Why does the Baxter robot “read human thoughts”? The robot that dreamed Kuri from Mayfield Robotics.

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Isaac Asimov
The robot who dreamed

“I had a dream last night,” LVX-1 said calmly.

Susan Calvin was silent. Only a barely noticeable shadow flashed on her face, covered with deep wrinkles - the eternal companions of old age, wisdom and experience.

- Well, are you convinced? – Linda Rash asked nervously. - Everything is as I told you! “She was still young and did not know how to restrain her emotions.

Calvin nodded.

“Elvex,” she said quietly, “until your name is spoken, you will not speak, move or hear.”

There was no answer: the robot was dumb and motionless, like an ordinary cast-iron block.

“Give me your clearance code, Dr. Rash,” Calvin said. – Or, if you prefer, enter it yourself. I need to look at his brain structure.

Linda's hands hovered over the keyboard for a moment. She started to type the code, but got confused and started over. Finally, the structure of the robot's positronic brain appeared on the screen.

-Will you allow me to work a little? – asked Calvin.

Linda nodded silently. I should try to refuse, she thought. Refuse the Living Legend of Robopsychology!

Susan Calvin turned the screen to a more comfortable position for her, looked at the diagram and suddenly her withered fingers darted to the keyboard and typed a command - so quickly that Linda did not even have time to notice which keys were pressed. The image on the screen shifted and became more detailed. Calvin barely glanced at him before throwing her hands back onto the keyboard.

Her face remained impassive, but her brain must have been working at incredible speed: all the modifications to the structure were noticed, understood and appreciated. Amazing, Linda thought. Even the most superficial analysis of such structures requires at least a pocket computer, and the Old Woman simply reads the screen. Is her skull stuffed with microchips? She reads structure as easily as Mozart read symphony scores!

- Well, what did you do with him, Rash? – Calvin finally asked.

“I changed the fractal geometry,” Linda answered, slightly confused.

- Well, I understood that. But why?

– I... no one has done this yet... I believed that this could complicate the structure and the robot’s brain would approach the characteristics of a human brain.

- Has anyone advised? Or did you figure it out yourself?

– No, I didn’t consult anyone. I myself...

Calvin slowly raised her head and her dull old eyes looked into Linda's face.

- By yourself?! How dare you – yourself! Who are you to ignore advice? You are Rash 1
Rash – reckless, thoughtless (English)

And that says it all! Even me—me, Susan Calvin! – I wouldn’t have dared to take such a step myself!

– I was afraid that they would forbid me...

- Certainly! It couldn't have been any other way.

“Maybe,” Kelvin said indifferently. “Or maybe they’ll promote you.” This will depend on the results of our work today.

“You want to disassemble El...” she almost said the robot’s name - that would turn it on prematurely. It was impossible to imagine a more serious mistake, and now Linda could not afford even minor mistakes; -...disassemble the robot?

She suddenly noticed that the pocket of the Old Woman's suit was protruding strangely. Kelvin was prepared even for the worst: judging by the outline, there was an electron emitter.

“We’ll wait and see,” Kelvin said. “This robot may be too valuable for us to afford this pleasure.”

- I can’t imagine how he can dream...

“You gave him a brain that was amazingly human-like.” Through dreams, the human brain frees itself from the inconsistencies, inconsistencies, alogisms, and confusion accumulated during the day... Perhaps the same thing happens to the brain of this robot. Did you ask him what exactly he was dreaming about?

- No. As soon as he said that he had a dream, I immediately sent for you. This task is not for my modest talents.

- That's how it is! – a barely noticeable smile flashed on Calvin’s lips. - It turns out that your stupidity is not limitless. Nice to hear. Gives hope... Well, let's try to figure it all out. Elvex! – she said clearly.

The robot gently raised its head.

- Yes, Doctor Calvin?

- What makes you think that you had a dream?

“It was night, Doctor Calvin,” said Elvex, “and it was dark.” And suddenly I saw a light - although there was not a single light source around. And I saw something that wasn't really there - as far as I can tell. Incomprehensible sounds. And what I was doing was strange... I started looking for a word that would correspond to this state, and I found the word “sleep”. It fit the meaning, and I decided that I was dreaming.

– I wonder how the word “dream” got into your vocabulary?

“He has a vocabulary close to human,” Linda hastened to get ahead of the robot’s answer. - I thought…

- Indeed? – Kelvin noted. – Have you thought about it? Amazing.

– He had to communicate a lot with people, and I decided that colloquial vocabulary would not harm him.

– Do you often dream, Elvex? – asked Calvin.

