| Lianhuan |
| Xiao |
Lianhuan He
ESL 91
Spring, 2001
Project Topic: Research recent developments in the field of artificial intelligence, particularly concerning COG project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). What is the purpose of the COG project? How does the COG project fit into the field of human-computer interaction?
Introduction:
Computers as intelligent
devices have been the content of science fiction. Can a computer think? Is
human intelligence different from machine intelligence? This subject, which is
a field of research known as artificial intelligence (AI), has inspired a
debate among computer scientists and philosophers for more than half a decade.
We define AI as “the ability of computers to solve problems and perform tasks
that were once thought to be uniquely human”(Parsons & Oja, Computer
Concepts P33). AI has undergone a long way’s development. It began with the
invention of the computer in 1943. Now scientists have made great achievements.
One of the most famous AI projects is the COG project from Massachustts
Institute of Technology (MIT). It is a new type of robot which is capable of
interacting with the world in human-like way.
AI has an important role in computer science because it has the potential to change the way people function more than anything else in recorded history:
What is the purpose of AI? What is the recent state of AI development?
The purpose of AI is to help people solve problems in an information era when people feel that problems can't be solved by conventional methods. As we know now, computers are very good at mathematical computations, storing and recalling large amounts of information. They also excel at repetitive operations (Kasper, 1998, P55). As AI develops, computers can solve complex problems and model human performance. They have the ability to see, hear, understand, and respond to language. Scientists also want to create a robot that acts as a mature human would. That means the robot would be able to learn, think, reason, have conversations with people, and identify general objects. They can make friends with people and solve certain problems for people.
In 50 years of AI development, the machine's Cognitive, or learning, Systems, Neural Networks, and problem-solving systems have had great development (Kasper, 1998,P56). AI researchers have produced computers that can move and manipulate robotic limbs, respond to human speech, diagnose diseases, translate documents from one language to another, play chess at the grand master level, and learn new tasks.
However,
scientists don't think computers can think. They are just machines, not logical constructs. For
example, how can you tell if a person is able to think? We
can't get inside someone's mind to find out. Instead, we
probably use logic to think:" I'm a person and I can think; therefore, other people must be able to think
too." This is easy for us, but not for a machine. Also a machine
can't "make sense" out of what it sees and hears. It can't understand
conversation. It simply processes symbols. In contrast, humans are
good at all these things (Kasper,1988,P56).
How to make computers behave intelligently?
Computers don’t have the inborn abilities for intelligence; they need programs that people design to behave intelligently. We have to "determine" the process used by human's to produce a particular type of intelligent behavior and then simulate that process on a computer"(Kasper, 1998, P57). To simulate the human’s brain is the aim of AI researchers. However, no AI system emulates the entire human intelligence. AI systems function up to the capability of human knowledge and no highter.
COG is the research of the MIT AI lab. It is a new type of
robot, which is a single hardware platform. It seeks to bring together each of
the many sub-fields of AI into one unifield, coherant, functional whole
(overview of the Cog project, nd). It has a head, and two eyes. It uses a lot
of computers, sensors and motors to compose its functions. This project's goal is to create a robot,
which has capabilities of interacting with both objects and people in human like way. It can perform very
similar movements. It can orient its head in the direction of a target.
It has
components of a human-like body. It can detect
people in the environment by looking for patterns of light and
dark shading, by looking for oral shapes and by looking for
regions of skin tone. Cog's brain is made up of a network of
microprocessors. There is a set of microphones and video cameras in the head for hearing and sight. These processors
work together to make COG behave intelligently
(http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/capabilities.html).
AI at work:
AI has come into our daily life. When you go to Microsoft's web site, they have an automated help system that uses AI technology to help bring up the right documents for the user. People don't know it's AI. We say it's just their "Help system"
AI is also applied in industry and health care. Many
hospitals use AI systems to read lab results, diagnose illnesses and help to determine if a patient will have a harmful
reaction to a certain combination of drugs.
One of the most visible uses for AI research is in
speech recognition.
It allows users to write documents by speaking rather than
typing. The market for this program is very large. It includes doctors, the blind and those with only limited use of their
hands.
AI is also used by many mutual fund managers and
other financial service providers to detemine where and
when to invest their clients money.
My response:
I get excited about human's future with AI. Let's
imagine we can control objects by voice. We only need to
tell the computer what we want the machine to do by our language
instead of computer language. That's amazing,
I also get excited that scientists predict that in
the future, AI will be microminiaturized into nail size.
The doctors will be able to put computers into a patient’s body
to cure illnesses so that the patient won’t have to have surgical
operations. That will be good for some illnesses that involve the brain
and heart where it is dangerous to do surgical operations.
The development of AI will improve our life quality,
and help people to reach a high quality life. Let’s imagine the implication for
employment, leisure time, personal human fulfillment, medical profession,
life-styles and education and anticipate the future of AI.
Conclusion:
The
road to artificial intelligence is very long and hard. It involves other
sciences such as psychology, ethnology, philosophy, and linguistics. Today’s
research just a little part of the future. The expertise in AI systems will
evolve and grow. It will play an important role in every aspect of our lives.
Works Cited
Parsons & Oja, Computer Concepts, 4th
edition
Kasper, L. F. (1998). Interdisciplinary English, 2nd
edition. New York: McGraw-Hill.
