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Topic: Braitenberg's strange vehicles (Read 1218 times) |
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william
 
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Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« on: Jun 6th, 2004, 1:55pm » |
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Reading Valentino Braitenberg's book Vehicles, and want to check if his thought experiments (robots with different arrangements of sensors & motors) really work...
I made a simulation of his Vehicle 4 - in the form of strange robots flapping wings (doh!) 
http://www.metaphorical.net/code/processing/vehicle.html
Braitenberg uses terms like "Love" or "Special taste" to describe his robots' behaviours. I can't quite see that a robot moving towards light is "LOVE", hmmm... but his thought process & robot movements are both quite interesting.
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| « Last Edit: Jun 6th, 2004, 2:24pm by william » |
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TomC
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Re: Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« Reply #1 on: Jun 6th, 2004, 3:25pm » |
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Vehicles... a great book, and it still doesn't seem dated.
I think Braitenberg deliberately anthropomorphises his vehicles to challenge our preconceptions about biological responses. With these kind of experiments it is awkward to say the robot 'likes' the light - but, for example, how is that different from saying mice don't like the light?
Just been reading Rodney Brooks' book, Robot, where he takes this view too, but also outlines it from the opposite direction. He argues strongly that humans are machines, and once you accept this then machines must be able to have emotions etc. Just because we know that the 'emotions' of a robot emerge from the interactions of a few (or many) simple rules, doesn't mean we should disallow the description. Good book, well worth a read if you like Vehicles.
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| « Last Edit: Jun 6th, 2004, 3:40pm by TomC » |
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kevinP
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Re: Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« Reply #2 on: Jun 6th, 2004, 11:20pm » |
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> Just been reading Rodney Brooks' book, Robot, where
> he takes this view too, but also outlines it from
> the opposite direction. He argues strongly that
> humans are machines, and once you accept this then
> machines must be able to have emotions etc.
Interesting approach; is he the first to propose this?
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Kevin Pfeiffer
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TomC
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Re: Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« Reply #3 on: Jun 7th, 2004, 12:17am » |
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Well, that will teach me to paraphrase a whole book in one sentence!
I don't think Brooks is the first person to argue that humans are 'merely' machines, but there aren't any specific references I can spot in the chapter (We Are Not Special). Arguments against are presented there too, but I won't get into them here.
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Markavian
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Re: Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« Reply #4 on: Jun 8th, 2004, 1:40am » |
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I like the fact that you made your 'vechicles' look like living things, it gives the maths behind it a meaning.
While watching it, I kinda played the idea of each robot living in a social group, always moving between the different centres... sometimes, a robot would gain too much speed and throw itself outside away from all the groups... losing all momentum, not being a part of any group.
(Edit: Actually, the motion reminds me a bit of this:
http://www.mkv25.net/?item_id=74)
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| « Last Edit: Jun 8th, 2004, 1:46am by Markavian » |
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william
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Re: Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« Reply #5 on: Jun 10th, 2004, 5:30am » |
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Interesting ideas!
I'd agree that human is "machine" -- to the extent that there are obvious mechanistic parts of every life. Don't know whether it is scientific or linguistic though... the scope is quite difficult to define: on the one hand, we can suggest that the universe is also a machine which we are a part of, or on the other, we can assimulate ourselves with strange robots. Then perhaps to say we are different (machines) is more useful to say we are just machines.
It's curious that human "anthropomorphises" things... perhaps this makes artistic languages possibe, even if the medium is robot or something strange? I think Braitenberg's Vehicles can show more love, if it wanders around the light, hesitates, and says (like Romeo approaching Juliet's window) -- "But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?"
Hoho, just a silly idea
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| « Last Edit: Jun 10th, 2004, 5:37am by william » |
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skloopy
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Re: Braitenberg's strange vehicles
« Reply #6 on: Jun 10th, 2004, 5:56am » |
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It's really cute. I love how it flaps it wings and the holds one out to bank, like it was rowing.
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