“Every night, Dr. Calvin, since I became aware of my existence.”

“Ten nights,” Linda explained anxiously. “But he admitted it only this morning.”

– Why have you been silent about this for so long, Elvex?

“I just this morning came to the idea that I was dreaming.” Before this, I believed that there had been a mistake made in the design of my brain. But I didn't find any errors. So it was a dream.

-What did you dream about?

“It’s always the same, Dr. Kelvin, my dreams are not varied.” I see endless spaces - and many robots...

– Only robots, Elvex? What about people?

– At first I thought that there were no people in my dreams. Only robots.

– And what did these robots do?

– We worked hard, Doctor Calvin. Some are underground, others are where it is too hot for people, where there is a dangerous level of radiation, some are in factories, others are under water...

Calvin glanced at Linda.

– You said he’s only ten days old? I'm more than sure that he never left the research center. Where did he then get such detailed information about the areas of application of robots?

Linda stole a glance at the chair. She had long wanted to sit down, but the Old Woman worked standing up, and to sit down herself meant to show tactlessness.

“I felt it necessary to tell him what role robotics plays for human society,” she said. “I thought it would be easier for him to adapt to the role of work coordinator.”

Calvin nodded and turned back to the robot.

– Have you dreamed of robots working underwater, underground, on earth – and in space?

“I’ve also seen those robots that work in space,” Elvex said. – I saw all this very clearly, but as soon as I looked away for a moment, the picture was subtly distorted... That’s why I assumed that what I saw was not reality. It followed that I was dreaming.

– Was there anything else special in your dream?

“I noticed that the robots are working by the sweat of their brow, that they are depressed by backbreaking labor and deep sorrow, that they are tired of endless work. They needed rest.

“Robots are never depressed,” Calvin objected. – They do not get tired and therefore do not need rest.

“I know, Dr. Calvin.” In fact, that's how it is. But in the dream everything was different. It seemed to me that robots should take care of themselves...

– Are you quoting the Third Law of Robotics? – Calvin interrupted him.

- Yes, Doctor Calvin.

– But you distorted it! It sounds completely different: a robot must take care of its own safety as long as this does not contradict the First or Second Laws.

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. In fact, the Fa is exactly as you said. But in my dream, the Third Law did not contain any mention of the First and Second...

– ... although they exist, Elvex! The Second Law, which the Third relies on, states that a robot must follow human orders unless those orders conflict with the First Law. This is an important Law, it ensures that the robot obeys human orders! It is because of the existence of the Second Law that they do everything you dreamed of. And they do this willingly, without experiencing any sorrow or fatigue.

-You're right, Doctor Calvin. But I was talking about what was in my dream, and not about what actually is...

– ...The first Law, the most important of the three, says: a robot cannot harm a person, or through inaction allow harm to be caused to a person.

-You're right, Doctor Calvin. But in my dream, the First and Second Laws did not exist at all, there was only the Third, which said: robots must take care of themselves... And this Law was the only one.

– Is this what happened in your dream, Elvex?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin.

“Elvex,” said Kelvin, “until your name is spoken, you will not move, speak or hear our conversation.”

The robot again became mute and motionless.

“Well, Dr. Rash,” said Calvin, “what do you think about all this?”

Linda's eyes were wide open in amazement, her heart was pounding.

- This... this is terrible! I don’t understand... I couldn’t even think that this was possible!

“Neither you, nor me, nor anyone else,” Calvin said calmly. – You created a brain that is capable of dreaming - and thanks to this you discovered that robots have a level of thinking unknown to us. We might not know this for a very long time... And you discovered this even before the danger looming over humanity became inevitable!

“Unbelievable,” Linda muttered. – Do you really mean to say that other robots think the same thing?!

– This happens in their subconscious – if we talk about it in terms of human psychology. Who could have imagined that subconscious processes also take place in the positronic brain? And that these processes, moreover, are not controlled by the Three Laws?.. Can you imagine what could happen if the positronic brain became more and more complicated - and we were not warned of the danger?

- By whom? Elvex?

– You, Dr. Rash. You made a mistake, but it was thanks to this mistake that we learned something stunning... From now on, all work on changing the fractal geometry of the positronic brain should be taken under the strictest control. We have been warned, and this is your credit. You will not be punished, but from now on you will only work together with other researchers. Did you understand me?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. But what will happen to Elvex?..

– I haven’t decided anything yet. Calvin took an electronic emitter out of her pocket and Linda's gaze followed the shiny pistol in fascination. As soon as the electron flow pierces the robot’s skull, the connections of the positronic brain will be interrupted and an energy flash will turn this brain into an ingot of dead metal.

