View all newsletters
Sign up to our newsletters

Support 110 years of independent journalism.

15 January 2014updated 28 Jun 2021 4:46am

Robots are now capable of learning new skills from each other, without human help

We created them because we need them, but they may well come to realise that they do not need us.

By Ian Steadman

The “Singularity” refers to a proposed moment in time when the collective intelligence of the machines overtakes the collective intelligence of our humans. At that moment, theoretically, the machines will be able to design and produce even smarter electronic brains, beyond the comprehension of our lower intelligence, in a runaway chain of events that with to unfathomable consequences.

(Terminator fans will recognise this as Skynet.)

Robots are, right now, not very physically capable, and neither are they very smart. As illustrated in one of Randall “xkcd” Munroe’s ‘What If?’ columns, humanity would do pretty well out of any robot uprising that happened, say, tomorrow.

But the robots are getting better everyday:

At its core, RoboEarth is a World Wide Web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment. Bringing a new meaning to the phrase “experience is the best teacher”, the goal of RoboEarth is to allow robotic systems to benefit from the experience of other robots, paving the way for rapid advances in machine cognition and behaviour, and ultimately, for more subtle and sophisticated human-machine interaction.

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU

RoboEarth offers a Cloud Robotics infrastructure, which includes everything needed to close the loop from robot to the cloud and back to the robot. RoboEarth’s World-Wide-Web style database stores knowledge generated by humans – and robots – in a machine-readable format. Data stored in the RoboEarth knowledge base include software components, maps for navigation (e.g., object locations, world models), task knowledge (e.g., action recipes, manipulation strategies), and object recognition models (e.g., images, object models).

To emphasise what this is referring to – it’s a network in the cloud, called RoboEarth, the lets robots learn new skills from each other without human input. It’s not the Singularity, but it’s a start.

Here’s a video of an early version of RoboEarth, being used in 2011 by a robot called AMIGO in a care home setting (complete with banging soundtrack):

Today’s the day the team at Eindhoven University that created AMIGO and RoboEarth will run a full-scale test. Four robots will be placed into a hospital-like room, turned on, and allowed to learn as they go along what it is that they have to do. To do that, they’ll have to download instructions from each other so that they can work out how to tend to a fake patient’s needs, be it preparing medicines and food or making sure that they don’t bump into each other.

To understand why this is exciting, let’s look at Tesla, whose electric cars – which only have a few moving components – are mostly controlled by the effects of software. Instead of costly product recalls, Tesla has been able to wirelessly beam updates to each car in the wild, which within minutes has solved potential overheating issues or extended the range of its vehicles by a few miles.

Our future robotic infrastructure will likely rely on a similar conceit, with incremental improvements in software just as important as they are for home computing. And, just as Wikipedia works through an ever-improving group effort of editing and refinement, something like RoboEarth – with input from both humans and robots – could allow the rapid propogation of better software than any centralised alternative.

Quite a lot like how human societies change, learn, and improve, in fact. Maybe Skynet isn’t such a wild comparison.

Content from our partners
The promise of prevention
How Labour hopes to make the UK a leader in green energy
Is now the time to rethink health and care for older people? With Age UK

Select and enter your email address Your weekly guide to the best writing on ideas, politics, books and culture every Saturday. The best way to sign up for The Saturday Read is via saturdayread.substack.com The New Statesman's quick and essential guide to the news and politics of the day. The best way to sign up for Morning Call is via morningcall.substack.com Our Thursday ideas newsletter, delving into philosophy, criticism, and intellectual history. The best way to sign up for The Salvo is via thesalvo.substack.com Stay up to date with NS events, subscription offers & updates. Weekly analysis of the shift to a new economy from the New Statesman's Spotlight on Policy team. The best way to sign up for The Green Transition is via spotlightonpolicy.substack.com
  • Administration / Office
  • Arts and Culture
  • Board Member
  • Business / Corporate Services
  • Client / Customer Services
  • Communications
  • Construction, Works, Engineering
  • Education, Curriculum and Teaching
  • Environment, Conservation and NRM
  • Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance
  • Finance Management
  • Health - Medical and Nursing Management
  • HR, Training and Organisational Development
  • Information and Communications Technology
  • Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives
  • Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities
  • Legal Officers and Practitioners
  • Librarians and Library Management
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • OH&S, Risk Management
  • Operations Management
  • Planning, Policy, Strategy
  • Printing, Design, Publishing, Web
  • Projects, Programs and Advisors
  • Property, Assets and Fleet Management
  • Public Relations and Media
  • Purchasing and Procurement
  • Quality Management
  • Science and Technical Research and Development
  • Security and Law Enforcement
  • Service Delivery
  • Sport and Recreation
  • Travel, Accommodation, Tourism
  • Wellbeing, Community / Social Services
Visit our privacy Policy for more information about our services, how New Statesman Media Group may use, process and share your personal data, including information on your rights in respect of your personal data and how you can unsubscribe from future marketing communications.
THANK YOU