Page 216 - Concise Encyclopedia of Robotics

Natural Language
treatments. Biological research is largely a trial-and-error process. Suppose
people could build millions of smart robots of nanometric dimensions,
programmed to go after certain bacteria and viruses and kill them?
Futurists believe this is possible. They envision building molecular com-
puters from individual atoms of carbon, a fundamental ingredient of all
living matter. These computers would store data in much the same way as
does DNA, but the computers would be programmed by people rather
7
than nature. These computers could be as small as 100 nm (10
m or
0.0001 mm) in diameter. Even an object this small has enough carbon
atoms to make a chip with processing power equivalent to that of a typical
personal computer.
There is a dark side to nanorobotics. Anything that can be used con-
structively can be used in some destructive way, as well. Programmable
antibodies could, if they got into the hands of the wrong kinds of people,
be used as biological weapons.
See also BIOCHIP and BIOMECHATRONICS.
NATURAL LANGUAGE
A natural language is a spoken or written language commonly used by
people. Examples are English, Spanish, Russian, and Chinese.
In user-friendly computer and robotic systems, it is important that the
machine be able to speak and/or write, and also to understand, as much
natural language as possible. The more natural language a machine can
accept and generate, the more people will be able to use the machine with
less time spent learning how to do so.
Natural language will be extremely important in the future of hobby
and personal robotics.If you want your robot Cyberius to get a cup of water,
for example, you would like to tell it, “Cyberius, please get me a cup of
water.” You don’t want to have to type a bunch of numbers, letters, and
punctuation marks on a terminal, or speak in some arcane jargon that is
nothing like normal talk.
See also SPEECH RECOGNITION and SPEECH SYNTHESIS.
NESTED LOOPS
In reasoning schemes or programs, logical loops are often found. A loop
is a set of operations or steps that is repeated twice or more. Sometimes,
loops occur inside other loops. They are then said to be nested loops.
The smaller loop in a nest usually involves fewer steps per repetition
than the larger loop. The number of times a loop is followed is inde-
pendent of the number of steps it contains. A small, secondary loop
might be repeated 1 million times, while the larger loop surrounding it is
repeated only 100 times.