– But... Elvex cannot be destroyed... we need him for research...

- I believe that This I can make a decision without your participation. I don't know yet how dangerous Elvex is.

She straightened up and Linda realized that this old body was able to withstand both the weight of the decision and the burden of responsibility.

– Can you hear us, Elvex?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin.

“At first I thought there were no people in my dreams,” you said. Does this mean that later you began to think differently?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. I realized that there was a person in my dream.

- Human? Not a robot?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. And the man said, “Let my people go.”

- He said that Human?!

- Yes, Doctor Calvin.

– But when he said “my people”, did he mean robots?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. This is how it happened in my dream.

– And do you know what kind of person you dreamed about?

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. I recognized him.

- Who was that? And Elvex said:

- It was me. And Susan Kelvin raised the emitter, fired - and Elvex was gone...

A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Boston University has developed a brain interface that allows a robot to be controlled by correcting its mistakes in real time.

The Baxter robot “reads a person’s thoughts” using an electroencephalogram. Photo by Jason Dorfman/MIT CSAIL

This approach, unlike direct command delivery systems, does not require prior user training. The developers of the neural interface believe that in order to control the actions of a robot executing a certain program (for example, in production), it is enough to warn it in real time about an error being made.

The idea is based on the fact that when a person sees an error, his brain generates a certain type of weak, but quite universal potentials that are similar in different people - ErrP (error-related potential, error potentials). These signals are universal; their recognition does not require the lengthy training required when managing commands.

System design. Andres F. Salazar-Gomez et al., ICRA 2017

The created neural interface is a multichannel EEG that records the operator’s ErrP while observing the robot’s actions. The Baxter robot from Rethink Robotics was used in the experiment.

The use of machine learning algorithms made it possible to reduce the interface reaction time to 10-30 milliseconds. In an experiment with sorting objects, the system achieved control accuracy of 70 percent. Currently, scientists are developing a module for recognizing secondary errors - situations when the interface incorrectly interpreted the operator’s brain signals. The authors of the project expect to increase the accuracy to 90 percent in this way.

“I had a dream last night,” LVX-1 said calmly.

Susan Calvin was silent. Only a barely noticeable shadow flashed on her face, covered with deep wrinkles - the eternal companions of old age, wisdom and experience.

- Well, are you convinced? – Linda Rash asked nervously. - Everything is as I told you! “She was still young and did not know how to restrain her emotions.

Calvin nodded.

“Elvex,” she said quietly, “until your name is spoken, you will not speak, move or hear.”

There was no answer: the robot was dumb and motionless, like an ordinary cast-iron block.

“Give me your clearance code, Dr. Rash,” Calvin said. – Or, if you prefer, enter it yourself. I need to look at his brain structure.

Linda's hands hovered over the keyboard for a moment. She started to type the code, but got confused and started over. Finally, the structure of the robot's positronic brain appeared on the screen.

-Will you allow me to work a little? – asked Calvin.

Linda nodded silently. I should try to refuse, she thought. Refuse the Living Legend of Robopsychology!

Susan Calvin turned the screen to a more comfortable position for her, looked at the diagram and suddenly her withered fingers darted to the keyboard and typed a command - so quickly that Linda did not even have time to notice which keys were pressed. The image on the screen shifted and became more detailed. Calvin barely glanced at him before throwing her hands back onto the keyboard.

Her face remained impassive, but her brain must have been working at incredible speed: all the modifications to the structure were noticed, understood and appreciated. Amazing, Linda thought. Even the most superficial analysis of such structures requires at least a pocket computer, and the Old Woman simply reads the screen. Is her skull stuffed with microchips? She reads structure as easily as Mozart read symphony scores!

- Well, what did you do with him, Rash? – Calvin finally asked.

“I changed the fractal geometry,” Linda answered, slightly confused.

- Well, I understood that. But why?

– I... no one has done this yet... I believed that this could complicate the structure and the robot’s brain would approach the characteristics of a human brain.

- Has anyone advised? Or did you figure it out yourself?

– No, I didn’t consult anyone. I myself...

Calvin slowly raised her head and her dull old eyes looked into Linda's face.

- By yourself?! How dare you – yourself! Who are you to ignore advice? You are Rash, and that says it all! Even me—me, Susan Calvin! – I wouldn’t have dared to take such a step myself!

– I was afraid that they would forbid me...

- Certainly! It couldn't have been any other way.

