A Review of Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind

AI Magazine Volume 20 Number 3 (1999) (© AAAI) Book Review

in this graph is just a foretaste of the Robot: Mere Machine degree to which Moravec will go in predicting the future. This book traces robotic history, projects the field’s to Transcendent Mind immediate future, and travels well beyond. Without giving away the A Review ending, suffice it to say that in this book, the reader will be treated to such ideas as, “What is reality any- way?” (p. 195). Another idea is that Bonnie Holte Bennett perhaps the most unsettling implication of this train of thought is that anything can be interpreted as possessing any ans Moravec’s new book, lar escalation of the estimates of the abstract property, including con- Robot: Mere Machine to Tran- complexity of human intelligence. sciousness and intelligence. Giv- Hscendent Mind, will delight With regard to the first caveat, en the right playbook, the ther- readers familiar with this work. Moravec’s estimates of animal equiva- mal jostling of the atoms in a Moravec’s strengths—his insightful lence are based solely on hardware rock can be seen as the operation data analysis, extrapolation of tech- complexity. It is often the case that of a complete, self–aware mind nology to extreme conclusions, and hardware alone cannot deliver perfor- (after Evert) (Everett, H., Many– provocative predictions—are all here mance, but it also requires software Worlds of Interpretation/ Quantum and will probably gain him some new sufﬁcient to the task. Thus, projecting Mechanics, Princeton University fans. “human equivalence” in computer Press, 1973, p. 199). His insightful data analysis, for hardware does not mean that “human Yes, it is all here—quantum physics, example, includes plots of computing equivalent software” will be ready to chaos, cosmology, and more. trends of the last century, comparing run on the hardware. With regard to Moravec’s panoramic grasp of science mechanical, electromechanical, and the second caveat, neuroscientists reg- and technology is not unlike a good electronic computing capabilities in ularly adjust upward the estimate of carnival ride, exhilarating and some- terms of computational power per human brain complexity. This upward times exhausting. Parts of the book unit cost (MIPS per $1000 in 1998 U.S. estimation has the effect of extending need to be savored and digested slow- dollars) across time. This summarizes the estimated time at which comput- ly, if only because of their density and the evolution of computer power per magnitude. As for provocative predic- unit of cost. Readers of his previous tions, this book will not disappoint. book, Mind Children (Harvard Univer- Topics include virtual immortality, sity Press, 1988) will recognize the ultimate transcendence, and time current graph as a reﬁnement of one travel, to name just a few. Hans Moravec, Robot: Mere that appeared in the earlier book. The chapters run approximately Machine to Transcendent Mind. Three things become clear from this chronologically. Chapter 1, “Escape Oxford.: Oxford University refined analysis: (1) computing Velocity,” introduces some of the Press, 1999. 227 pp. $25.00. progress has been tightly coupled themes of the book. It also includes ISBN 0–19–511630–5. around a trend line; (2) this makes some interesting graphs showing a predictions of future technologies rea- correlation between U.S. air pollution sonable by extrapolation; and (3) and wealth that suggests that we’ve there’s been an interesting accelera- survived the dirty industrial revolu- tion over the last 30 years, even on tion and are living richer and cleaner this logarithmic scale. The last point is ers will reach human equivalence. lives, having mended our evil ways. a new addition to this. These data Indeed, Moravec’s estimates have We’re using our wealth to live more allow predictions about when com- increased too. In 1988, he projected pristinely, and the future looks bright. puters will cross the boundaries of computers will reach human equiva- Chapter 2, “Caution Robot Vehicle,” complexity equivalent to a lizard lence in a supercomputer in the years traces the last 30 years of robotics (approximately the years 2002–2008), 2000 to 2005 and in a personal com- research, with particular detail on the a mouse (approximately the years puter by 2028 to 2030+. The 1999 Stanford University and Carnegie Mel- 2008–2017), a monkey (approximate- estimate is 2020 to 2030+. However, lon University labs with which ly the years 2013–2028), and a human these details are minor. This graph is Moravec has been affiliated. It is an (approximately the years 2020– fascinating in its scope and breadth excellent history and summary of the 2030+). There are, however a few and particularly notable in its predic- progress made. Chapter 3, “Power and caveats to consider: (1) these are hard- tive capabilities. It is vintage Moravec. Presence,” sets up the paradigms used ware estimates and (2) there is a regu- The insightful extrapolation of data throughout the rest of the book. These

Call for Papers

The Fifth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Planning and Scheduling Systems (AIPS 2000)

April 14-17, 2000, Breckenridge, Colorado, USA Co-loca ted with KR 2000, April 12-15, 2000

The International Conference on AI Planning and Scheduling Systems is being held in cooper ation with AAAI and wil l bring together researchers working on all aspects of planning, scheduling, planning and learning, and plan execution. The format of the conference will include paper presentations, invited speakers, panel discussions, workshops, and competitions among implemented planning, scheduling, and execution systems. Topics of interest include:

