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Top robotics expert Professor Noel Sharkey, of the University of Sheffield, has called for international guidelines to be set for the ethical and safe application of robots before it is too late. Professor Sharkey, writing in the prestigious Science journal, believes that as the use of robots increases, decisions about their application will be left to the military, industry and busy parents instead of international legislative bodies.

Robots have been used in laboratories and factories for many years, but their uses are changing fast. Since the turn of the century, sales of professional and personal service robots have risen sharply and are estimated to total 5.5 million in 2008. IFR Statistics estimate 11.5 million in the next two years. The price of robot manufacture is also falling. With robots 80% cheaper in 2006 than they were in 1990, they are set to enter our lives in unprecedented numbers.

Service robots are currently being used in all walks of life, from child-minding robots to robots that care for the elderly. These types of robots can be controlled by a mobile phone or from a PC, allowing input from camera “eyes” and remote talking from caregivers. Sophisticated elder-care robots like the Secom “My Spoon” automatic feeding robot; the Sanyo electric bathtub robot that automatically washes and rinses; and the Mitsubishi Wakamura robot, used for reminding people to take their medicine, are already in widespread use.

Despite this no international legislation or policy guidelines currently exist, except in terms of negligence. This is still to be tested in court for robot surrogates and may be difficult to prove in the home (relative to cases of physical abuse).

Professor Sharkey urges his fellow scientists and engineers working in robotics to be mindful of the unanticipated risks and the ethical problems linked to their work. He believes that robots for care represent just one of many ethically problematic areas that will soon arise from the increase in their use, and that policy guidelines for ethical and safe application need to be set before the guidelines set themselves.

He said: “Research into service robots has demonstrated close bonding and attachment by children, who, in most cases, prefer a robot to a teddy bear. Short-term exposure can provide an enjoyable and entertaining experience that creates interest and curiosity.

“However, because of the physical safety that robot minders provide, children could be left without human contact for many hours a day or perhaps for several days, and the possible psychological impact of the varying degrees of social isolation on development is unknown.

“At the other end of the age spectrum, the relative increase in many countries in the population of the elderly relative to available younger caregivers has spurred the development of elder-care robots. These robots can help the elderly to maintain independence in their own homes, but their presence could lead to the risk of leaving the elderly in the exclusive care of machines without sufficient human contact.”

Source: Science Daily
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081218141724.htm

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Suppose you want to build a computer that operates like the brain of a mammal. How hard could it be? After all, there are supercomputers that can decode the human genome, play chess and calculate prime numbers out to 13 million digits. But University of Wisconsin-Madison research psychiatrist Giulio Tononi, who was recently selected to take part in the creation of a “cognitive computer,” says the goal of building a computer as quick and flexible as a small mammalian brain is more daunting than it sounds.

Tononi, professor of psychiatry at the UW-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health and an internationally known expert on consciousness, is part of a team of collaborators from top institutions who have been awarded a $4.9 million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for the first phase of DARPA’s Systems of Neuromorphic Adaptive Plastic Scalable Electronics (SyNAPSE) project.

Tononi and scientists from Columbia University and IBM will work on the “software” for the thinking computer, while nanotechnology and supercomputing experts from Cornell, Stanford and the University of California-Merced will create the “hardware.” Dharmendra Modha of IBM is the principal investigator.

“Every neuron in the brain knows that something has changed,” Tononi explains. “It tells the brain, ‘I got burned, and if you want to change, this is the time to do it.’’

Thus, a cat landing on a hot stovetop not only jumps off immediately, it learns not to do that again.

The idea is to create a computer capable of sorting through multiple streams of changing data, to look for patterns and make logical decisions.

There’s another requirement: The finished cognitive computer should be as small as a the brain of a small mammal and use as little power as a 100-watt light bulb. It’s a major challenge. But it’s what our brains do every day.

“Our brains can do it, so we have proof that it is possible,” says Tononi. “What our brains are good at is being flexible, learning from experience and adapting to different situations.”

While the project will take its inspiration from the brain’s architecture and function, Tononi says it isn’t possible or even desirable to recreate the entire structure of the brain down to the level of the individual synapse.

“A lot of the work will be to determine what kinds of neurons are crucial and which ones we can do without,” he says.

It all comes down to an understanding of what is necessary for teaching an artificial brain to reason and learn from experience.

“Value systems or reward systems are important aspects,” he said. “Learning is crucial because it needs to learn from experience just like we do.”

So a system modeled after the neurons that release neuromodulators could be important. For example, neurons in the brain stem flood the brain with a neurotransmitter during times of sudden stress, signaling the “fight-or flight” response.

“Every neuron in the brain knows that something has changed,” Tononi explains. “It tells the brain, ‘I got burned, and if you want to change, this is the time to do it.’”

Thus, a cat landing on a hot stovetop not only jumps off immediately, it learns not to do that again.

Tononi says the ideal artificial brain will need to be plastic, meaning it is capable of changing as it learns from experience. The design will likely convey information using electrical impulses modeled on the spiking neurons found in mammal brains. And advances in nanotechnology should allow a small artificial brain to contain as many artificial neurons as a small mammal brain.

It won’t be an easy task, says Tononi, a veteran of earlier efforts to create cognitive computers. Even the brains of the smallest mammals are quite impressive when you consider what tasks they perform with a relatively small volume and energy input.

“I would be happy to create a mouse brain,” Tononi says. “A mouse brain is quite remarkable. And from there, it shouldn’t be too hard to scale up to a rat brain, and then a cat or monkey brain.”

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081221215537.htm
Adapted from materials provided by University of Wisconsin-Madison. Original article written by Susan Lampert Smith.

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