Robotics

We get the term robot from the czech word robota, meaning work. Man is always trying to find ways to make life easier, and a robot that does everything for you is the essence and ultimate goal of that ambition. This ambition has led to countless innovations, from the humble toaster, which removes the need to watch your toast in a grill, to the most advanced military robots which remove the need for humans in the battlefield. Are UAV is online!
 * Robotics**

**What are machines good and bad at, compared to humans?** Machines and computers are extremely good at maths, but that’s about it. A computer can make literally millions of mathematical calculations per second, but ask it an open ended question and it’ll get stuck. This is because a computers ‘brain’ is it’s processor, which is nothing more than a collection of minute transistors on a wafer of silicone. A transistor is basically a switch, with two states, on and off, these translate directly to the binary language that is passed to the processor by the operating system kernel. This setup produces a system that is extremely good at calculations with a definite answer and makes computers far far better than maths than any human could ever be. What they aren’t so good at is questions without a definite answer, computers are inherently incapable of thinking for themselves, they cannot conceptualise the notion of existence; computers can’t be self aware. Many people fear the “Robot Invasion” where computers are made ‘too intelligent’ and decide to overthrow their human commanders. While this might be a good story for a movie, it is in practice, impossible. This is because, while it is true that computers do not have a concept of right or wrong, they also cannot think for themselves which means that invading the world and destroying the human race, wouldn’t and couldn’t occur to a machine. This lack of a conscience can also be a problem, is has been said that the biggest problem with computers is that they do exactly what you tell them to do, without question. This makes machines very obliging henchmen for bad guys. It also means that when something goes wrong, it can’t very easily recover the situation, if for example, a robot drops something, and it hans’t been programmed to pick it up again, the system will crash because the computer controlling the robot will not know what to do. **What can this tell us about the way the human mind works?** Compared to the computer, the human brain is a fantastically resourceful problem solver. This can be shown by something as simple as putting a raincoat on in adverse weather - it’s a very simple thought “It’s raining, I’ll get wet, I’d better put a coat on” that would never occur to a robot, unless it had been specifically programmed to put a coat on if it was raining, which to a robot would be a complex set of commands. First, you’d have to teach the robot what rain was, either by programming in what rain looked like through the robots eyes, or by linking the robot to a rain sensor. Next you’d have to tell it that it should put a coat on if it detects rain. Finally you’d have to teach it where to find a coat, how to put the coat on and when to take it off again. The reason behind this is, as humans we are self aware, we know that going out in the rain is probably something that we’d like to avoid. This knowledge is based on past experience, computers, unless specifically programmed to cross reference the present conditions with past experiences, cannot learn from experience, they will simply repeat the programmed commands. A robot will move itself into harms way time and time again, if that is what it has been programmed to do, and if something happens that it is not programmed to deal with, it will crash. This is another way in which humans and computers differ, humans innovate, visualise and invent. Show a man a pile of wood and some matches and ask him for a fire and he’ll make one, given the same command and materials a machine will tell you that it doesn’t have any fires and that it cannot complete the command. Computers are incapable of dealing with unforeseen circumstances, while humans are very good at coming up with solutions to problems they haven’t seen before. **What are the limitations of using machines as tools?** There are many advantages to using robots and machines, not least that a machine will run 27/7/365 without pay, food, sleep or even light. The overall aim is to create a totally autonomous production line where raw materials go in one side of a dark room, and finished products come out the other end. While we are moving towards this today, machines aren’t 100% reliable, and will always require maintenance. This is a problem with the automated production line is by having each station reliant on a robot, you introduce a single point of failure, which means that should any machine or computer along the production line fail then it will have a knock on effect on the entire line, depending on the design of the production line, production could cease completely. Another limitation is that you have to program the machines how to make new products, it is not easy to make very small adjustments to production items; while you could just tell or show a human worker to make something differently, you must provide a completely new set of commands for a robot to make a new product.