Tag Archives: Ariel Schwartz

Intelligence, computers, and robots

Starting tonight, Feb. 14, 2011, you’ll be able to watch a computer compete against two former champions on the US television quiz programme, Jeopardy.  The match between the IBM computer, named Watson, and the most accomplished champions that have ever played on Jeopardy, Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, has been four years in the making. From the article by Julie Beswald on physorg.com,

“Let’s finish, ‘Chicks Dig Me’,” intones the somewhat monotone, but not unpleasant, voice of Watson, IBM’s new supercomputer built to compete on the game show Jeopardy!

The audience chuckles in response to the machine-like voice and its all-too-human assertion. But fellow contestant Ken Jennings gets the last laugh as he buzzes in and garners $1,000.

This exchange is part of a January 13 practice round for the world’s first man vs. machine game show. Scheduled to air February 14-16, the match pits Watson against the two best Jeopardy! players of all time. Jennings holds the record for the most consecutive games won, at 74. The other contestant, Brad Rutter, has winnings totaling over $3.2 million.

On Feb. 9, 2011, PBS’s NOVA science program broadcast a documentary about Watson whose name is derived from the company founder, Paul Watson, and not Sherlock Holmes’s companion and biographer, Dr. Watson. Titled the Smartest Machine on Earth, the show highlighted Watson’s learning process and some of the principles behind artificial intelligence. PBS’s website is featuring a live blogging event of tonight’s and the Feb. 15 and 16 matches. From the website,

On Monday [Feb. 14, 2011], our bloggers will be Nico Schlaefer and Hideki Shima, two Ph.D. students at Carnegie Mellon University’s Language Technologies Institute who worked on the Watson project.

At the same time that the ‘Watson’ event was being publicized last week, another news item on artificial intelligence and learning was making the rounds. From a Feb. 9, 2011 article by Mark Ward on BBC News ,

Robots could soon have an equivalent of the internet and Wikipedia.

European scientists have embarked on a project to let robots share and store what they discover about the world.

Called RoboEarth it will be a place that robots can upload data to when they master a task, and ask for help in carrying out new ones.

Researchers behind it hope it will allow robots to come into service more quickly, armed with a growing library of knowledge about their human masters. [emphasis mine]

You can read a first person account of the RoboEarth project on the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineering) Spectrum’s Automaton Robotics blog in a posting by Markus Waibel,

As part of the European project RoboEarth, I am currently one of about 30 people working towards building an Internet for robots: a worldwide, open-source platform that allows any robot with a network connection to generate, share, and reuse data. The project is set up to deliver a proof of concept to show two things:

* RoboEarth greatly speeds up robot learning and adaptation in complex tasks.

* Robots using RoboEarth can execute tasks that were not explicitly planned for at design time.

The vision behind RoboEarth is much larger: Allow robots to encode, exchange, and reuse knowledge to help each other accomplish complex tasks. This goes beyond merely allowing robots to communicate via the Internet, outsourcing computation to the cloud, or linked data.

But before you yell “Skynet!,” think again. While the most similar things science fiction writers have imagined may well be the artificial intelligences in Terminator, the Space Odyssey series, or the Ender saga, I think those analogies are flawed. [emphasis mine] RoboEarth is about building a knowledge base, and while it may include intelligent web services or a robot app store, it will probably be about as self-aware as Wikipedia.

That said, my colleagues and I believe that if robots are to move out of the factories and work alongside humans, they will need to systematically share data and build on each other’s experience.

Unfortunately, Markus Waibel doesn’t explain why he thinks the analogies are flawed but he does lay out the reasoning for why robots should share information. For a more approachable and much briefer account, you can check out Ariel Schwartz’s Feb. 10, 2011 article on the Fast Company website,

The EU-funded [European Union] RoboEarth project is bringing together European scientists to build a network and database repository for robots to share information about the world. They will, if all goes as planned, use the network to store and retrieve information about objects, locations (including maps), and instructions about completing activities. Robots will be both the contributors and the editors of the repository.

With RoboEarth, one robot’s learning experiences are never lost–the data is passed on for other robots to mine. As RedOrbit explains, that means one robot’s experiences with, say, setting a dining room table could be passed on to others, so the butler robot of the future might know how to prepare for dinner guests without any prior programming.

