The Safety and Reliability Issue of Robotic System with Artificial Intelligence - Essay Example

The Safety and Reliability Issue of Robotic System with Artificial Intelligence “Robots are physical agents that perform tasks by manipulating the physical world. They are equipped with sensors to perceive their environment and effectors to assert physical forces on it” (Niemueller and Widyadharma, p.2). The huge success of robots in doing extremely risky works with utmost precision has developed huge interests in the scientific world about using robotic systems for artificial intelligence. Even though human like behavior cannot be expected from robots, it is widely believed that robots can match human intelligence to a much closer level than once anticipated. It is a fact that robots need human supervision or intervention for safe functioning. However, current robots need less supervision from human elements and they are intelligent enough to make necessary changes in its functioning based on the changes in the environment. Robots are currently used for people to conduct remote controlled videoconferencing, navigation, rescuing, assisting and lifting of soldiers in the war fronts etc. It is difficult to define artificial intelligence or AI in few words. Generally speaking "Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines do things that would require intelligence if done by men" (Artificial intelligence (AI)). The history of artificial intelligence started along with the discovery of computers in by Charles Babbage. Even though the possibilities of using artificial intelligence or robots are infinite, still people have many concerns about the reliability of using robots for artificial intelligence purposes. After all, robots are machines and machines cannot think as human does. It should be noted that even well experienced individuals are struggling to take appropriate decisions in this ever changing world. Under such circumstances, the reliability of depending artificial intelligence for executing complex jobs which need logical and quick decision making is highly questionable. This paper analyses the Safety and Reliability issue of Robotic System with Artificial Intelligence. Incredible speed in execution is the major advantage of robots controlled by artificial intelligence. Moreover, robots exhaust much slower than humans and therefore it can perform huge volumes of works compared to humans and that also within no time. In manufacturing units, robots can perform complicated works with utmost precision so that manpower requirements can be reduced considerably. Robots with artificial intelligence can handle million of calculations within seconds and therefore, it can perform preprogrammed jobs with ease. Because of the above ability a computer or robot can beat a human in a chess match. The development of mobile robots was driven by the desire to automate transportation in production processes and autonomous transport systems. The former lead to driver-less transport systems used on factory floors to move objects to different points in the production process in the late seventies. New forms of mobile robots have been constructed lately like insectoid robots with many legs modeled after examples nature gave us or autonomous robots for underwater usage (Niemueller and Widyadharma, p.1). It is difficult for human to operate in extreme weather conditions. In other words, in coldest or hottest regions, human has limitation in performing certain works. For example Polar regions are the coldest regions on earth. Antarctic and artic explorations are currently going on and robots are used extensively in such explorations because of its ability to resist the challenges raised by extreme weather conditions. In under water explorations also robots are used as a secure equipment to collect data. Space exploration is another area in which robots controlled by artificial intelligence are reliable. In outer space and in some planets, oxygen and suitable weather conditions may not be available for human to directly conduct his explorations or experiments. In such cases, robots can be used as the safest equipment for collecting data. A signal from NASAs Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft, including the new Curiosity rover, was received by officials on the ground shortly after spacecraft separation. The spacecraft is flying free and headed for Mars after separation from the United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket that started it on its journey to the Red Planet. Liftoff was on time at 10:02 a.m. EST from Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida (MSL Spacecraft in Excellent Health) At the time of writing this paper, television news reports show that NASA has sent a satellite called curiosity to Mars for exploring the possibilities of life in mars. It may reach Mars only after nine months and it is estimated that Curiosity can handle mars exploration for two years. It may land on a mountain in Mars. It should be noted that a robot in curiosity is controlling the mars exploration. It is programmed based on whatever the knowledge NASA has so far about Mars. It is quite possible that Curiosity or the robot in curiosity may face extremely unfamiliar situations in mars. Nobody knows, what will be the response of curiosity on such occasions. One of the major drawback of artificial intelligence is that “in trying to match human intelligence, artificial intelligence attempts to replicate natures coded behaviors accumulated over millions of years” (The Artificial Intelligence Disadvantage). It should be noted that nature has made lot of modifications in its behavior in order to transform uncivilized or unintelligent human into a civilized and intelligent human of present kind. Artificial intelligence can never work in that manner. In a human body, the DNA codes alone occupy cubic miles of pages. Apart from genetic codes, nature has assembled similar volumes of code in myriad subsystems” At the moment of conception, a single fertilized human egg contains information equivalent to about six billion chemical letters, which can be recorded in a thousand 500 page books. In a grown human body, with the DNA in each cell containing a sequence of over 3 billion chemical nucleotide bases, the total of those codes in the body would fill the Grand Canyon fifty times over with 500 page manuals. This was just the code in the nucleus of cells. (The Artificial Intelligence Disadvantage). The architecture and functioning of human memory and intelligence is unknown to the scientific world even though there are some assumptions and hypotheses. Robots, controlled by artificial intelligence cannot think in terms of constructing such complex architecture of memories in its brain or central processing units. Moreover, natural modification of behavior based on the needs of the environment is impossible for the robots controlled by artificial intelligence. In many industries, robots are working under the supervision of humans. In majority of the Japanese car manufacturing plants, robots are helping human in executing sophisticated jobs at a rapid pace and thereby the productivity of the manufacturing firm increases considerably. However, in such a human-robot interaction scenario, safety, reliability and efficiency of the robots are debatable. According to Ding (n.d), “study of human behavior is indispensable when