Honda’s Asimo…The future has begun

25. December 2008 by admin.

I went with my family to Disneyland at the beginning of December.  In the House of Innoventions (in TomorrowLand) is something pretty incredible…Asimo the robot.

Let me tell you why Asimo (“Advanced Step in Innovative mobility”) is incredible.  When I was in college, I studied Cognitive Science, which included understanding why computers can’t think and can’t become sentient simply because their complexity increases exponentially.  I had a professor, John Searle (a brilliant guy who inspired me tremendously), who was notorious for having written the Chinese Room Hypothesis, which proved that because computers can formally arrange symbols in an order which emulates (‘emulates’ being the key word) human speech, doesn’t mean that the computer actually understands the symbols it has arranged.  (Note: Searle wrote a number of books, including “Intentionality” and “Speech Acts” which are amazing books—you should check them out if you get a chance).

You might think this is a relatively obvious point to make, but you’d be surprised at the number of people in artificial intelligence who didn’t (and still don’t) get this, including Marvin Minsky, Putnam at Stanford, and most of all, Ray Kurzweil.

In any event, Searle hypothesized that what gives humans the ability to communicate semantically is what he called ‘deep background’—empirical learning which occurs as children mature and interact with their environment, learning which can’t (at least easily) be taught to a machine.  This includes simple things like walking up stairs and navigating obstacles in a room.

Well, Honda managed to accomplish something amazing with Asimo—they created a robot which can not only walk up stairs bipedally and navigate obstacles, but can also run!  Yes, it actually can have both legs leave the ground at the same time.  This is amazing to see.

Asimo is a 4’ (or so) robot which has arms and legs and can speak interactively with people. Honda designed it to assist disabled people or elderly people with tasks requiring mobility and domestic tasks.   This isn’t  a ‘wait 30 years and see what happens’ creation—it is something which can now or soon be used commercially.

Chances are that if you have children after 2020 or so, you will be able to buy a robot which can act as a Nanny, home medical monitor, and security sentry, and Asimo will play a role in making that happen.

What is depressing is that the U.S. couldn’t come up with this, though that’s not to take away anything from the Japanese in realizing this amazing achievement.

If you are in Disneyland, check out Asimo.  If you can’t make it to Disneyland, check out Asimo’s website.

Posted in Uncategorized | Print | 1 Comment »