“Maybe,” Kelvin said indifferently. “Or maybe they’ll promote you.” This will depend on the results of our work today.

“You want to disassemble El...” she almost said the robot’s name - that would turn it on prematurely. It was impossible to imagine a more serious mistake, and now Linda could not afford even minor mistakes; -...disassemble the robot?

She suddenly noticed that the pocket of the Old Woman's suit was protruding strangely. Kelvin was prepared even for the worst: judging by the outline, there was an electron emitter.

“We’ll wait and see,” Kelvin said. “This robot may be too valuable for us to afford this pleasure.”

- I can’t imagine how he can dream...

“You gave him a brain that was amazingly human-like.” Through dreams, the human brain frees itself from the inconsistencies, inconsistencies, alogisms, and confusion accumulated during the day... Perhaps the same thing happens to the brain of this robot. Did you ask him what exactly he was dreaming about?

- No. As soon as he said that he had a dream, I immediately sent for you. This task is not for my modest talents.

- That's how it is! – a barely noticeable smile flashed on Calvin’s lips. - It turns out that your stupidity is not limitless. Nice to hear. Gives hope... Well, let's try to figure it all out. Elvex! – she said clearly.

The robot gently raised its head.

- Yes, Doctor Calvin?

- What makes you think that you had a dream?

“It was night, Doctor Calvin,” said Elvex, “and it was dark.” And suddenly I saw a light - although there was not a single light source around. And I saw something that wasn't really there - as far as I can tell. Incomprehensible sounds. And what I was doing was strange... I started looking for a word that would correspond to this state, and I found the word “sleep”. It fit the meaning, and I decided that I was dreaming.

– I wonder how the word “dream” got into your vocabulary?

“He has a vocabulary close to human,” Linda hastened to get ahead of the robot’s answer. - I thought…

- Indeed? – Kelvin noted. – Have you thought about it? Amazing.

– He had to communicate a lot with people, and I decided that colloquial vocabulary would not harm him.

– Do you often dream, Elvex? – asked Calvin.

“Every night, Dr. Calvin, since I became aware of my existence.”

“Ten nights,” Linda explained anxiously. “But he admitted it only this morning.”

– Why have you been silent about this for so long, Elvex?

“I just this morning came to the idea that I was dreaming.” Before this, I believed that there had been a mistake made in the design of my brain. But I didn't find any errors. So it was a dream.

-What did you dream about?

“It’s always the same, Dr. Kelvin, my dreams are not varied.” I see endless spaces - and many robots...

– Only robots, Elvex? What about people?

– At first I thought that there were no people in my dreams. Only robots.

– And what did these robots do?

– We worked hard, Doctor Calvin. Some are underground, others are where it is too hot for people, where there is a dangerous level of radiation, some are in factories, others are under water...

Calvin glanced at Linda.

– You said he’s only ten days old? I'm more than sure that he never left the research center. Where did he then get such detailed information about the areas of application of robots?

Linda stole a glance at the chair. She had long wanted to sit down, but the Old Woman worked standing up, and to sit down herself meant to show tactlessness.

“I felt it necessary to tell him what role robotics plays for human society,” she said. “I thought it would be easier for him to adapt to the role of work coordinator.”

Calvin nodded and turned back to the robot.

– Have you dreamed of robots working underwater, underground, on earth – and in space?

“I’ve also seen those robots that work in space,” Elvex said. – I saw all this very clearly, but as soon as I looked away for a moment, the picture was subtly distorted... That’s why I assumed that what I saw was not reality. It followed that I was dreaming.

– Was there anything else special in your dream?

“I noticed that the robots are working by the sweat of their brow, that they are depressed by backbreaking labor and deep sorrow, that they are tired of endless work. They needed rest.

“Robots are never depressed,” Calvin objected. – They do not get tired and therefore do not need rest.

“I know, Dr. Calvin.” In fact, that's how it is. But in the dream everything was different. It seemed to me that robots should take care of themselves...

– Are you quoting the Third Law of Robotics? – Calvin interrupted him.

- Yes, Doctor Calvin.

– But you distorted it! It sounds completely different: a robot must take care of its own safety as long as this does not contradict the First or Second Laws.

- Yes, Doctor Calvin. In fact, the Fa is exactly as you said. But in my dream, the Third Law did not contain any mention of the First and Second...

– ... although they exist, Elvex! The Second Law, which the Third relies on, states that a robot must follow human orders unless those orders conflict with the First Law. This is an important Law, it ensures that the robot obeys human orders! It is because of the existence of the Second Law that they do everything you dreamed of. And they do this willingly, without experiencing any sorrow or fatigue.

