March of the Machines: The Breakthrough in Artificial Intelligence

by Kevin Warwick

While horror films and science fiction have repeatedly warned of robots running amok, Kevin Warwick takes the threats out of the realm of fiction and into the real world, truly giving us something to worry about.

Meeting skeptics head on, Warwick goes beyond his penetrating attacks on their assumptions and prejudices about what should be considered as intelligence to reveal what he has already achieved: building robots that communicate in their...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0252072235
• ISBN13: 9780252072239
• Release Date: July 2004
• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Length: 307 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Seven Dwarfs

1. Seven Dwarf Robots: The obstacle detection system consists of three ultrasonic transducers, forward, front-left, and front-right. An infrared system is used for inter-robot communications. Each robot has four photodiodes, 90 degrees apart and allows transmissions to be received regardless of rotation. Movement is accomplished by two rear wheels and single castor wheel in the front. Rules: 1. If no object is in front, then drive both wheels forward 2. If an object is in front and to the right, then turn left 3. If an object is in front and to the left, then turn right. 4. If an object or objects are detected in front and both to the left and to the right, then spin around 180 degrees. Goal: Learn how to active obstacle avoidance through active learning, by trial and error and to learn general behavioural responses and high quality peformance. 2. Flocking is a behavior found when a predator is near prey. The animals flock for protection. The flocking animals must remain in close proximity to each other whilst changing direction and speed. They must always avoid collision with each other and obstacles within their environment. The four levels of flocking control are: 1. avoid objects 2. if no other robots are detected nearby become the leader 3. if in a flock try to maintain position 4. if a flock can be seen in the distance, speed up and head towards its, with more priory being given to following the closest visible leader. It is possible there might be more than one leader. "To ensure that this new leader does not simply turn around and rejoin the main body of the flock there is a short period of time fro which it is not allowed to reliquish leadership to any robots that are followers." A new leader will reliquish leadership to another leader in front of it. Robots can diverge from a leader and follow another leader. This happens when a leader robot moves too strongly/quickly when leading. Other robots that are not the leader will be seen as obstacles to avoid. A higher priority weighting is given to the leader based on number of robots in the cluster and a true flock pattern will emerge. "Once the group has become leaderless then they will either become aware of a leader of another group, as a group, follow after it, or conversely, if no other leader is in the vincinity, they will bob and weave until a leader emerges from their ranks." 3. Improved communication and predator/prey algorithms were introduced in the 3rd Generation of seven dwarfs. A reward/penalty system needed to be implement to indicate good or bad behavior. The robots avoid predators and seek a recharge of the battery. The predator responded to prey based on range. Infrared signal could be used to indicate predator or a sudden change in light. The prey flees and the predator chases. 4. "Learning is a like a search process, in which the agent search the world for states that maximise reward and thus minimize punishment." Co-operative mechanism help reduce t

Very insightful and historically important

From a perusal of the title, it might appear that this book is one of a few that could be classified as "futurism" or "future-projected technology". These books, which have mostly appeared in the last five years or so, have an extremely optimistic view of future developments in artificial intelligence, but most of them do not justify this optimism with rigorous scientific evidence or attempt to quantify what is means for a machine to exhibit intelligence. This book, first published in 1997, and appearing in paperback last year, is however different in this regard. In the book the author attempts, and in general succeeds, in giving the reader an overview of the status of artificial intelligence as it was in 1997. It does project these developments out to the future, even to the year 2050, but it does so in a way that is free of the overindulgences of media hype and Hollywood exaggerations that frequently accompany "semi-popular" works on artificial intelligence. Even though it is targeted at readers that are not specialists in artificial intelligence, the book does enable readers with a general education to understand just how advanced machine intelligence was during that time. Most importantly, the author strives to identify what it means for a machine to be intelligent, and his proposals for defining and measuring machine intelligence are quite interesting and show keen insight. Indeed, the author's views on intelligence, machine or otherwise, are quite refreshing, for he does not make them human-centric. Other species exhibit intelligence in ways that are unique to them and highly suitable for their survival. The author emphasizes that life forms or machines have a degree of intelligence that is appropriate to themselves and the contexts and environments in which they are situated. Humans he says, via technological development, are bringing about machines that may very soon exhibit intelligence that is highly competitive to that of human intelligence, but this is to be measured relative to the needs of each, and these needs may conflict. The author is concerned with this potential conflict, and he devotes a sizable portion of the book in elaborating on just how it may come about. Throughout the book the author endeavors to contrast the differences between human and machine intelligence. The fact that humans behave and perform differently makes any comparison between machines and humans problematic he believes. The absence of a `typical' human as a standard of comparison for machine intelligence implies that other measures must be devised for estimating this intelligence. And, just as there is high variability among human performance and ability, it is to be expected that this would also be the case for machines. The machines will differ in their respective abilities and with respect to humans. In some instances these machines will "outperform" humans on various tasks, as they have done in many cases up to the time of publication of thi

A riveting and thought-provoking discussion

March Of The Machines: The Breakthrough In Artificial Intelligence by Kevin Warwick (Professor of Cybernetics, University of Reading, United Kingdom) is an informed and informative survey into the history, philosophy, and state-of-the-art exposition on the development of artificial intellegiance within the framework of computer science. Drawing upon the author's extensive knowledge of the field, including his personal achievement of building robots that communicate in their own language, teach each other lessons, and behave as they will with regard to human beings, March Of The Machines is part history and part future speculation concerning the science of robots and its current and forthcoming impact on humanity. Claiming that the possibility exists for machine intelligence to surpass human intelligence, and therefore human domination of the planet, all in the reasonably near future, March Of The Machines is a riveting and thought-provoking discussion of what composes intellect and the fallout of man's own scientific achievements. Also very highly recommended is Kevin Warwick's autobiography, I, Cyborg (025207-2154, $19.95) and his experiences as a cybernetic pioneer who used his own body to advancing the science of cybernetics by surgically replacing parts of his own organic system with technological implants.