Robots at the Science Museum
On Monday, we went to see
Robots
at the Science Museum. This is billed as "the 500-year quest to make machines human". It seems odd, then, that the exhibition starts with clocks and a mechanical swan, but then I remembered that "human" is an adjective as well as a noun. That is, it's not just about making machines that look and behave like humans, like C-3PO and R Daneel Olivaw, but about making machines that can do things that previously, only a human could do.
Most of the machines in the early part of the exhibition are, strictly speaking, automata rather than robots. The distinction is that an automaton always follows a predetermined sequence of instructions, without having any ability to behave differently based on what's happening around it. Such things can still be useful, of course - a clock is an automaton, for example.
The middle of the exhibition is mainly about robots in film. I'm not sure this is wise, as movie robots are generally nothing like the real thing - often being far more advanced in some respects and far more primitive in others. I'm reminded of Forbidden Planet, where the crew of the starship from Earth are amazed that Robby can navigate the ship on his own, but nobody thinks it remarkable that he can walk on two legs over rough terrain and understand arbitrary English sentences. We've had spaceships that can fly themselves for half a century, but walking and listening are still works in progress.
We then come to a section about robots that were built for research. It says a lot about how complex humans are that every one of these focused on a specific area of activity. So there are heads to study vision and social interaction, pairs of legs to study walking, and arms and hands to study grasp and touch. (The makers of one arm were proud that their creation could pick up a pint glass full of beer without spilling any of it. Whether they then built a head that could drink the beer isn't recorded.)
Finally there are some real robots - real in the sense of being built to serve some practical purpose. The star of the show here is undoubtedly Pepper, described as the first robot that can perceive and understand human emotions. You're encouraged to interact with it - you can shake its hand, pat its head and let it tell you a story. For a robot that's big on emotion, though, its face is oddly unexpressive. Its mouth and eyes can't move, though it can change the colour of the latter. I wonder if the programmers thought to allow for the fact that colours have different meanings in different cultures...
It might have been nice to have some thoughts or opinions on what it means for humanity as robots become more capable and more widespread, but there's only so much space available. For what it's worth, I don't believe robots will kill us all (not deliberately, anyway). They might take most of our jobs, but that doesn't mean 90% of us have to starve. They could render our lives meaningless (this was one endgame that Asimov explored in his later novels), but they'd need to be a lot more sophisticated than they are now. I don't fear robots as such; I fear robots under the control of humans who don't have the best interests of other humans at heart.
Robots runs until 3rd September 2017, and tickets are £15 for adults (including an optional donation to the museum). Allow an hour to an hour and a half to go round.
Most of the machines in the early part of the exhibition are, strictly speaking, automata rather than robots. The distinction is that an automaton always follows a predetermined sequence of instructions, without having any ability to behave differently based on what's happening around it. Such things can still be useful, of course - a clock is an automaton, for example.
The middle of the exhibition is mainly about robots in film. I'm not sure this is wise, as movie robots are generally nothing like the real thing - often being far more advanced in some respects and far more primitive in others. I'm reminded of Forbidden Planet, where the crew of the starship from Earth are amazed that Robby can navigate the ship on his own, but nobody thinks it remarkable that he can walk on two legs over rough terrain and understand arbitrary English sentences. We've had spaceships that can fly themselves for half a century, but walking and listening are still works in progress.
We then come to a section about robots that were built for research. It says a lot about how complex humans are that every one of these focused on a specific area of activity. So there are heads to study vision and social interaction, pairs of legs to study walking, and arms and hands to study grasp and touch. (The makers of one arm were proud that their creation could pick up a pint glass full of beer without spilling any of it. Whether they then built a head that could drink the beer isn't recorded.)
Finally there are some real robots - real in the sense of being built to serve some practical purpose. The star of the show here is undoubtedly Pepper, described as the first robot that can perceive and understand human emotions. You're encouraged to interact with it - you can shake its hand, pat its head and let it tell you a story. For a robot that's big on emotion, though, its face is oddly unexpressive. Its mouth and eyes can't move, though it can change the colour of the latter. I wonder if the programmers thought to allow for the fact that colours have different meanings in different cultures...
It might have been nice to have some thoughts or opinions on what it means for humanity as robots become more capable and more widespread, but there's only so much space available. For what it's worth, I don't believe robots will kill us all (not deliberately, anyway). They might take most of our jobs, but that doesn't mean 90% of us have to starve. They could render our lives meaningless (this was one endgame that Asimov explored in his later novels), but they'd need to be a lot more sophisticated than they are now. I don't fear robots as such; I fear robots under the control of humans who don't have the best interests of other humans at heart.
Robots runs until 3rd September 2017, and tickets are £15 for adults (including an optional donation to the museum). Allow an hour to an hour and a half to go round.
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