Awesome Lifelike Quadruped Walking Robot

Ok, it's very late at night but I'll blame it on the jet-lag. Although of course it's not jet-lag, it's just my lifestyle.

I felt the obligation to post this video due to the sheer numbers of friends from across the world who have emailed this link to me. The lifelikeness of this robot's motion is really eerie. Of course, my robots roll rather than walk, but I can certainly appreciate the vast amount of work that goes into making a machine operate with this level of flexibility, speed, and robustness!



Of course, thinking of this technology in military hands is a little scary. I just got back from a robotics conference where they had a whole panel discussion on robo-ethics, and a lot of that centered around the military use of robots. Not to delve into that abyss at the moment, but watching this video in that context does conjure up images of unstoppable invading robot armies swarming across the landscape...

The Wrong Side of the Brain

So... I was all psyched to participate in this experiment where they were going to scan my brain and stuff. I was really looking forward to it and hoping I could get a screencapture or two of my brain in action.

Alas, I was disqualified during the initial screening. Why? Because I'm left-handed. Apparently left-handed people tend to have screwy brain wiring and thus don't make good experimental subjects for these sorts of experiments.

Bummed out about that, I came home and did some reading on Wikipedia and whatnot. It looks like the term for what I am is "cross-dominant", since I favor my left hand for some tasks (writing, using scissors, mousing - generally things requiring precision) and my right for others (baseball, splitting wood, hockey, etc. - generally things requiring strength). On top of that, I'm right-footed, but left-eyed. I don't know which is my dominant ear, but I suspect it's my left.

I'm really curious as to how this affects my cognitive processing and my brain's layout.. apparently there are all sorts of variations between people and an endless supply of theories out there as to causes.

I also ran across this rather interesting article, showing a direct correlation between murder rates (!) and left-handedness in primitive societies. But even though lots of half-baked theories exist, the conclusion seems to be that basically nobody has any idea what handedness is all about.

Of course, whenever I sit around pondering why I'm left-handed, I remind myself that there are deeper mysteries in the world - for example, why I am I. That one has been spinning my head around for years now. And then I am content to let the questions lie. Until the next unexplainable mystery pops into my head. ;)

And of course, I had to take a 20-question quiz to see what it said. I don't know what these results mean in light of my cross-dominance, however. But I do think "cross-dominance" is a pretty kickass-sounding term. :)

(is there such thing as "cross-submissiveness", for that matter? ;)
(and should "kickass-sounding" actually be doubly-hyphenated?)

You Are 15% Left Brained, 85% Right Brained

The left side of your brain controls verbal ability, attention to detail, and reasoning. Left brained people are good at communication and persuading others. If you're left brained, you are likely good at math and logic. Your left brain prefers dogs, reading, and quiet. The right side of your brain is all about creativity and flexibility. Daring and intuitive, right brained people see the world in their unique way. If you're right brained, you likely have a talent for creative writing and art. Your right brain prefers day dreaming, philosophy, and sports.

Are You Right or Left Brained?

um... dogs? Prefers them to what? To cats? Or to ... lack of dogs?

Balanced Steps

As many of you know, I'm often criticized for my less-than-symmetrical choices of footwear. Yet it seems that this time the asymmetrical boot is on the other foot, so to speak.

Evidently there are some who would spend nearly $200 on a pair of boots and yet not notice while trying them on in the store that the left is substantially larger than the right... maybe someone's mind was on her puppy rather than on her dogs. ;)

[ed - so I actually wrote this in reference to my girlfriend at the time, but then got a perplexed email from my mom. Apparently, at the same time my girlfriend had bought these boots, my mom had also bought a pair of boots, one of which was too big for her, which she hadn't noticed... and she also had a puppy!]

Clinton vs Obama

My friend Berta just posted this article on Facebook: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200712/obama

I haven't been following the political race too closely, but I think this article brings out a number of interesting points. It's also more well-written than any summary I could write, but I'll write one anyway for the "skimmers" who seem to be so disproportionately overrepresented in my blog readership... :P

First, the main thrust of the article is that the most important thing about this election is not about the specifics of what we're going to do in Iraq, or how the health care system will evolve, or policy about gay marriage... there aren't so many dramatic differences between candidates' stances on these issues, in terms of what actions they would realistically take.

The article's main argument is that, moreso than these specific policy issues, the biggest issue is the deep schism in American society that reaches back to Vietnam, the hippies, and the Civil Rights movement, a problem which has been greatly exacerbated by the fundamentalist right leaning of the Bush administration. It argues that Obama would be a much better choice than Clinton in terms of unifying the nation and bridging this divide.