COG project at MIT. [Online]. Available; http://www.ai.mit.edu/project/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/capabilities.html
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XiaoGuang Jiang
ESL91
Spring, 2001
Project Topic: Research recent developments in the field of Artificial Intelligence, particularly concerning the COG project at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). What is the purpose of the COG project? How does the COG project fit into the field of human-computer interaction?
Technology is exploding. Many computer engineers design to make a computer machine as intelligent as a human. The AI Computer can learn the human knowledge and can do the same actions or behaviors as a human. Moreover, AI’s goal is to understand how the human mind works and efficiently explore more specialized aspects of human intelligence. The group in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, made a machine in order to solve the complex problems AI is using computer and robotic technology to better understand and emulate human intelligence. The product named Cog is the primary robotic platform used by the AI group at MIT to explore human intelligence. Cog shows how a computer machine can do the same behaviors as a human and shows the success of AI.
In my research project, I will introduce AI’s history. In addition, I will also mention the history, the function and much information about Cog.
In 1956, Artificial Intelligence’s father----John McCarthy,
discovered the theory of AI. He
organized a conference to draw the talent and expertise of others interested in
machine intelligence for a month of brainstorming. He brought them to Vermont for “ The Dartmouth summer research
project on artificial intelligence”. From that point on, the field would be
known as Artificial intelligence. Even
though it was not a huge success, the Dartmouth conference did bring together
the founders of AI and served to lay the groundwork for the future of AI
research. (John McCarthy, MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab).
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the area of computer science focusing
on creating machines that can engage in behaviors that humans consider
intelligent. They create intelligent
machines that have intrigued humans since ancient times. Today, AI has the advent of the computer and
after 50 years of research into AI programming techniques, the dream of smart
machines are becoming a reality. The
researchers are also creating the systems in order to imitate the human thought
and to understand speech.
Intelligence in the AI group is
the computational part of the ability to achieve goals in the world. Varying
kinds and degrees of intelligence occur in people, many animals and some
machines (MIT Artificial Intelligence lab. 2000).
What is their goal?
The
goal of AI is fousecomputers and robotic technology to seek to better
understand and emulate human intelligence.
The AI’ group members create computer machines used to explore human intelligence. Also, other
robotic platforms are created by AI in order to explore more specialized
aspects of human intelligence efficiently and concurrently .
The COG project
The product of the AI project at MIT is named Cog. It is a single computer hardware platform.
It includes a head, two eyes with four cameras, a body, and two arms, but
except the legs and the flexible spine.
Moreover, Cog also has a lot of sensors and the actuated joints around
its body.
Cog can behave like a human. Cog has a body that is similar in shape,
structure and degrees of freedom to a human body. The actuators move Cog’s
body. They use series elastic actuators
to control the body and make human interactions with Cog safer. For example, Cog can pull out a physics
textbook, and work out the interacting kinematics by hand (deals with motion
apart from considerations of mass and force).
Let me describe how Cog moves. Cog’s cameras,
sensors and spring are the main parts to control how Cog does all of the
actions. First, the message is received
from the cameras; then the message is sent to a spring in Cog’s arm across in
the sensors (the sensors in Cog looks like the sensors of Nervous System in
human body). The spring lets Cog’s arms
do the reaction when it receives the message.
Cog’s arms can move because its spring is modeled like human muscles to
do the action when the spring catches stimulation from the message. This
example shows that Cog can learn human motion from the experience itself.
The goal of
the Cog project is to develop a general system for Cog that can learn the
causal relation between commands to its motors and input from its sensors,
primarily vision and mechanical proprioceptor (it looks like the human receptor
in Nervous System). In the future, the
group will extend Cog’s sensory map for full body orientation to do more
behaviors as humans do.
My Response
In my research project, I
learned about Artificial Intelligence.
I learned that AI technology is very useful, but it can also produce a
lot of problems. Some problems are
making people lazy because they will depend on the computer and machines to do
their jobs. They will forget the
natural way of doing the job by hand.
So, people will lose their jobs because people will have to compete with
the computers and machines at work, and human’s efficiency will never be better
than the machines and computers. Also,
I learned about the AI product named Cog.
Cog can move by itself; it can touch things. It can learn the human motion from the experience itself. Moreover, it can do some things as a human
does. Even though it still has
weaknesses in the sensor map, I believe the researchers can fix the problem and
develop Cog.
Conclusion
The technology has grown faster and faster; people can now achieve many
goals in order to get their objectives.
AI still has a main role in computer science. AI researchers will continue to try to solve their product’s
weaknesses and improve their products.
The AI machine will not only be used in computer science, but it will
also be used in different places and in different ways in the future. AI machines will be used in to do the
dangerous jobs. Also, the AI machine
will be involved in psychology, philosophy.
Moreover, AI will affect our life as AI helps people to solve more
complicated problems.
Bibliography:
Cog Project Overview (5/1/01) Question about Cog. [Online] http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/faq.html
Kasper, Loretta F. (1998). Interdisciplinary English (2nd edition). New York: McGraw-Hill
McCarthy John. (4/4/2000). What is Artificial Intelligence? [Online]. http://www.formal.stanford.edu/jmc/whatisai/whatisai.html
MIT AI Lab. (n.d.). COG Project. [Online]. http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/humanoid-robotics-group/cog/
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