Robotics and the Meaning of Life

[Andrew Rudolph]

The Open University in the UK, has found a practical use for Asimov's robot stories. They're being used as part of a robotics class, called Robotics and the Meaning of Life: a practical guide to things that think. The Laws of Robotics are considered in terms of real control architectures such as subsumption and on the practicality of using them to design safe robots. Asimov's Laws are just one part of a larger course that reviews the history and state of the art in robotics from R.U.R. and the Turing Test to Moore's law. Students get hands-on experience using a Lego Mindstorms compatible robotics simulator called OU-Robotlab. Required reading for the course includes Asimov's I, Robot, and Ruth Aylett's Robots: Bringing Intelligent Machines to Life.

From a robots.net news article

http://tscp.open.ac.uk/t184.htm

[Ryan M.]

Originally Posted by Andrew Rudolph

I hate when people just say "subsumption". That doesn't mean anything... I mean, subsuming what?! You need the "architechture." Sorry, off topic.

Meaning of life from robots. Some people have boring lives, apparently...

[Andrew Rudolph]

Subsumption Architecture is a theory about building things. Some people call it Brooksonian.

[Astronouth7303]

Boring lives? I don't have a life.

42. that's all I need.

[Adam Y.]

I hate when people just say "subsumption". That doesn't mean anything... I mean, subsuming what?! You need the "architechture." Sorry, off topic.

Actually they did use the word architechture before subsumption. I sort of realized that the Three Laws were actually subsumption architechture a while ago. Every law can be overruled by the one above it. Even the first law could overridden multiple times by itself.