Introduction to Robotics and Autonomous Systems

Robots and Autonomous Systems

Over the past decade, research into Autonomous Systems and robotics have picked drastically. Researchers have explored into the real meaning of robot and being autonomous as well as being extent to which a robot or a computer can be intelligent, asking questions such as is there a limit to being autonomous or being intelligent? Although robots and automation have increasingly been used in industrial and household tasks, the consensus on the definition and scope is yet to be reached. The term ‘robot’ was first used by Czech writer, Karel Čapek in 1920 in his science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). In this play, robots want to take control of the world. Finally, a mysterious question stops them: What will they do after all the people have been destroyed? Nowadays, people call almost any "smart" machine or structure with capability of working mechanically without direct human input a robot. Robots are actually devices that perform various tasks without human supervision. Technically, as pointed by Latombe (2012) and Spong & Vidyasagar (2008), a robot is a programmed or computerised machine that operates independent human input or replacing human effort through performing complex actions automatically without necessarily taking humanlike behaviour.

Artificial Intelligence

Also referred to as machine intelligence, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a ability of a computerised system to perform humanlike cognition such as problem-solving, visual perception, learning, and decision-making. In addition to language translations, AI has increasingly been in adopted in chess playing (chess-playing computers), Autopilots (in cars and planes), and self-driving cars. All this functionality depends heavily on the deep learning from experiences, data processing, natural language processing, and adjusting to new information (processed data) (Veres et al., 2011; Brown, and Laurier, 2017). These computers-based systems are self-maintained and be able to resolve issues that currently require people.

The Science of Artificial Intelligence began in the early 1940s with the development of the first computers. British mathematician Alan Turing was one of the pioneers of computer technology. In 1950, he predicted that by the end of the century, machines would be able to think the same as humans (Li, & Du, 2017; Tenório et al., 2011). He developed the Turing test to map the difference between human and artificial intelligence. Today, many Artificial Intelligence researchers are saying that the age of smart machines is really coming. The Artificial Intelligence relatively young discipline was founded in 1956 at the conference held at Dartmouth University, in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States.

Future of AI and Robotics

Autonomous systems and robots have become a norm in industrial, manufacturing, and service industries (communication and health sector) due to their reliability, efficiency, and cost saving in long term. Fitted with sensors and programmable microprocessors as well as interconnection with other systems, new industrial autonomous systems use learn from experiences and share and processes shared data then issue instantaneously responses and interpolates to solving the new challenge (Veres et al., 2011; Angelov, 2012). According to Erol et al. (2016), key areas autonomous systems and robotics has dominate over the years are in industrial assembly lines. Currently, control system employs machine-learning using the data and current tasks and experiences, processes the data, and convolutional network then pinpoint through ‘detection’ any anomaly. Future application is projected to alerting technicians and engineers on the potential problem through automated instrumental detection hence enhancing problem solving and triage the root cause efficiently.

Robotics and Artificial Intelligence have changed the world in half a century and this process is unlikely to stop. Many experts believe that Artificial Intelligence will soon go beyond the human mind, but there are also those who believe it is a serious threat. The fear is not unfounded, since AI research is essentially unregulated and unattended. Machines may become more intelligent than humans may, but that does not necessarily mean that they want to destroy civilisation. Civilisation can do this without them. In various science-fiction stories, we encounter both good and malicious robots. However, for Artificial Intelligence to pose any threat to humankind, three basic conditions must be met:

Super-intelligent computers.

Moving robot systems.

However, adoption of robots and autonomous systems has not come with handles and scrutiny from various players and regulatory bodies. First, data protection and privacy and ethics of AI and robots towards human lives. Particularly in Europe, there are concerns of AI ability to respects people’s privacy and handling of collected data (Wachter, and Mittelstadt, 2019; Stahl, and Wright, 2018). Privacy is considered as human right and should be observed at all levels but introduction of autonomous systems and robots brings concerns of who is liable to data protection in the event of its breach especially where these systems can learn and process data autonomously. Secondly, the legality of using automating various systems as well as development of robots were asked. Such questions as the kind of laws and regulatory guidelines should apply to robots and Autonomous systems (O'sullivan et al., 2019). Additionally, who is responsible for any mistake made by Artificial Intelligence? Is it the system itself or the creator? The best-known set of laws are Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics". These were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. The Three Laws are:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.’ (Wikipedia, Laws of robotics, ref. 9)

Moreover, according to some experts, AI will be able to think faster and more effectively than humans will in the 21st century. The Artificial Intelligence controlled robots can turn robots from science fiction into reality where human (creators) would not be in a position to control them. All of these conditions may be met in the near future. This kind of feeling of threat is the basic idea of the Terminator movies. In these action films, the future Artificial Intelligences kills people because they are threat to them. Could technical evolution follow the biological? Many people believe that this will happen. Nevertheless, artificial intelligence could extend to understanding imperfection, and then AI will want to protect and not to destroy humankind.

The complementary relationship between Artificial Intelligence and humankind may soon become a reality. It is possible that computer-controlled implants can help people with disabilities. The real "thinking" robots have come close. Researchers one of the main questions is how close the Artificial Intelligence can come to self-conscious. So far, no computer has shown a real sign of this. However, awareness of development may can develop over the time. In order for researchers to have a clear answer, Artificial Intelligence should be able to communicate independently. The Artificial Intelligence as an independent decision-making system certainly the first time will be released in warfare.

References

Angelov, P. (2012). Autonomous learning systems: from data streams to knowledge in real-time. John Wiley & Sons.

Brown, B. and Laurier, E., 2017, May. The trouble with autopilots: assisted and autonomous driving on the social road. In Proceedings of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 416-429). ACM.

Erol, S., Jäger, A., Hold, P., Ott, K. and Sihn, W., 2016. Tangible Industry 4.0: a scenario-based approach to learning for the future of production. Procedia CiRp, 54, pp.13-18.

Latombe, J.C., 2012. Robot motion planning (Vol. 124). Springer Science & Business Media.

Li, D., & Du, Y. (2017). Artificial intelligence with uncertainty. CRC press.

O'sullivan, S., Nevejans, N., Allen, C., Blyth, A., Leonard, S., Pagallo, U., ... & Ashrafian, H. (2019). Legal, regulatory, and ethical frameworks for development of standards in artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous robotic surgery. The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery, 15(1), e1968.

Spong, M. W., & Vidyasagar, M. (2008). Robot dynamics and control. John Wiley & Sons.

Stahl, B.C. and Wright, D., 2018. Ethics and Privacy in AI and Big Data: Implementing Responsible Research and Innovation. IEEE Security & Privacy, 16(3), pp.26-33.

Tenório, J.M., Hummel, A.D., Cohrs, F.M., Sdepanian, V.L., Pisa, I.T. and de Fátima Marin, H., 2011. Artificial intelligence techniques applied to the development of a decision–support system for diagnosing celiac disease. International journal of medical informatics, 80(11), pp.793-802.

Veres, S.M., Molnar, L., Lincoln, N.K. and Morice, C.P., 2011. Autonomous vehicle control systems—a review of decision making. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part I: Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, 225(2), pp.155-195.

Wachter, S. and Mittelstadt, B., 2019. A right to reasonable inferences: re-thinking data protection law in the age of big data and AI. Columbia Business Law Review.

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