There is a RoboEarth website, so we humans can get more information and hopefully keep up with the robots.

Happily and as there is with increasing frequency, there’s a Youtube video. This one features a robot downloading information from RoboEarth and using that information in a quasi hospital setting,

I find this use of popular entertainment, particularly obvious with Watson, to communicate about scientific advances quite interesting. On this same theme of popular culture as a means of science communication, I featured a Lady Gaga parody by a lab working on Alzheimer’s in my Jan. 28, 2011 posting.  I also find the reference to “human masters” in the BBC article along with Waibel’s flat assertion that some science fiction analogies about artificial intelligence are flawed indicative of some very old anxieties as expressed in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

ETA Feb. 14, 2011: The latest posting on the Pasco Phronesis blog, I, For One, Welcome Our Robot Game Show Overlords, features another opinion about the Watson appearances on Jeopardy. From the posting,

What will this mean? Given that a cursory search suggests opinion is divided on whether Watson will win this week, I have no idea. While it will likely be entertaining, and does represent a significant step forward in computing capabilities, I can’t help but think about the supercomputing race that makes waves only when a new computational record is made. It’s nice, and might prompt government action should they lose the number one standing. But what does it mean? What new outcomes do we have because of this? The conversation is rarely about what, to me, seems more important.

Rare earths, China, and Nanosys

There’s been some discussion recently about rare earths in the light of tensions between China and Japan. Here’s a brief description of rare earths for anyone who’s not certain what they are, from the Wikipedia essay on rare earths,

… rare earth elements or rare earth metals are a collection of seventeen chemical elements in the periodic table, namely scandium, yttrium, and the fifteen lanthanides.

Despite their name, rare earth elements (with the exception of the highly unstable promethium) are relatively plentiful in the Earth’s crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million (similar to copper). However, because of their geochemical properties, rare earth elements are not often found in concentrated and economically exploitable forms, generally called rare earth minerals. It was the very scarcity of these minerals (previously called “earths”) that led to the term “rare earth”

Here’s what started the tensions (from the NY Times article by Keith Bradsher),

Chinese customs officials abruptly halted the processing of paperwork for shipments bound for Japan on Sept. 21 [2010]. The shipments were halted during an acrimonious dispute over Japan’s detention of a Chinese fishing trawler that rammed two Japanese coast guard vessels two weeks earlier near islands long controlled by Japan but claimed by China.

Here’s why they’re so important,

Rare earths are vital to the production of a wide range of industrial products, including automobiles, glass, oil refining, computers, smartphones, wind turbines and flat-screen televisions. The military needs them for missiles, sonar systems and the range finders of tanks.

Here are some of the consequences of the ban,

Many factories in China assemble products that require high-tech components from Japan that use rare earths. Some of these factories, which employ large numbers of workers in China, have begun running low on components as Japanese suppliers ran short on some of the more obscure rare earths needed to manufacture them, two rare earth industry executives said.

Electronics industries have been affected, particularly camera manufacturers, leading to a desperate scramble for raw materials that has even included buying tons of obscure rare earth compounds from corporate stockpiles in Europe and airlifting them to Japan.

All 32 of the authorized rare earth exporters in China have refused to increase their shipments to other countries during the unannounced ban on shipments to Japan, making it difficult for Japanese traders to obtain supplies indirectly.

As a result of the blocked shipments, some rare earths now cost up to 10 times as much outside China as inside; the Chinese government has started a vigorous campaign to prevent this from leading to smuggling.

Brasher’s article is very interesting and I do recommend reading all of it.

There has been one other consequence to this concern over a dependency on China’s rare earths (excerpted from the Nov. 23, 2010 article by Ariel Schwartz on Fast Company),

There’s just one problem: The metals are only found in high concentrations in a few sites in China, the U.S., and Australia–and China has threatened to stop exporting its supply. But instead of expanding rare earth metal mines, what if we look for more sustainable replacements?

Enter Nanosys, a company that offers process-ready materials for the LED and energy-storage markets, among other things. Nanosys has been thinking about rare earth material shortages for years, which is why the company manufactures synthetic phosphors out of common materials–not the rare earth materials (i.e. yttrium) usually used in phosphors.