Translation by A. D. Iordansky

File from the bookshelf of Nesenenko Alexey Ў http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Exhibit/4256/AZIMO VIND.html

I am a robot

I looked at my notes and I didn't like them. Those three days that I spent at the enterprises of the U. S. Robot company, I could just as easily have spent at home studying the encyclopedia.

Susan Calvin was born in 1982, I was told. So she is now seventy-five. Everyone knows this. The company "US Robot and Mechanical Man Corporation" is also seventy-five years old. It was in the same year that Dr. Calvin was born that Lawrence Robertsby founded what would become the most extraordinary industrial giant in human history. But everyone knows this too.

At twenty years old, Susan Calvin was present in the same session of a psychomathematics seminar when Dr. Alfred Lanning of U.S. S. Robots" demonstrated the first mobile robot with a voice. This big, lumbering, ugly robot that reeked of machine oil was intended for use in the proposed mines on Mercury. But he knew how to speak, and speak intelligently.

Susan did not speak at this seminar. She did not take part in the heated discussions that followed. This uncommunicative, colorless and uninteresting girl with a stony expression and hypertrophied intellect did not like the world, and she avoided people.

But, listening and observing, she already felt passion burning within her with a cold flame.

In 2005, she graduated from Columbia University and entered graduate school in cybernetics.

The positronic brain connections invented by Robertson surpassed everything achieved in the field of computing machines in the mid-20th century and made a real revolution. Miles of relays and photocells gave way to a porous platinum-iridium sphere the size of a human brain.

Susan learned to calculate the necessary parameters, determine the possible values ​​of the positronic “brain” variables, and develop circuits so that it could accurately predict its response to given stimuli.

In 2008, she received her doctorate and entered the U. S. Robots" as a robopsychologist, thus becoming the first outstanding specialist in this new field of science. Lawrence Robertson was still the company's president at the time, and Alfred Lanning was still the scientific director.

For fifty years, before the eyes of Susan Calvin, the progress of mankind changed its course and rushed forward.

Now she was retiring, as far as it was possible for her. In any case, she allowed a sign with someone else's name to be hung on the door of her old office.

That, in fact, is all that I wrote down. There were also long lists of her published works, her patents, the exact chronology of her career advancement - in short, I knew her entire official biography down to the smallest detail.

But I needed something else. A series of essays for Interplanetary Press demanded more. Much more.

That's what I told her.

“Dr. Calvin,” I said, “you and U. are for the public.” S. Robots" - one and the same. Your resignation will be the end of an era.

– Do you need live parts?

She didn't smile. In my opinion, she never smiles at all. But her sharp gaze was not angry. I felt it pierce me all the way to the back of my head, and I realized that she saw right through me. She saw right through everyone. However, I said it.

- Absolutely right.

– Live details about robots? It turns out to be a contradiction.

- No, doctor. About you.

- Well, they call me a robot too. You have probably already been told that there is nothing human in me.

They actually told me this, but I decided to remain silent.

She stood up from the chair. She was short and looked fragile.

Together with her I went to the window.

Offices and workshops "Yu. S. Robots" looked like a whole small, properly planned town. It spread out before us, flat as an aerial photograph.

“When I started working here,” she said, “I had a small room in a building that stood somewhere over there where the boiler room is now.” This building was demolished while you were no longer alive. There were three other people sitting in the room. My share accounted for half the table. All our robots were produced in the same building. Three pieces a week. Look now!

“Fifty years is a long time.” “I haven’t come up with anything better than this hackneyed phrase.”

“Not at all, if this is your past,” she objected. “I wonder how they flew by so quickly.”

She sat down at the table again. Although the expression on her face did not change, I think she became sad.

- How old are you? – she asked.

“Thirty-two,” I answered.

“Then you don’t remember what the world was like without robots.” There was a time when, in the face of the Universe, man was alone and had no friends. Now he has assistants, beings stronger, more reliable, more effective than him, and absolutely devoted to him. Humanity is no longer alone. Has this ever occurred to you?

- I'm afraid not. May I quote your words?

- Can. For you, a robot is a robot. Mechanisms and metal, electricity and positrons Mind embodied in iron! Created by man, and if necessary, destroyed by man. But you haven’t worked with them, and you don’t know them. They are cleaner and better than us.

I tried to gently encourage her.

– We would be glad to hear something of what you know about robots, what you think about them. Interplanetary Press serves the entire solar system. Billions of potential listeners, Dr. Calvin! They need to hear your story.