PROGRAM YOUR ROBOT TO STAND UP AND BE COUNTED FOR THE ROBOT CENSUS
GERMAN UNIVERSITY MAKES OBJECTS DISAPPEAR IN REAL TIME, WILL BRING THE MAGIC TO ANDROID (VIDEO)
October 11, 2010GOOGLE’S AUTONOMOUS CAR TAKES TO THE STREETS
October 12, 2010Do you own a robot? Are you are a robot? Either way, Carnegie Mellon wants to hear from you as part of their 2010 Robot Census. Initially, the idea was to just count up all the robots at CMU (547), but the project has since expanded to all robots. Everywhere. So that they can get proper representation and federal funding, or something.
Of course, in order to qualify for the robot census, a robot has to be, uh, a robot. So what’s a robot? According to CMU’s Heather Knight, who’s running the show, “everyone agrees there are 3 minimum requirements. These are the minimum, but not sufficient requirements: They must act in the world, sense the world, and they need to have computation.”
The “minimum but not sufficient” bit is in there to preclude registering a thermostat as a robot, but this brings up all kinds of questions about just what exactly a robot is. I would just say that robots are like profanity: you know it when you see it.
Register your robot here.
[ Robot Census ]