There are two other points I found salient in the article. The first was sort of a sidenote, but it made me think... nobody questions the power of the media in shaping the outcome of an election. However, a divided nation voting between diametrically opposed candidates provides an exciting and dramatic battle, captures the public interest, and consequently boosts ratings. So really, healing the nation is not in the interest of the media. Keeping things tense and divided makes for a better show.

Another, unrelated, point was that many of the children in the Middle East have never known any American president other than Bush, and it is critically important to change the image that America projects if we want to gain the trust of the Muslim world.

Anyway, as I said, the article is much more well-written than any summary I can provide. My English skills are really going downhill, as are my Japanese skills. Soon I will only be able to communicate in grunts, gestures, and source code.

A Short Memento

Ok, I know I've been terrible about blogging for ... well, since last November, when I nearly killed myself with NaBloPoMo.
I can't possibly catch up on everything in one post.

... or can I?

Well, certainly not with pictures anyway, but I can hit the highlights.

Let's go in reverse chronological order, shall we? Sort of Memento-style.

This Evening

I recover, trying to gain my bearings. What happened, an earthquake or something?! Standing in the kitchen... it looks like I'm in the middle of making some lemonade. I finish filling the two-liter pitcher with water, and try it. Wow, that's insanely sweet! I probably could have made ten liters with that...

I pour a cup and go sit at my computer to blog.

Earlier This Evening

Settling in at home on a quiet, rainy night, I go to the fridge to find... no juice to be found. Nothing at all to drink, really. I'm not about to go juicing shiitake mushrooms, and I'm not really up for wine or anything, so I decide to make some lemonade.

As this page says, everybody remembers the ingredients, but not necessarily the quantities. I followed the instructions - one cup sugar, one cup lemon juice, one cup water, and take a sip... sensory overload and the world goes black... whoever wrote that web page was trying to kill someone.

Sunday

I wake up. It's twilight outside... I'm in bed. The clock says it's around five. Am? Pm? I go shower and shave, and it's night by the time I get out. Guess it was PM. I go to the store and pick up a lot of groceries. So many that I don't seem to have room for juice. Has it been this long since I've been food shopping?

Saturday

I step off the plane, go through immigration and customs, and walk out of the airport heavily overdressed. Despite the autumn chill in the air, I find that I'm sweating. I strip off my jacket and overshirt, and buy my ticket for the bus into Osaka.

Thursday night

I am standing in a large room, bright white fluorescent lights mounted all across the wall facing me, in sort of a zigzag pattern. I turn around, and vast planes of blue stretch out above and below me. I'm feeling a little sleepy, and I get the nagging feeling that I need to go pack my bags.

Earlier thursday night

Nick walks into the hotel lobby. "Hey Dylan! Long time, no see! So are you ready to head out to the modern art museum?"


Haha... ok, writing like this takes too much time and thought. I'll never get back to the summer, or even my birthday party for that matter.

Guess I'll have to try again tomorrow. Almost over the jet lag, so I'm actually starting to get sleepy at 4am.
'night

Dylan's 20th Birthday!

Hey everybody,
Tomorrow's my birthday! That's right... I'm going to be 20!
Gonna have a great party. I promise I'll post pics!
Anyway, heading out soon to go enjoy my last night of being 1F years old... ;)

Intelligence

Cracking Go

So I was playing with Facebook today, and I ran across a link to this IEEE Spectrum article entitled "Cracking Go". Much more complex than chess, the game of go provides an extremely difficult challenge for computers due to the vast number of possible moves at any time and the complexity of evaluating board positions. Essentially what the author is saying in this article is that due to continually increasing computing power and improved search algorithms, he predicts that in the near future, computers will be able to beat the world's greatest masters at the game of go.

I don't disagree with him on that point. However, throughout the article he continually sings the praises of "brute force" techniques, touting them as being superior to AI techniques that mimic human reasoning because they are simpler to program, leading to fewer bugs, and they scale smoothly with computing power.

I don't disagree with him on those points either. Certainly, with sufficient processing power and clever pruning of decision trees and caching of information, brute force techniques can and will beat top-ranking go masters someday.

But is this interesting?

I would say no. It would certainly be an impressive accomplishment from an engineering standpoint, but I don't think I would call it artificial intelligence. Or even a significant step towards artificial intelligence. Brute force, even brute force with finesse, isn't intelligent.

Man vs Machine

I'd like to mention two other topics addressing this point. First, another IEEE Spectrum article, "Psyching out Computer Chess Players", (which is shorter and maybe a more interesting read for non-computer geeks than the previous article) described the current state of computer chess programs. Essentially, it says that chess grandmasters are still able to hold their own against today's most advanced computer opponents, in spite of the fact that both their hardware and software have improved dramatically since Deep Blue's historic defeat of Kasparov in 1997.