“We make a semiconductor phosphor that employs a nanomaterial called a quantum dot,” explains Nanosys CEO Jason Hartlove. “It’s made out of indium phosphide and phosphorous, and the synthesis process is all in the lab. There’s no heavy metal mining, no destructive mining practices.”

Nanosys’s QuantumRail LED backlighting device is made out of quantum dots, which can purportedly generate brighter and richer colors than their rare earth metal counterparts–all while delivering a higher efficiency and lower cost.

I don’t know how close they are to producing these quantum dots in industrial quantities but the appeal of a process that lessens dependency on resources that have to be mined and/or be used to apply political pressure is undeniable. If you’re interested, you can visit the Nanosys website here.

(They talk about ‘architected’ materials. I view that word with the same enthusiasm I have for ‘impactful’. These people should never be allowed to invent another word, ever again.)

New metals, inflatable, origami-style, and self-healing

I’m still having trouble imagining inflatable metal objects but according to Ariel Schwartz’s article in Fast Company, it does exist. There’s even a slide show about how to make an inflatable chair at the Fast Company website. (I decided to show the stool.)

Inflatable metal stool (from Fast Company slide show)

From the article,

Designed by architect Oskar Zieta and materials scientist Philipp Dohmen, the chair is built with thin sheet metal that has been inflated with tubes releasing high-pressure air. The pair have also built an inflatable metal stool. Zieta and Dohmen are also working on large-scale installations.

I wish there was more information about the technology but I’m reasonably certain this could be described as a nano-enabled product. It’s certainly an interesting product although I’m having difficulty understanding why someone would want an inflatable metal chair or stool but I’m pretty slow about these kinds of things. I see more more possibilities for the origami-based designs from Industrial Origami that will cut down on the amount of sheet metal needed for products such as ovens. As for the Fraunhofer Institute’s self-healing metal,  that seems like an excellent idea and is definitely nano-enabled technology.

Bacteria as couture and transgenic salmon?

Trash Fashion, opened at Antenna, a science gallery at London’s Science Museum in June 2010 with a piece of bio couture amongst other ‘trashy’ pieces. According to an article by Suzanne Labarre at Fastcodesign.com,

[Suzanne] Lee, a senior research fellow in the school of fashion and textiles at Central Saint Martins in London, makes clothes from the same microbes used to ferment green tea. By throwing yeast, sweetened tea, and bacteria into bathtubs, she produces sheets of cellulose that can be molded into something you might actually want to wear. (Fortunately, the microbes are non-pathogenic.)

Here’s a close up of Lee’s garment,

Detail of Suzanne Lee's bio couture ruffle jacket (image from Ecouterre via fastcodesign)

Labarre’s article offers more detail about Lee’s work and how it fits into the Science Museum’s Trash Fashion show. The Ecouterre item and images can be found here. You can find London’s Science Museum website here but I had a hard time finding anything more than this about Trash Fashion on their site.

Transgenic salmon

If you think of it as new ways of interacting with various life forms, then these two items can fit together although it is a stretch. In an article written by Ariel Schwartz in a rather provocative style for Fast Company, Schwartz introduces his transgenic salmon by referencing genetically modified food and, in case we missed the point, goes on to call these salmon ‘frankenfish’,

Do genetically modified fruits and vegetables make you uneasy? …

The transgenic salmon is a mash-up of Atlantic salmon, a growth hormone gene from the chinook salmon, and an “on-switch” gene from the ocean pout that triggers the fish to eat year round, according to The Olympian. AquaBounty doesn’t plan to sell the actual salmon. Instead, the company will sell fish eggs to farmers.

Despite its initial frankenfish creepiness, AquaBounty’s salmon has a number of advantages.

Apparently, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) is close to giving its approval to a ‘salmon’ which grows twice as quickly as the ones in the wild. That’s a big advantage given the current issues with faltering salmon stocks on the west coast. From the Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s page on Fisheries Management and Wild Salmon Policy,

There is no question that fisheries management presents complex biological, economic, and political challenges. The status of salmon throughout much of BC and the US Pacific Northwest substantiates this difficulty.

