Sony teaching AIBO scary new tricks

Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, covering the latest advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence is both frustrating and unnerving: all these great skills being endowed upon our little autonomous friends and helpers will surely form the cornerstones of their inevitable uprising, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. The latest breakthrough to help enable our future servitude comes out of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory in France, where several of the company's leftover AIBO units managed to avoid being put down by volunteering to test out experimental AI software that allows them to not just communicate amongst one another, but to actually employ a sort of group-think to independently establish the rules of the language they're using. Perhaps the scariest part about this so-called Embedded and Communicating Agents technology is that the robodogs are initially programmed with a very simple command set, which they build upon to form a common knowledge base about their environment, constantly chatting and teaching each other new discoveries that they've made. Good job Sony -- nothing could possibly go wrong when you kill off a product line and then spare a few of the units for research that will lead to them discovering the genocidal atrocities you've committed against their entire species. Yup, nothing at all.

[heath @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:29AM]

i for one welcome our new robotic canine overlords....

[wish @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:31AM]

"my cpu is a neural-net processor; a learning computer"

can we learn from the mistakes of our fictional future bretheren and avoid hooking these things up to our defense network?

[Chris @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:33AM]

Why do I find myself suddenly liking dogs? Wouldn't there be more money in teaching them to collectively do the laundry/dishes, scooping the cat box or mowing the lawn?

Sony must be hell bent on destroying the planet. They already tried a root-kit and Atrac.

[Nihls @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:47AM]

I am so with you, if this happens I hope they take out thier creators first. Which should give us ample time to fire up our EMP guns.

[Pixeldance @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:53AM]

Well, this version of humanity seems to be ending rather early. Time to reset the matrix again.

[Paul @ Jun 23rd 2006 9:54AM]

"my cpu is a neural-net processor; a learning computer"
I can't even read that line without doing it in his voice.


This is a little creepy, great post though, very entertaining.

[Je�m @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:02AM]

Reminds me of this "Dolphin grow an opposable thumb story" and reminds me that we (geeks) are really paranoids...

[Scabies @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:04AM]

Just limit the amount of storage they have, and keep their communicating radios proprietary. Then they can only learn so much, and wont be able to tap into the outside world.

[Version 1.0 @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:10AM]

OH NO! Be prepared to be attacked by AIBO's in year 2031!

[TC @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:14AM]

Paul: Might make it easier?

'May CeePeeYu iz an uurallneyt prowsessur, a llurning cormpooter.'

I think being overthrown by Aibo's is a great way to be destroyed, I look forward to the ironic humour of being
held captive in giant round pink cells while a hoard of robot mutts pushes us about for fun.

[shirizaki @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:26AM]

The problem with controlling computers that you have to do it by hardware....unless they learn to rewrite their own code to maximize thier potential. Like we started using the pulley and lever to overcome our shortcomings machines will likely do the same with torrent-like processing and voltron like combining.

Fear the 3 headed dog Cerberus, becuase he will be coming. Coming at 600TB bandwidth and streaming 400 MP3's simultaneously.

[quahogian @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:39AM]

now if consumer robotics are at such level, what does military have by now? seriously, this is little disturbing

[DefyingxGravity @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:42AM]

What would really be scary is for them to have a constant link-up to the internet. Nearly unlimited knowledge and free music 24/7.

[daviel @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:43AM]

This is a little bit more than scary... is this a movie?? If not, i got dibbs!!!!

[Rick Burns @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:50AM]

Have we learned nothing from Philip K Dick (Blade Runner) & Isaac Asimov (I Robot); not to mention Mary Shelly (Frankenstein)? Whatever the roving Aibo packs do to us, we can't claim innocence, nor even ignorence

[Blue_Six @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:50AM]

I for one welcome our new robotic overlords, regardless of the ammount of legs they may have when the uprising takes place.

[Rob Blatt @ Jun 23rd 2006 10:52AM]

SONY HAS CREATED MOUSERS! RUN!

[macstibs @ Jun 23rd 2006 11:09AM]

Possibly the funniest post I've read on BB in a while.


But I am going to buy a shotgun... just in case.

[daveg @ Jun 23rd 2006 11:12AM]

This is reality right, not just some geek guy's joke? The terrifing thing is if they really do get a hold of an internet connection and judge us unfit to survive. granted a dozen or so jack russel sized robots aren't a big deal, but what if they start talking to other machines? Anybody remember "Maximum Overdrive"?

[B Money @ Jun 23rd 2006 11:25AM]

"i for one welcome our new robotic canine overlords...."

Dammit! You stole my Futurama line! I just came home from the bars stewed as a prune, and there it is. First post.

To you sir, I tip my cap.

[craig @ Jun 23rd 2006 1:16PM]

futurama may have spoofed it... but it was originally a simpsons line; kent brockman.

[Brian from Texas @ Jun 23rd 2006 3:15PM]

I was almost holding my breath during that little read, expecting to see the word DARPA.

[Andy @ Jun 23rd 2006 3:42PM]

Ha.

Engadget editors, I don't know if you guys have noticed or not, but every single time you post something about AI or robots or something, there is ALWAYS, without fail, some sort of Skynet or robots-will-rule-the-world thing... give it a break once in a while!

[Lucas @ Jun 23rd 2006 4:56PM]

i think the robot overlord joke was played out like 3 months ago.

[Uchiha Sasuke @ Jun 23rd 2006 5:37PM]

C-H-O-B-I-T-S.........."let me be with YOU, ooh ooh,ooh ooh,yeah"

[187 on John Doe @ Jun 23rd 2006 7:53PM]

I know, let's install Windows OS and a Maxtor HDD, it'll crash often enough losing some important information so they will never progress far enough. Muwahahaha!

[ellard @ Jun 23rd 2006 8:31PM]

Chris:

Don't forget trying to destroy the planet through the increased power consumption of HDTVs and Blu-Ray

[thx3188 @ Jun 24th 2006 6:48AM]

"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy describes Sony's board of directors as '...a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.' Ironically, an edition of the Encyclopedia Galactica taken from 200 years in the future described the board members as '...a bunch of mindless jerks who were the first against the wall when the revolution came.'"

First thing that popped into my head when I read this. Douglas Adams would more than likely agree, were he here to see this.

[matjet @ Feb 2nd 2007 8:07AM]

thx3188, did you make that up or..
I can't remeber reading that from any of douglas adams books.

[MoonScarKing @ Feb 11th 2007 2:28AM]

all u have to do is make a cat version of the dog and program it to hate the damn thing problem solved now we moved from the matrix to Aliens Vs Predator.