Actually, if we developed a computer that works like an organic brain and does it efficiently, it would be a big boost to any application that deals in pattern recognition and data mining. That's one thing organic brains are really good at.
How close are we to having a J.A.R.V.I.S type AI???
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It wouldn't be a benefit unless it also works a hell of a lot FASTER than a human brain; otherwise, you might as well hire an ordinary human to do that.
Why? 99% of the wait time is waiting for the rescuers to GET THERE in the first place. What difference does it make if you're waiting for a squad of robots or a coast guard helicopter?
Something more like the wrecked cruise ship. In such a situation a few hours could equal lives. I had just assumed for the sake of my post that most of the people here were familiar with the news story and understood from that how situations arise where humans may take days to search in such a crisis. While cruise ships do not crash like this often, there are other things such as earth quakes.
Yes, you could probably send a fleet of these into such an environment without human like intelligence, but given the randomness of the environmental and the immense amount of variables involved in searching such a mess, the more they could reason the better. And if they could think as good as (not better, but as good as) humans they would have the distinct advantage in such a search.
Human (and animal) brain pattern recognition is very fast--much faster than our computational abilities.
And it doesn't have to work faster than a human or animal brain if we can make it relatively inexpensive to build. Think about how long it takes you to recognize the face of someone you know. Pretty much instantaneous, right? If you can build computers that do this inexpensively, even a handful of them would be cheaper than employing a human being for the same task.
Imagine applications like security camera systems tied into databases of known criminals. It could instantly identify potential shoplifters, or people with outstanding warrants, etc. etc. The problem is right now, it takes fairly powerful computers to do quick facial recognition work. An organic computer (or one that closely mimics the workings of an organic brain) wouldn't have to be as powerful, and could hopefully be cheaper.
Just to put this in perspective, the human brain operates on roughly 24 watts of power a day--basically, its power usage is a mere 1 watt hour. Your typical desktop computer uses anywhere from 200-800 watts per hour.
So, I think this type of research might be greatly beneficial just in terms of power savings, even if it's not much faster than current methods.
But see, the whole problem with that scenario is that it still takes you a while to get the robots there in the first place. Unless you equip the cruise ship with a fleet of rescue robots before it even leaves port, that's no advantage at all. Otherwise, a squad of human rescuers would get there in the same amount of time as the robots and would do the exact same job with more or less the same proficiency.Why? 99% of the wait time is waiting for the rescuers to GET THERE in the first place. What difference does it make if you're waiting for a squad of robots or a coast guard helicopter?
Something more like the wrecked cruise ship. In such a situation a few hours could equal lives. I had just assumed for the sake of my post that most of the people here were familiar with the news story and understood from that how situations arise where humans may take days to search in such a crisis. While cruise ships do not crash like this often, there are other things such as earth quakes.
Yes, you could probably send a fleet of these into such an environment without human like intelligence, but given the randomness of the environmental and the immense amount of variables involved in searching such a mess, the more they could reason the better. And if they could think as good as (not better, but as good as) humans they would have the distinct advantage in such a search.
Sure, but the analysis and output (in the context of data mining) not so much. You're basically programming a computer to do what a security guard could do just as efficiently; the only possible benefit is if the computer can watch the cameras AND electronically generate reports without having to hand write them like the guard does. If the computer can't do that, it is still dependent on the guard to review the tapes and write the reports and decided on a response, and if it's going to do that, why build the computer in the first place?
And this goes beyond the question of whether or not you would want to build a computer to dot his instead of developing a tighter interface to an organic brain anyway. I think of the Rat Thing from "Snow Crash," essentially a cybernetic guard dog powered by a small nuclear reactor; dogs are easier to train than computers, especially when you can reward good performance with the promise of steak.
Well, eliminating the security guard's job is really the whole point, I'd say. People are expensive--computers are (relatively) cheap. Making computers do things that only humans could do before.
Using trained/cybernetic animals is another way, of course. Or cybernetically enhancing innate human abilities. I'm not a computer zealot, I believe in the right tool for the job.
But see, the whole problem with that scenario is that it still takes you a while to get the robots there in the first place. Unless you equip the cruise ship with a fleet of rescue robots before it even leaves port, that's no advantage at all. Otherwise, a squad of human rescuers would get there in the same amount of time as the robots and would do the exact same job with more or less the same proficiency.Why? 99% of the wait time is waiting for the rescuers to GET THERE in the first place. What difference does it make if you're waiting for a squad of robots or a coast guard helicopter?
Something more like the wrecked cruise ship. In such a situation a few hours could equal lives. I had just assumed for the sake of my post that most of the people here were familiar with the news story and understood from that how situations arise where humans may take days to search in such a crisis. While cruise ships do not crash like this often, there are other things such as earth quakes.
Yes, you could probably send a fleet of these into such an environment without human like intelligence, but given the randomness of the environmental and the immense amount of variables involved in searching such a mess, the more they could reason the better. And if they could think as good as (not better, but as good as) humans they would have the distinct advantage in such a search.
Now I think you are arguing just for the sake of it. It can take people days or even weeks to search the wreckage. In an earth quake it can take months. Part of the problem is how careful and slow rescuers have to go to get through it all without creating danger to themselves. But really, you cannot imagine a smart small ai bot that in tandem with several hundred others could move through it all much quicker? Really? I find that hard to believe.
I have no idea what your point is about travel time to the site itself. In all likelihood people would deliver the bots to the location. But however that would play out, it seems like a small logistical point hardly relevant.
Nothing that wouldn't be dependent on a human presence to operate effectively. By the time we develop the technology that would make the human rescuers unnecessary, we're talking utility fogs and nanite gobblers that simply eat through the rubble until the survivors crawl out. Anything much slower than that and it's just a useful tool for the rescue team, not exactly even a supplement.
The point is that most rescues DON'T involve people trapped in wreckage for days or weeks at a time waiting for someone to dig them out. In situations like a capsized cruise liner (which you alluded to) you've got two or three hours to recover everyone who might have survived; after that, you're not looking for survivors, you're looking for corpses. In many situations you've got even less time than that, and the first responders aren't going to get there any faster if you replace half of them with robots (unless, of course, you design a kind of robot that can be lobbed to distant disaster zones in the nose of an ICBM, but I don't see that being practical for cruise ship disasters).
Yeah, well we were talking about whether bots as smart as people would be better or not. Clearly they would. I agree that some crazy nano tech that could magically eat the wreckage would be better still.
This is a point in agreement with me, right? If the windows is only a few hours then the need to pinpoint survivors fast is critical. But, of course, every scenario is different. Many earth quake survivors have been rescued after being trapped for several days and many more have died from dehydration while waiting longer than that.
And the reason I disagree is because robots EQUAL to humans in intelligence wouldn't be that much better off than humans anyway. They'd have to be a hell of a lot smarter, or capable of doing something even a properly equipped human could not. Superhuman strength might be an asset here, but that doesn't require intelligence.
Right, but it's a not a matter of finding them as much as a matter of GETTING THEM OUT. There aren't alot of robots that would be really useful in that aspect since the only "getting them out" problem has to do with the hundreds of tons of shit that's been piled up on top of them. Unless you're planning to send some small robots into the rubble to dismantle the survivors and then reassemble them at the aid station, that just isn't going to do (of course, some very intelligent nanites could probably do this, but it wouldn't feel great...
).A standard robot with a drilling machine or some kind of sophisticated Earth mover to remove all that rubble... that's fine, but since it won't get there before the human rescuers, it isn't a replacement as much as it is a suplement, and there's no reason for it to be smarter than a human, or anything else. You simply equip the rescue team with power loaders or something.
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