Robots in the image of Man

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Robots in the image of Man

• Art, Technolgy and the Body
• H.J. Sommer III
• Professor of Mechanical Engineering
• The Pennsylvania State University
• www.me.psu.edu/sommer

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in the image of Man
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Robot the word

• robota Czech for forced labor
• Rossums Universal Robotsplay, Karel Kapek,
  1921

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Metropolis, 1926
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Metropolis, 1926
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C3P0 versus Arnold
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BattleBots, 2000
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Robot a definition

• Robotic Industries Association
• reprogrammable manipulator

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The first real robot, 1961

• Machine tool Computer
• Unimate 2000
• Engelberger and Devol
• Handle hot castings

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The first real robot, 1961
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The first real robot, 1961
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Robot motion

• Cartesian
• Cylindrical
• Spherical
• Anthropomorphic

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Robot power

• Pneumatic
• Hydraulic
• Electrical

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Early robot applications

• Machine loading
• Welding
• Painting
• Assembly

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PUMAProgrammable Universal Manipulator for
Assembly
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Robots - today
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Robots - today
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Robots - today
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New robot applications

• Semiconductor
• Surgery
• Mobility
• Remote sensing

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Robots - tomorrow
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Shortfalls robots versus human

• Sentience
• Sensors
• Dexterity
• Power
• Mobility

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Advantages robots versus human

• Precision
• Reparability
• Hazardous environments
• Stasis

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Perception versus measurement

• Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
• Our organo-receptors contaminateperception
• Art
• Emotions
• Drugs

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For a breath I tarry
Therefore, Solcoms strangest creation was given
dominion over half the Earth, and they called him
Frost.  For ten thousand years Frost sat at the
North Pole of the Earth, aware of every snowflake
that fell. Frost knew temperature but he did not
know cold. novelette, Roger Zelazny, 1967 in
"The Last Defender of Camelot", 1995
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The players

• Frost controller of the Northern Hemisphere,
  first and greatest of Solcoms creations
• Beta controller of the Southern Hemisphere
• Solcom machine placed by Man in permanent orbit
  and invested with the power to rebuild the world
• Divcom alternate rebuilder activated when
  Solcom sustained minor damage from a stray atomic
  missile
• Mordel a minion of Divcom
• Ore-Crusher an excavator that killed the last
  Man in His bomb shelter, doomed to wander the
  Earth telling the tale of woe while carrying the
  bones
• Man extinct

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The dilemma

• Frost is so efficient that he takes up a hobby
  to know the nature of Man
• Frost only knows measurement - not perception
• Solcom and Divcom wager if Frost can learn the
  nature of Man
• Mordel tempts Frost with knowledge about Man in
  defiance of Solcom and Beta
• Frost constructs mechanical analogs of human
  sensory equipment but he still only knows
  measurement

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The question

• Frost clones the body of a Man and transfers his
  matrix of awareness into the body for five
  minutes.
• Has Frost become a man?
• Frost declares that he has failed.
• Which machine can answer this question?

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The answer

• Perhaps our machines may help us better know
  ourselves

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in the image of Man