Hans Moravec

Last updated
Hans P. Moravec
Born (1948-11-30) November 30, 1948 (age 74) [1]
Kautzen, Austria [1]
NationalityCanadian (U.S. Permanent Resident) [1]
Alma materBSc: Acadia University [1]
MSc: University of Western Ontario [1]
PhD: Stanford University [1]
Known for Moravec's corner detector
Moravec's paradox
Bush robot
Occupancy grid mapping
Quantum suicide and immortality
Rotating skyhook
Rotovator
Stanford Cart
Scientific career
Fields Robotics, artificial intelligence
Institutions Carnegie Mellon University [1]
Stanford University [1]
Thesis Obstacle avoidance and navigation in the real world by a seeing robot rover  (1980)
Doctoral advisor John McCarthy [1]

Hans Peter Moravec (born November 30, 1948, Kautzen, Austria) is an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, USA. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. Moravec also is a futurist with many of his publications and predictions focusing on transhumanism. Moravec developed techniques in computer vision for determining the region of interest (ROI) in a scene.

Contents

Career

Moravec attended Loyola College in Montreal for two years and transferred to Acadia University, where he received his BSc in mathematics in 1969. He received his MSc in computer science in 1971 from the University of Western Ontario. He then earned a PhD from Stanford University in 1980 for a TV-equipped robot which was remote controlled by a large computer (the Stanford Cart). The robot was able to negotiate cluttered obstacle courses. Another achievement in robotics was the discovery of new approaches for robot spatial representation such as 3D occupancy grids. He also developed the idea of bush robots.

Moravec joined the newly established Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon in 1980 as a research scientist, becoming research professor in 1995. He has been an adjunct professor at the institute since 2005. [1]

Moravec was a cofounder of Seegrid Corporation [2] of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, [3] in 2003 which is a robotics company with one of its goals being to develop a fully autonomous robot capable of navigating its environment without human intervention.

He is also somewhat known for his work on space tethers. [4]

Publications

Books

Mind Children

In his 1988 book Mind Children, [6] Moravec outlines Moore's law and predictions about the future of artificial life. Moravec outlines a timeline and a scenario in this regard, [7] [8] in that the robots will evolve into a new series of artificial species, starting around 2030–2040. [9]

Moravec also outlined the "neural substitution argument" in Mind Children [6] : 109-122 , published 7 years before David Chalmers published a similar argument in his paper "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia", which is sometimes cited as the source of the idea. The neural substitution argument is that if each neuron in a conscious brain can be replaced successively by an electronic substitute with the same behavior as the neuron it replaces, then a biological consciousness would be transferred seamlessly into an electronic computer, thus proving that consciousness does not depend on biology and can be treated as an abstract computable process.

Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind

In Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind ( ISBN   0195136306), published in 1998, Moravec further considers the implications of evolving robot intelligence, generalizing Moore's law to technologies predating the integrated circuit, and extrapolating it to predict a coming "mind fire" of rapidly expanding superintelligence.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote about this book: "Robot is the most awesome work of controlled imagination I have ever encountered: Hans Moravec stretched my mind until it hit the stops." [10] David Brin also praised the book: "Moravec blends hard scientific practicality with a prophet's far-seeing vision." [11] On the other hand, the book was reviewed less favorably by Colin McGinn for The New York Times. McGinn wrote, "Moravec … writes bizarre, confused, incomprehensible things about consciousness as an abstraction, like number, and as a mere "interpretation" of brain activity. He also loses his grip on the distinction between virtual and real reality as his speculations spiral majestically into incoherence." [12]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinese room</span> Thought experiment on artificial intelligence by John Searle

The Chinese room argument holds that a digital computer executing a program cannot have a "mind", "understanding", or "consciousness", regardless of how intelligently or human-like the program may make the computer behave. The argument was presented by philosopher John Searle in his paper "Minds, Brains, and Programs", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences in 1980. Similar arguments were presented by Gottfried Leibniz (1714), Anatoly Dneprov (1961), Lawrence Davis (1974) and Ned Block (1978). Searle's version has been widely discussed in the years since. The centerpiece of Searle's argument is a thought experiment known as the Chinese room.

