Robotics Reference
In-Depth Information
its higher level strategy is OK. If its hopes are always disappointed,
then it needs to change its higher level strategy. To use hopes in
this way requires the self-observation to remember what it hoped
for. Sometimes a robot must also infer that other robots or people
hope or did hope for certain things.
A robot should be able to wish that it had acted differently from the
way it has done. A mental example is that the robot may have taken
too long to solve a problem and might wish that it had thought of
the solution immediately. This will cause it to think about how it
might solve such problems in the future with less computation. A
human can wish that his motivations and goals were different from
what he observes them to be. It would seem that a program with
such a wish could just change its goals. However, it may not be so
simple if different sub-goals each gives rise to wishes, e.g. that the
other sub-goals were different.
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[14]
Having opened a veritable Pandora's Box of qualitative experiences that
will be apparent in the robots of the future, we next examine a selection
of such qualia in order to emphasize the strides in AI that will be achieved
in the coming decades: robots will have beliefs, they may dream, and they
will have free will.
Can Robots Have Beliefs?
McCarthy has used the thermostat as an example of a machine that can
be said to have beliefs, even though the operation of thermostats can be
easily understood without any reference to beliefs. McCarthy discusses
a simple thermostat that turns off the heat when the temperature is one
degree above the set temperature, turns on the heat when the temperature
is one degree below, and leaves the heat as it is when the temperature lies
within the two-degree range around the desired temperature. Under such
a regime the thermostat believes, at all times, that one of three states exists
in the room: it is too hot, it is too cold or the temperature is fine.
McCarthy ascribes to the thermostat the goal that the room tempera-
ture should be fine. When it believes the room is too cold or too hot, the
thermostat sends a message saying so to the central heating boiler. The
thermostat's beliefs arise from observation and they result in action in
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Presumably McCarthy assumes that a robot might have this particular wish because its other
current sub-goals are difficult to achieve.
