Teaching Robot Learners To Ask Good Questions

To some extent I disagree that dogs do not learn as humans. Its a reward and/or pain/discipline system and it works well on both. Robots on the other hand, may not feel reward or pain, so something new does need to be developed.

I will agree with his disagreement on the first line. As a retired hobbyist I am hugely directly connected to the current state of robots. They are stagnant, dead, and useless with the exception of the Vacuum cleaner bots. There are some super high end stuff going on, but it is far more akin to smart remote control. Computers are not anywhere near fast enough at present. And as long as we stick to the von neumann model for their design probably will not be for 20-30 more years.

But i have been an advocate of having moral discussion now, before it is too late. Saw a good short clip this am; http://boingboing.net/2012/03/08/disturbing-and-poignant-video.html [boingboing.net] about a robot that becomes self aware. Do we kill her, or let her be free? If we let her be free, what incentive ($$$) does anyone have to build her? If she is a slave (ie sold for profit) can we justify the treatment of any self aware being that way? And if so, why not retroactive?

Anyhow, back top the subject; we need research in that area. Today for a current project I am looking at http://mnemstudio.org/path-finding-q-learning-tutorial.htm [mnemstudio.org] for ideas on what is going on now. I assume it the field will advance.

Source: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdotScience/~3/Zq6BbnAgQco/teaching-robot-learners-to-ask-good-questions

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