Does the Future of Robots Get You Excited, or Fill You With Dread? – The New York Times

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Last week, a robotic hand successfully solved a Rubiks Cube. While that feat might seem like a fun parlor trick, its a sign that robots are being programmed to learn and not just memorize.

Robots are already playing important roles inside retail giants like Amazon and manufacturing companies like Foxconn by completing very specific, repetitive tasks. But many believe that machine learning will ultimately allow robots to master a much wider array of more complex functions.

When you imagine the future of robots and artificial intelligence, do you get excited? Do you envision a world of benefits for humankind? Or does an automated future fill you with concern and fear?

In If a Robotic Hand Solves a Rubiks Cube, Does It Prove Something? Cade Metz writes about how this five-fingered feat could show important progress in A.I. research:

Last week, on the third floor of a small building in San Franciscos Mission District, a woman scrambled the tiles of a Rubiks Cube and placed it in the palm of a robotic hand.

The hand began to move, gingerly spinning the tiles with its thumb and four long fingers. Each movement was small, slow and unsteady. But soon, the colors started to align. Four minutes later, with one more twist, it unscrambled the last few tiles, and a cheer went up from a long line of researchers watching nearby.

The researchers worked for a prominent artificial intelligence lab, OpenAI, and they had spent several months training their robotic hand for this task.

Though it could be dismissed as an attention-grabbing stunt, the feat was another step forward for robotics research. Many researchers believe it was an indication that they could train machines to perform far more complex tasks. That could lead to robots that can reliably sort through packages in a warehouse or to cars that can make decisions on their own.

The article continues:

A robot that can solve a Rubiks Cube is not new. Researchers previously designed machines specifically for the task devices that look nothing like a hand and they can solve the puzzle in less than a second. But building devices that work like a human hand is a painstaking process in which engineers spend months laying down rules that define each tiny movement.

The OpenAI project was an achievement of sorts because its researchers did not program each movement into their robotic hand. That might take decades, if not centuries, considering the complexity of a mechanical device with a thumb and four fingers. The labs researchers built a computer system that learned to solve the Rubiks Cube largely on its own.

What is exciting about this work is that the system learns, said Jeff Clune, a robotics professor at the University of Wyoming. It doesnt memorize one way to solve the problem. It learns.

Students, read the entire article, then tell us:

How do you feel about the future of robots, artificial intelligence and automation? Do you envision a world of progress? Or dystopian peril?

Do you fear countless professions becoming obsolete, the merging of humans and machines, an age of artificial intimacy or a potential robot uprising? Or are you excited about all the possibilities such a future could hold? Explain why you feel the way you do.

Researchers have already built machines to solve a Rubiks Cube in under a second. And even though OpenAIs hand can solve the puzzle in as little as four minutes, it drops the cube eight times out of 10. In your opinion, how big a deal is this robotic hand demonstration? Why do you think it made the news?

Students 13 and older are invited to comment. All comments are moderated by the Learning Network staff, but please keep in mind that once your comment is accepted, it will be made public.

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Does the Future of Robots Get You Excited, or Fill You With Dread? - The New York Times