Page 33 - Introduction to AI Robotics

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1 From Teleoperation To Autonomy
The term AI is controversial, and has sparked ongoing philosophical de-
bates on whether a machine can ever be intelligent. As Roger Penrose notes
in his book, The Emperor’s New Mind: “Nevertheless, it would be fair to
say that, although many clever things have indeed been done, the simula-
tion of anything that could pass for genuine intelligence is yet a long way
off.“ 115 Engineers often dismiss AI as wild speculation. As a result of such
vehement criticisms, many researchers often label their work as “intelligent
systems” or "knowledge-based systems” in an attempt to avoid the contro-
versy surrounding the term “AI.”
A single, precise definition of AI is not necessary to study AI robotics. AI
robotics is the application of AI techniques to robots. More specifically, AI
robotics is the consideration of issues traditional covered by AI for applica-
tion to robotics: learning, planning, reasoning, problem solving, knowledge
representation, and computer vision. An article in the May 5, 1997 issue
of Newsweek, “Actually, Chess is Easy,” discusses why robot applications
are more demanding for AI than playing chess. Indeed, the concepts of the
reactive paradigm, covered in Chapter 4, influenced major advances in tra-
ditional, non-robotic areas of AI, especially planning. So by studying AI ro-
botics, a reader interested in AI is getting exposure to the general issues in
AI.

1.3 What Can Robots Be Used For?

Now that a working definition of a robot and artificial intelligence has been
established, an attempt can be made to answer the question: what can intel-
ligent robots be used for? The short answer is that robots can be used for just
about any application that can be thought of. The long answer is that robots
are well suited for applications where 1) a human is at significant risk (nu-
clear, space, military), 2) the economics or menial nature of the application
result in inefficient use of human workers (service industry, agriculture), and
3) for humanitarian uses where there is great risk (demining an area of land
mines, urban search and rescue). Or as the well-worn joke among roboticists
THE 3D’S goes, robots are good for the 3 D’s: jobs that are dirty, dull, or dangerous.
Historically, the military and industry invested in robotics in order to build
nuclear weapons and power plants; now, the emphasis is on using robots for
environmental remediation and restoration of irradiated and polluted sites.
Many of the same technologies developed for the nuclear industry for pro-
cessing radioactive ore is now being adapted for the pharmaceutical indus-