The point the article brings up is that human players are good at long-term strategy, while computers are good at rapid calculation. Thus, anticomputer strategies often hinge on setting up many moves ahead for critical positions which are beyond the computer's prediction horizon. To me, the ability to do that is a clear sign of great intelligence on the part of the human players, and absolute lack of intelligence on the part of the computer. I really don't think that we can say computers have become much more "intelligent" as long as they rely on primarily brute-force methods.

Or can we? What does intelligence mean in the first place? Why do we care whether a computer can beat a human at chess? I always thought that what we cared about was how intelligent the computer was, and assumed that chess was a good test of intelligence. After all, it requires analysis, understanding, strategy, creativity, flexibility, and guts. In my mind, however, a brute-force approach has the effect of removing all of those interesting elements from the problem! Instead of creating machines which can reason, understand, doubt, guess, be creative, take risks, and plan ahead, we are instead creating soulless systems that are ruthlessly efficient at evaluating hundreds of millions of board positions per second. That's not creating intelligence... it's sidestepping the problem.

My Latest Addiction

I bought a Rubik's Cube the other day, and it said on the package, "If you can solve it without looking at a book, your IQ is at least 130." What does that mean, solve it without looking at a book? Does that mean to solve it through on-the-spot intuitive analysis? Clearly, looking at a book would give you all the algorithms you need to solve the cube "without thinking". But... what if you developed those same algorithms yourself, and then used them? Where does the "intelligence" happen? What if you really are using algorithms subconsciously, and you don't realize it? I think that happens often. I tend to find myself making the same sequences of moves over and over again to solve the same kinds of problems, without ever having stopped to think "ok, this is an algorithm for solving this situation".

Maybe part of the "intelligence" is in the process of creative synthesis, where random twists of the cube are distilled into general patterns. Certainly that could be done in a brute-force way, but not very efficiently... the efficiency comes from recognizing patterns and arriving at the algorithms through educated guesses and learning from mistakes. A billion monkeys with a billion cubes might by chance arrive at a complete set of algorithms necessary for solving a cube, but given the choice I'd rather hire three real smart people to do it.

Another, and more essential, part of the "intelligence", I think, is the planning process. The problem definition. Who says we need algorithms in the first place? Seeing that need is the first important thing, and then you have to break the problem down into its component parts: algorithms for switching the corners, for twisting the corners, for interchanging the edges, etc. This top-level strategy is something that even a billion monkeys wouldn't come up with.

As for my personal cube technique, I'm teaching myself a new system for solving it. My old technique was to solve one side, then put the corners in place, then to exchange the edge pieces last. It was pretty easy, and I could pretty consistently solve the cube in under 5 minutes. Sometimes under 4. There wasn't much thinking involved, and I was limited mostly by my physical speed and the inefficiency of my algorithms. It was something that even one monkey (albeit VERY well trained) could do.

The new technique I'm learning is this speed-cubing technique. This strategy of building out from the corner rather than solving an entire face first makes a lot of sense. However, I have been solving one face of the cube since I was a little kid. The algorithms for doing that are so deeply ingrained in my mind that it's almost unconscious. Yet this approach requires a different set of techniques. I find I'm much slower with this new system, but the process of solving the cube is much more interesting. It's less mechanical, and I have to use my intuition more, especially during the first stages. It's a real challenge to my mind, not in terms of memorizing 7-move sequences or anything, but actually in terms of pushing the limits of my creativity, my spatial visualization, my lookahead. I'm limited much less by physical speed now and mostly by cognitive load. I'm slowly but steadily improving, and I certainly don't envision any monkeys catching up with me on this task.

The Future

So, where is this leading? Well, regarding AI, I would have to side with those who are trying to develop thinking machines rather than brute-force systems. Granted, statistical and brute-force approaches are useful and effective for the right tasks. Perhaps it's a trade-off - the cold, efficient reliability of a pocket calculator (or a machine gun) versus the creativity, insight, ... and perhaps also the fallibility, of man.

On the other hand, maybe the ability of computers to do boring, uninteresting calculations at blazing speeds will provide a much-needed wake-up call to our world's educational systems. We will abandon much of our rote memorization in favor of challenging, stimulating problems that push the limits of our creativity, of our insight, of our intelligent reasoning. We will do this because we are forced to. Like Kasparov, we need to take every advantage of our uniquely human abilities to out-think the computers, which are catching up to us at a ferocious pace, nipping, as it were, at our cognitive heels.

We must adapt and evolve, or be made obsolete. Maybe that "How to Survive a Robot Uprising" book I keep under my pillow will turn out to be useful after all.