The technological singularity—or simply the singularity—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable changes to human civilization. According to the most popular version of the singularity hypothesis, I. J. Good's intelligence explosion model, an upgradable intelligent agent will eventually enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an "explosion" in intelligence and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that qualitatively far surpasses all human intelligence.

<i>The Age of Spiritual Machines</i> 1999 non-fiction book by Ray Kurzweil

The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence is a non-fiction book by inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil about artificial intelligence and the future course of humanity. First published in hardcover on January 1, 1999 by Viking, it has received attention from The New York Times, The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic. In the book Kurzweil outlines his vision for how technology will progress during the 21st century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mind uploading</span> Hypothetical process of digitally emulating a brain

Mind uploading is a speculative process of whole brain emulation in which a brain scan is used to completely emulate the mental state of the individual in a digital computer. The computer would then run a simulation of the brain's information processing, such that it would respond in essentially the same way as the original brain and experience having a sentient conscious mind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sentience</span> Ability to be aware of feelings and sensations

Sentience is the ability to experience feelings and sensations. The word was first coined by philosophers in the 1630s for the concept of an ability to feel, derived from Latin sentiens (feeling), to distinguish it from the ability to think (reason). In modern Western philosophy, sentience is the ability to experience sensations. In different Asian religions, the word "sentience" has been used to translate a variety of concepts. In science fiction, the word "sentience" is sometimes used interchangeably with "sapience", "self-awareness", or "consciousness".

Artificial consciousness (AC), also known as machine consciousness (MC), synthetic consciousness or digital consciousness, is the consciousness hypothesized to be possible in artificial intelligence. It is also the corresponding field of study, which draws insights from philosophy of mind, philosophy of artificial intelligence, cognitive science and neuroscience. The same terminology can be used with the term "sentience" instead of "consciousness" when specifically designating phenomenal consciousness.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carnegie Mellon School of Computer Science</span> School for computer science in the United States

The School of Computer Science (SCS) at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US is a school for computer science established in 1988. It has been consistently ranked among the top computer science programs over the decades. As of 2022 U.S. News & World Report ranks the graduate program as tied for second with Stanford University and University of California, Berkeley. It is ranked second in the United States on Computer Science Open Rankings, which combines scores from multiple independent rankings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artificial general intelligence</span> Hypothetical human-level or stronger AI

An artificial general intelligence (AGI) is a hypothetical type of intelligent agent. If realized, an AGI could learn to accomplish any intellectual task that human beings or animals can perform. Alternatively, AGI has been defined as an autonomous system that surpasses human capabilities in the majority of economically valuable tasks. Creating AGI is a primary goal of some artificial intelligence research and of companies such as OpenAI, DeepMind, and Anthropic. AGI is a common topic in science fiction and futures studies.

"Why The Future Doesn't Need Us" is an article written by Bill Joy in the April 2000 issue of Wired magazine. In the article, he argues that "Our most powerful 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species." Joy warns:

The experiences of the atomic scientists clearly show the need to take personal responsibility, the danger that things will move too fast, and the way in which a process can take on a life of its own. We can, as they did, create insurmountable problems in almost no time flat. We must do more thinking up front if we are not to be similarly surprised and shocked by the consequences of our inventions.

In futures studies and the history of technology, accelerating change is the observed exponential nature of the rate of technological change in recent history, which may suggest faster and more profound change in the future and may or may not be accompanied by equally profound social and cultural change.

An artificial brain is software and hardware with cognitive abilities similar to those of the animal or human brain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shakey the robot</span> General-purpose mobile robot

Shakey the Robot was the first general-purpose mobile robot able to reason about its own actions. While other robots would have to be instructed on each individual step of completing a larger task, Shakey could analyze commands and break them down into basic chunks by itself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy of artificial intelligence</span> Overview of the philosophy of artificial intelligence

The philosophy of artificial intelligence is a branch of the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of computer science that explores artificial intelligence and its implications for knowledge and understanding of intelligence, ethics, consciousness, epistemology, and free will. Furthermore, the technology is concerned with the creation of artificial animals or artificial people so the discipline is of considerable interest to philosophers. These factors contributed to the emergence of the philosophy of artificial intelligence.