robots interact with humans. This requires a better understanding and modeling of the human motion” (Ding, p.2792) The reliability of robotic system with artificial intelligence is highly questionable which can be proved with the help of the following example. Suppose a person asks his robot to go out and purchase one ice-cream for him. He might have fed every instruction needed for the robot to go out, purchase the ice-cream, pay the correct price, collect the balance and come back to him using the safest routes. He might have even given instructions to the robot in how to travel across the roads when heavy traffic is going on. The robot may wait till the traffic gets cleared for crossing the road because of the instructions fed into its memory. Now consider, heavy construction works were going on in a particular road at the time when the person was sending his robot for ice-cream purchase. Suppose the person failed to feed instructions to the robot about what to do when constructions works are going on. In such case, the robot may face an entirely new situation and it may try to cross the road through the construction areas. It may face many problems on its way and may not succeed in executing the mission given to it by its creator. In other words, on unfamiliar circumstances, robots controlled by artificial intelligence may fail. Human intelligence work on trial and error method. In other words, human normally experiment many things in order to arrive at right solutions or conclusions in unfamiliar situations. However, robots do not possess such abilities for the time being and therefore the reliability of robots controlled by artificial intelligence is debatable. Even though robots cannot think as effectively as humans, it can perform programmed works more cleverly than humans. In other words, the possibility of committing mistake because of lapse in concentration cannot be ruled out while human perform certain jobs. On the other hand, in the case of robots controlled by artificial intelligence, the possibility of mistake is zero if all the environmental variables do not change. As mentioned in the earlier example, a robot can repeat the purchasing of ice-cream millions of times, if nothing changed on its way to the shop and back home. At the same time, human can commit many mistakes while performing that job quite regularly. In other words, it is quite possible that human may cross the road without checking the traffic and cause accidents because of the lapses in concentration. On the other hand, robots will never face such concentration problems. This is because of the fact that robots have no emotions whereas humans have emotions. Emotions quite often spoils concentration. Artificial intelligence work on IF and THEN conditions or rules. A rule consists of two parts: condition (antecedent) part and conclusion (action, consequent) part, i.e: IF (conditions) THEN (actions). Antecedent part of the rule describes the facts or conditions that must exist for the rule to fire. Consequent describes – the facts that will be established, or– the action that will be taken or conclusion that will be made (Artificial Intelligence, n.d). In other words, robots can function only based on certain rules and conditions. If the rules and conditions were satisfied, it will work perfectly. On the other hand, if the rules and conditions do not met, it will not function perfectly. It is necessary to perform on occasions in which the IF-THEN conditions do not materialize. For example, suppose a manufacturing unit catches fire. Workers will act quickly even if they failed to get any instructions from the top. On the other hand, robots may wait for the instructions from its controller in order to act positively. In short, Machines or robots do not have the ability to estimate the consequences of an action. It may wait for the instructions before taking any actions against or in favor of something. “Since their inception, computers have always acted on a "yes" or "no" basis. They simply have not been able to recognize "maybe." Even the most sophisticated computers, capable of performing millions of calculations per second, cannot distinguish between "slightly" or "very"” (Artificial Intelligence (AI)). It should be noted that computers can recognize only the machine language even though human feed instructions to computers using different high level languages such as BASIC, PASCAL, COBOL, FORTRAN, JAVA, VISUAL BASIC etc. Computers will convert these high level languages into machine language before analyzing a particular instruction fed to it though these languages. Machine language is simply of a collection of zeros and ones. A logical one in machine language represents an YES condition whereas a logical zero represents a NO condition in machine language. There is no notations or digits for representing a “MAY BE” in machine language. In other words, there is no logic conditions like .5 in between a 0 and 1 in machine language. Human can think in terms of many fractions in between 0 and one 1 such as ½, ¼, 1/8 etc. However, computers or robots controlled by artificial intelligence do not have the ability to realize the differences between ½ and ¼ or 1/8 and 1/6. To conclude, robots controlled by artificial intelligence are extremely useful in assisting human in conducting dangerous missions. Since robots are machines, it has no emotions or life. So it can concentrate fully on what it does at a particular movement and therefore the chances of committing errors are extremely low. Moreover, robots can perform works at a rapid pace so that it can be used in manufacturing units for increasing productivity and also to perform dangerous and sophisticated jobs. At the same time robots, controlled with artificial intelligence cannot perform any jobs when it face unfamiliar circumstances. The memory of robots cannot be compared with the memory of the human. When it comes to quick decision making in unfamiliar conditions, robots fail drastically and therefore its reliability can be ensured only for the programmed purpose alone. Robots can understand only YES or NO conditions and a MAY BE condition in between the YES or NO conditions is unfamiliar to robots. There are many instances in which human wanted to consider the MAY BE conditions also. Robots with artificial intelligence fail in such situations. Robots perform on conditional basis. It can respond based on IF and THEN clauses. There are many instances in which human wants robots to perform in conditions other than IF and THEN. In short, reliability and safety of using robots cannot be ensured beyond certain limits. Robots can never ensure complete safety and reliability to human beings as it is controlled by the human elements. However, robots can be used as a reliable equipment for working in familiar conditions. Works Cited “Artificial Intelligence”. Web. 27 November 2011. “Artificial Intelligence (AI)”. Web. 27 November 2011. Ding, Hao. “Control of Robotic Systems for Safe Interaction with Human Operators”. Proceedings of the Twenty-Second International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Web. 27 November 2011. “MSL Spacecraft in Excellent Health”. 2011. Web. 27 November 2011. Niemueller Tim and Widyadharma Sumedha. “Artificial Intelligence – An Introduction to Robotics”. 2003. Web. 27 November 2011. “The Artificial Intelligence Disadvantage”. 2011. Web. 27 November 2011. Read More