In the lower continental US, salmon have disappeared from 40% of their historic spawning range and commercial fisheries proceed only as exceptions. In British Columbia, commercial catches of salmon between 1995-2005 were the lowest on record and the number of stocks contributing to this catch has declined, shifting over the decades from many diverse runs to fewer large runs.

In 2008, Raincoast published a paper in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences on the status of salmon on BC’s central and north coast. Our findings show that since 1950, salmon runs have repeatedly failed to meet their DFO escapement targets – meaning that not enough fish are returning to spawn. This resulted in a diminished status given to all species in nearly every decade. Only 4% of monitored streams consistently met their escapement targets (by decade) since 1950.

Species currently in the worst shape are chinook, chum and sockeye, which were depressed or very depressed in more than 70% of runs (2000-2005; 85%, 72% and 73% respectively). While specific to the north and central coast, this is likely true coast wide.

After the collapse of Canada’s east coast cod fishery, cynics noted that the policies which led to that collapse were being followed on the west coast. In any event, adjustments of some kind will have to be made whether that means going without fish or eating transgenic fish or some other alternative.

ETA Sept 21, 2010: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is holding a hearing about transgenic salmon. Christopher Hickey (at Salon.com) offers a roundup of comments and opinions.

Is self-healing paint nanotech-enabled?; intellectual property in science fiction and in science; global nanotech regulation database

Ariel Schwartz has a news item on Fast Company about Japanese cell phones and self-healing paint. It seems to me that this is likely nanotech-enabled technology and an example of how we are more and more able to exploit the properties of matter at the nano scale. But, I couldn’t find any information to confirm my suspicion. More about the paint from the news item,

Nissan recently licensed its Scratch Shield paint, which is scratch resistant and even repairs fine scratches, to Japanese cell phone company NTT DoCoMo. The paint has been used on select Nissan and Infiniti cars worldwide since 1995, but this is the first time it will be used outside of the vehicle market. Unlike the vehicle paint, cell-phone scratch-proof paint will only be available in Japan for now. But considering the wear and tear that most cell phones see, demand for the product will almost certainly expand to a worldwide market.

I did check out the Nissan website which offers a few more pictures than the news item does but not much more information.

I occasionally mention intellectual property (IP) as the current turmoil over copyrights, patents, and trademarks have an impact on writing. It’s with some dismay that I found an item on Techdirt about a science fiction movie that’s being sued for patent infringement. Yes, a fictional device has been patented. Given that lots of items that we take for granted, cell phones/mobiles for example, are based on devices found in fiction first, this lawsuit does not bode well. Coincidentally (on the same day), I saw another item onTechdirt, Yet Another Nobel Prize Winner Says That Intellectual Property Law Is Harming Science. From the item,

For science to continue to flourish, it is necessary that the knowledge it generates be made freely and widely available. IP rights have the tendency to stifle access to knowledge and the free exchange of ideas that is essential to science. So, far from stimulating innovation and the dissemination of the benefits of science, IP all too often hampers scientific progress and restricts access to its products.

If this issue interests you, the item on Techdirt offers more links. Btw, the scientist speaking out is Sir John Sulston (a prize-winning biologist).

Thoughts of intellectual property led me to thoughts about lawyers, which is why the news item on Nanowerk about a global nanotechnology regulation database caught my eye.  From the news item,

A global database of government documents on nanotechnology is being launched by three law professors at Arizona State University who, with their colleagues in Australia and Belgium, have corralled and organized a massive number of regulatory documents dealing with the rapidly advancing technology. The Nanotech Regulatory Document Archive is a free resource built and maintained by the Center for the Study of Law, Science, & Technology at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law. Over the past year, Gary Marchant, the center’s executive director, and center Faculty Fellows Douglas Sylvester and Kenneth Abbott, developed the database as part of a multiyear grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genomic Science Program.

I am intrigued to see that the project is being funded though a sort of genome programme being run by the US Dept. of Energy. I find this to be an unusual conflation but I suspect that’s largely due to my ignorance. I’ve certainly noticed the talk about bio-nano so a genome project being run by an energy department is not entirely out of the question but it hints at the idea that the gap between living and nonliving is being bridged. More about that when I’ve had time to think about it.

Idle thought: I wonder how long this free tool will remain free.