A bush robot is a hypothetical machine whose body branches in a fractal way into trillions of nanoscale fingers, to achieve very high dexterity and reconfigurability. The concept was described by Hans Moravec in a final report for NASA in 1999, who projected that development of the necessary technology will take half a century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of artificial intelligence</span> Overview of and topical guide to artificial intelligence

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to artificial intelligence:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philosophy of mind</span> Branch of philosophy

Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the ontology and nature of the mind and its relationship with the body. The mind–body problem is a paradigmatic issue in philosophy of mind, although a number of other issues are addressed, such as the hard problem of consciousness and the nature of particular mental states. Aspects of the mind that are studied include mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and its neural correlates, the ontology of the mind, the nature of cognition and of thought, and the relationship of the mind to the body.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hubert Dreyfus's views on artificial intelligence</span> Overview of Hubert Dreyfuss views on artificial intelligence

Hubert Dreyfus was a critic of artificial intelligence research. In a series of papers and books, including Alchemy and AI (1965), What Computers Can't Do and Mind over Machine (1986), he presented a pessimistic assessment of AI's progress and a critique of the philosophical foundations of the field. Dreyfus' objections are discussed in most introductions to the philosophy of artificial intelligence, including Russell & Norvig (2021), a standard AI textbook, and in Fearn (2007), a survey of contemporary philosophy.

Moravec's paradox is the observation in artificial intelligence and robotics that, contrary to traditional assumptions, reasoning requires very little computation, but sensorimotor and perception skills require enormous computational resources. The principle was articulated by Hans Moravec, Rodney Brooks, Marvin Minsky and others in the 1980s. Moravec wrote in 1988, "it is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult or impossible to give them the skills of a one-year-old when it comes to perception and mobility".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qualia</span> Individual instances of subjective, conscious experience

In philosophy of mind, qualia are defined as instances of subjective, conscious experience. The term qualia derives from the Latin neuter plural form (qualia) of the Latin adjective quālis meaning "of what sort" or "of what kind" in relation to a specific instance, such as "what it is like to taste a specific apple — this particular apple now".

The concept of absent qualia is one of two major functionalist objections to the existence of qualia, the other being the inverted spectrum hypothesis. Qualia is a philosophical term used to refer to an individual's subjective experience, that is to say, the way something feels to that individual at that particular moment.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Hans P. Moravec".
  2. ↑ Seegrid Corporation website
  3. ↑ "FAST COMPANY Announces Seegrid as One of the 50 Most Innovative Companies of 2013". Archived from the original on 2013-06-30. Retrieved 2013-04-19.
  4. ↑ "Momentum-Exchange Tethers". Archived from the original on 2018-11-22. Retrieved 2007-07-22.
  5. ↑ "Sensor Fusion in Certainty Grids for Mobile Robots | Moravec | AI Magazine". www.aaai.org. Archived from the original on 2011-06-04.
  6. 1 2 Moravec, Hans (1988). Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human Intelligence. Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0-674-57618-6. OCLC   1154983637.
  7. ↑ Moravec, Hans (1998). "When will computer hardware match the human brain?". Journal of Evolution and Technology. 1. Archived from the original on 2006-06-15. Retrieved 2006-06-23.
  8. ↑ Moravec, Hans (June 1993). "The Age of Robots" . Retrieved 2006-06-23.
  9. ↑ Moravec, Hans (April 2004). "Robot Predictions Evolution" . Retrieved 2006-06-23.
  10. ↑ ISBN   0-19-511630-5: Cover praise for Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, 1999
  11. ↑ ISBN   0-19-511630-5: Cover praise for Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, by Dr David Brin, 1999
  12. ↑ McGinn, Colin (January 3, 1999). "Hello, HAL". The New York Times .
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