 1970s, those following Alan Turing's path achieved no tangible success. “Funding for research also stopped at that point because it was unclear what the way forward was, and no significant progress had been made,” says Rodney Brooks. The search for alternative theories began in the field of artificial intelligence. Gonzalo Zabala says that work was done to develop a circuit like the human brain that could think.
At this time, the problem emerged that artificial intelligence was easily developed, but teaching basic human functions to a robot was almost impossible. In the 1980s, the trio of Rodney Brooks, American Marvin Misnicki, and Austrian Hans Morawieck came to this conclusion. Hans Morawieck, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University in the US, said 1988 that ‘it is easy to teach a computer to play chess, but when it comes to movement or perception, it is impossible to give the ability of a one-year-old child.’ Robots are as smart as they are incompetent. Gonzalo Zabala argues that the Moravian paradox made the observations easier to understand. Once the problem was identified, possible solutions began to be discussed. A humanoid robot To solve this problem, Moravec, along with Rodney Brooks and Masnicki, started new projects. Rodney Brooks worked with the American company Boston Dynamics and created a company called iRobots. “If we want to make a robot with human intelligence, we have first to make a robot with human physical characteristics,” says Brooks. A team of European scientists has developed an ECCE robot prototype with ribs, spines, and even fingers in its structure. This robot can perform many human-like movements because all its parts have sensors. However, these scientists also faced the same problem: even such a complex robot cannot hold a cup.
Dr. Rolf Pfeiffer, who is associated with the project, says, “Developing a humanoid robot that can easily interact with humans and human environments requires better computing and batteries, as well as tremendous innovation in sensory equipment.” He says, ‘Preparation of the skin will also be essential because it is the sensation of touch, pain, and temperature.’
Experts say that despite the complexity of the Moravian paradox, it will take time to develop a human-like intelligent robot, but it is not impossible. Gonzalo Zabala explains that the Moravian Paradox identified a problem that researchers began to look for a solution to. That is why we are witnessing a revolution in artificial intelligence. However, for them, this revolution is not a threat to humanity. “I don’t think this is the end, as many analysts have said. It is a tool that will be helpful in the future.
Written by,
Alejandro Milan Valencia
BBC Mundo
June 12, 2023
Translated by
Qaiser Khan.
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