- Planning algorithms - Planning and reasoning about action and change - Planning and learning - Planning and temporal reasoning - Planning under uncertainty - Decision-theoretic planning - Scheduling al gorithms - Co nstraint management in p lanning and scheduling - Resource management, Mixed-initiative planning - Multi -agent planning - Plan execution, monitoring and replanning - Agent architectures for planning and control - Active perception and sensor-based planning - Reactive systems - Applications and domain-specific techniques - Plan and schedule visualization - Issues in fielding planning and scheduling systems - Connections between planning and CSP/OR

The paper Submissio n Deadl ine is November 1, 1999. The Workshop Submission Deadline is December 15, 1999. We plan to provide special recognition to papers of exceptional quality. For more information on workshops, the main conference, and the competitions see http://www.isi.edu/aips.

paradigms include the basis for com- vides a cheap, clean access to space, cussion of a personally uninteresting putational complexity; storage and and time travel. discipline so that the real reward is processing speeds that are delineated This summary of the chapters leads never reached. here; and the graph predicting com- to a caution I would make in recom- Moravec’s work has epic propor- puter growth, along with others docu- mending this book to colleagues. tions. He engenders provocative dis- menting chess successes and computa- Some people, for example, my cussion and provides daring insight. tional power. Chapter 4, “Universal philosopher friends, might be less His new book is destined to be the Robots,” delineates four generations of interested in the technical detail. To classic his previous book has become. universal robots that will appear over them I would say, “Skim chapters 2 the next half–century. The ﬁnal gener- and 5; don’t let them bog you down. ation includes superrational robots You can skip them for now and come with emotional displays. Chapter 5, back to them if you want.” For analyt- Bonnie Holte Bennett is director of the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and an “The Age of Robots,” chapter 6, “The ic readers, I might encourage them to associate professor in the Graduate Pro- Age of Mind,” and chapter 7, “Mind start with chapter 3 as a “hook.” The grams in Software at the University of St. Fire,” look at the future, beyond the point is there is something very Thomas. Her e-mail address is point where robots surpass human rewarding in this book for many peo- [email protected]. capabilities. In these chapters are con- ple, but the vastness of some sections cepts as intriguing as the “syn- might overwhelm them, and it would chronous orbital bridge,” which pro- be a shame to be lost in the rich dis-

FALL 1999 93 New Proceedings from AAAI Press

Proceedings of the Proceedings of the Seventh International Conference Twelfth International Florida on Intelligent Systems for Artiﬁcial Intelligence Research Molecular Biology Society Conference

Edited by Thomas Lengauer, Reinhard Schneider, Edited by Amruth Kumar and Ingrid Russell Peer Bork, Douglas Brutlag, Janice Glasgow, he Florida AI Research Society Conference was founded in Hans-Werner Mewes, and Ralf Zimmer T1987 to promote and advance AI research within the state he ISMB conference series provides a general forum for of Florida, fostering interaction between researchers at col- Tdisseminating the latest developments in bioinformatics. leges, universities, and industry. Since 1990, Florida AI ISMB is a multidisciplinary conference that brings together Research Society conferences have been broadened to include scientists from computer science, mathematics, molecular participants and papers from across North America and the biology, and statistics. Its scope includes the development and world. This year's proceedings covers a wide range of topics, application of advanced computational methods for biological including applications, computer vision, evolutionary compu- problems. Relevant computational techniques include tation, intelligent agents, knowledge-based systems, learning machine learning, pattern recognition, knowledge representa- and AI, logic and AI, logic programming, natural language tion, databases, combinatorics, stochastic modeling, string processing, planning, AI applied to spacecraft autonomy, evo- and graph algorithms, linguistic methods, robotics, constraint lutionary computation, intelligent tutoring systems, knowl- satisfaction, and parallel computation. Biological areas of edge management, neural network applications, parallel and interest include biomolecular structure, genomics, biomolecu- distributed reasoning, reasoning about function, spatiotempo- lar sequence analysis, evolution, and phylogenetics, biomolec- ral reasoning, uncertain reasoning, and verification, valida- ular interactions, metabolic pathways, regulatory networks, tion, and knowledge-base reﬁnement. developmental control, and molecular biology generally. ISBN 1-57735-080-4 560 pp., illus., index Emphasis is placed on the validation of methods using real $50.00 softcover data sets, on practical applications in the biological sciences, and on development of novel computational techniques. ISBN 1-57735-083-9 324 pp., illus., references, index $45.00 softcover

Published by the AAAI Press 445 Burgess Drive Menlo Park, California 94025 To order, call 650-328-3123. http://www.aaai.org/Press/

94 AI MAGAZINE