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Dharmendra S. Modha

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“anthromorphizing robots and deconstructing humans”

August 22, 2006 By dmodha

Today, at Almaden, we had a wonderful time with David Calkins who is the President of the Robotics Society of America.

David gave an engaging talk describing several robots: Sony’s Aibo, Honda’s Asimo, Kawada’s Promet, TMSUK, Kokoro Dreams’ Dinosaurs, Actroid, Sony’s QRIO, a traffic directing robot, Stanford’s Stanley, and Sanryu’s fire-fighting robot. He also reported seeing trumpet playing robots from Toyota! It is quite interesting to note that most robots on this list are made in Japan.

He described several competitions, for example, Trinity College’s Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest.

He lamented the fact that Sony sunset Aibo and QRIO.

He described a number of fascinating potential applications: remembering names at a cocktail party, reading emails, building a relationship with elderly and young, early detection of lonely dead people in homes, entertainment, security, fire-fighting, etc. Without mincing words, he said that we need robots for (guilt-free) "slavery"!

We had an obligatory discussion on whether robots will take over the world!

People feel intimidated when dealing with robots that are taller than themselves. This explains the size of Honda’s Asimo.

Looking to the future, the basic thought is that while we can build extremely smart mechanical contraptions and equip them with complicated "if-then-else" rules, these machines do not possess cognitive intelligence. For example, it is hard to recognize faces, to detect dirty clothes, to distinguish a dangerous fire from a pleasant fireplace or just a hot light bulb, or to distinguish a real person from a photograph. He feels that cognitive intelligence will eventually be conquered, but machines exhibiting consciousness will never be built.

He ended with a beautiful statement that he is (and, sometimes, all of us are) guilty of "anthromorphizing robots and deconstructing humans". He is currently searching for a definition of a robot!

Filed Under: Brain-inspired Computing, Interesting People

Manager of Cognitive Computing Group

August 22, 2006 By dmodha

Today, yours truly was named Manager of Cognitive Computing Group at IBM’s Almaden Research center.

I will keep you posted about activities of my group as time progresses. BTW, we are hiring: researchers, post-docs, co-op students (interns), and short-term academic visitors.

Filed Under: Accomplishments, Brain-inspired Computing, Positions

Japanese Govt to back intelligence robot development

August 18, 2006 By dmodha

"Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry plans to begin assisting the development of next-generation intelligence robots in fiscal 2007 with the aim of commercializing them in 2015, Jiji Press learned Thursday."

"In Japan, the market for industrial robots is expected to expand to around 3 trillion yen over the next decade."

See original article –>  

Filed Under: Brain-inspired Computing

2006 Almaden Institute on Cognitive Computing

August 16, 2006 By dmodha

On May 10-11, 2006, I chaired IBM’s Almaden Institute on Cognitive Computing.

The Institute examined scientific and technological issues around the quest to understand how the human brain works. And, examined approaches to understanding cognition that unify neurological, biological, psychological, mathematical, computational, and information-theoretic insights. We focussed on the search for global, top-down theories of cognition that are consistent with known bottom-up, neurobiological facts and serve to explain a broad range of observed cognitive phenomena. The ultimate goal, of course, is to understand how and when can we mechanize cognition.

The Institute featured prominent speakers and panelists: Nobelist Gerald Edelman, The Neurosciences Institute, Henry Markram, EPFL/BlueBrain, Robert Hecht-Nielsen, UCSD, Jeff Hawkins, Palm/Numenta, James Albus, NIST, Theodore Berger, USC, Kwabena Boahen, Stanford, Ralph Linsker, IBM, Jerry Swartz, The Swartz Foundation, V. S. Ramachandran, UCSD, John Searle, UC Berkeley, Joaquin Fuster, UCLA, Leslie Valiant, Harvard University, Toby Berger, University of Virginia, and Christof Koch, Caltech.

The Institute brought together over 165 attendees from over 57 different institutions:

    UNIVERSITIES: Brandeis, CalTech, EPFL, George Mason, Harvard, SFSU, Stanford, Rockefeller, UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UC Los Angeles, UC Merced, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, University of Massachusetts, University of Nevada, USC, University of Virginia, The Neurosciences Institute,

    GOVERNMENT:  Air Force, CIA, DARPA, NIST, NIH, ONR

    INDUSTRY & GOV LABS: Allen Institute of Brain Science, Honda, Hitachi, House Ear Institute, Intel, JPL, LBNL, MSRI, Mitsubishi, PARC, Samsung, Santa Fe, SRI, Yahoo!

    START-UPs/VENTURE CAPITALISTS: Draper Fisher Jurvetson, KPMG, Numenta, Posit Science, Security First Corp., Symbol Technologies, Sutter Hill Ventures, Technology Partners, The Intellisis Corporation

    MEDIA: CNET, New York Times, Red Herring, San Francisco Chronicle, Scientific American, The Register, Wired

    PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATIONS: Kavli, Swartz

The videos and presentations from the Institute are now online: http://www.almaden.ibm.com/institute/agenda.shtml

Filed Under: Brain-inspired Computing, Leadership

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