首页
登录
职称英语
Trust Me, I’m a Robot With robots now emerging f
Trust Me, I’m a Robot With robots now emerging f
游客
2023-09-04
21
管理
问题
Trust Me, I’m a Robot
With robots now emerging from their industrial cages and moving into homes and workplaces, roboticists are concerned about the safety implications beyond the factory floor. To address these concerns, leading robot experts have come together to try to find ways to prevent robots from harming people. Inspired by the Pugwash Conferences—an international group of scientists, academics and activists founded in 1957 to campaign for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons—the new group of robo-ethicists met earlier this year in Genoa, Italy, and announced their initial findings in March at the European Robotics Symposium in Palermo, Sicily.
"Security and safety are the big concerns," says Henrik Christensen, chairman of the European Robotics Network at the Swedish Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Should robots that are strong enough or heavy enough to crush people be allowed into homes? Is "system malfunction" a justifiable defence for a robotic fighter plane that contravenes (违反) the Geneva Convention and mistakenly fires on innocent civilians?
"These questions may seem hard to understand but in the next few years they will become increasingly relevant," says Dr. Christensen. According to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe’s World Robotics Survey, in 2002 the number of domestic and service robots more than tripled, nearly surpassing their industrial counterparts. By the end of 2003 there were more than 600,000 robot vacuum cleaners and lawn mowers—a figure predicted to rise to more than 4m by the end of next year. Japanese industrial firms are racing to build humanoid robots to act as domestic helpers for the elderly, and South Korea has set a goal that 100% of households should have domestic robots by 2020. In light of all this, it is crucial that we start to think about safety guidelines now, says Dr. Christensen.
Stop right there
So what exactly is being done to protect us from these mechanical menaces? "Not enough," says Blay Whitby. This is hardly surprising given that the field of "safety-critical computing" is barely a decade old, he says. But things are changing, and researchers are increasingly taking an interest in trying to make robots safer. One approach, which sounds simple enough, is try to program them to avoid contact with people altogether. But this is much harder than it sounds. Getting a robot to navigate across a cluttered room is difficult enough without having to take into account what its various limbs or appendages might bump into along the way.
"Regulating the behaviour of robots is going to become more difficult in the future, since they will increasingly have self-learning mechanisms built into them," says Gianmarco Veruggio. "As a result, their behaviour will become impossible to predict fully," he says, "since they will not be behaving in predefined ways but will learn new behaviour as they go."
Then there is the question of unpredictable failures. What happens if a robot’s motors stop working, or it suffers a system failure just as it is performing heart surgery or handing you a cup of hot coffee? You can, of course, build in redundancy by adding backup systems, says Hirochika Inoue. But this guarantees nothing, he says. "One hundred per cent safety is impossible through technology," says Dr. Inoue. This is because ultimately no matter how thorough you are, you cannot anticipate the unpredictable nature of human behaviour, he says. Or to put it another way, no matter how sophisticated your robot is at avoiding people, people might not always manage to avoid it, and could end up tripping over it and falling down the stairs.
Legal problems
In any case, says Dr. Inoue, the laws really just summarize commonsense principles that are already applied to the design of most modern appliances, both domestic and industrial. Every toaster, lawn mower and mobile phone is designed to nunimize the risk of causing injury—yet people still manage to electrocute (电死) themselves, lose fingers or fall out of windows in an effort to get a better signal. At the very least, robots must meet the rigorous safety standards that cover existing products. The question is whether new, robot-specific rules are needed—and, if so, what they should say.
"Making sure robots are safe will be critical," says Colin Angle of iRobot, which has sold over 2m "Roomba" household-vacuuming robots. But he argues that his firm’s robots are, in fact, much safer than some popular toys. "A radio-controlled car controlled by a six-year old is far more dangerous than a Roomba," he says. If you tread on a Roomba, it will not cause you to slip over; instead, a rubber pad on its base grips the floor and prevents it from moving. "Existing regulations will address much of the challenge," says Mr. Angle. "I’m not yet convinced that robots are sufficiently different that they deserve special treatment."
Robot safety is likely to surface in the civil courts as a matter of product liability. "When the first robot carpet-sweeper sucks up a baby, who will be to blame?" asks John Hallam, a professor at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. If a robot is autonomous and capable of learning, can its designer be held responsible for all its actions? Today the answer to these questions is generally "yes". But as robots grow in complexity it will become a lot less clear cut, he says.
"Right now, no insurance company is prepared to insure robots," says Dr. Inoue. But that will have to change, he says. Last month, Japan’s Ministry of Trade and Industry announced a set of safety guidelines for home and office robots. They will be required to have sensors to help them avoid collisions with humans; to be made from soft and light materials to minimize harm if a collision does occur; and to have an emergency shut-off button. This was largely prompted by a big robot exhibition held last summer, which made the authorities realize that there are safety implications when thousands of people are not just looking at robots, but mingling with them, says Dr. Inoue.
However, the idea that general-purpose robots, capable of learning, will become widespread is wrong suggests Mr. Angle It is more likely, he believes, that robots will be relatively dumb machines designed for particular tasks. Rather than a humanoid robot maid, "it’s going to be a heterogeneous (不同种类的) swarm of robots that will take care of the house," he says. [br] Henrik Christensen is most concerned about whether robots are _____.
选项
A、harmless
B、powerful
C、intelligent
D、durable
答案
A
解析
原文表明Henrik Christensen很关心机器人的security和safety方面的问题,也就是说,他认为机器人应该首先对人不会构成安全上的威胁。即harmless。因此本题应选A。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/2983723.html
相关试题推荐
RespondingtoemergingdiseasessuchasSARSis______torespondingtoabioter
TrustMe,I’maRobotWithrobotsnowemergingf
TrustMe,I’maRobotWithrobotsnowemergingf
TrustMe,I’maRobotWithrobotsnowemergingf
TrustMe,I’maRobotWithrobotsnowemergingf
TrustMe,I’maRobotWithrobotsnowemergingf
TheEmergingOnlineGiantsTheymaynothavethenamere
TheEmergingOnlineGiantsTheymaynothavethenamere
TheEmergingOnlineGiantsTheymaynothavethenamere
TheEmergingOnlineGiantsTheymaynothavethenamere
随机试题
AllovertheworldmentionoftheBritisheducationsuggestsapictureofth
Ifhehadfollowedthedoctor’sinstructionand______inbedtorest,he______
保障人体健康,人身、财产安全的标准和法律、行政法规规定强行执行的标准是()。A.
下列有关合同的表述,不正确的是()。A:当受要约人以订立合同的意图接受要约时合同
一些公益广告是请非常有影响力的明星制作的,根据班杜拉的理论,这种做法关注的是观察
风险预警程序不包括()。A.信用信息的收集和传递 B.事后评价 C.风险处
下列选项中属于公司制期货交易所董事会行使的职权的有()。A.召集股东大会会议
康杰公司是一家大型医疗器械连锁集团,品牌连锁店主要攻占美国和亚洲市场,分别占公司
计算企业应纳税所得额时,允许从收入中扣除的支出是()。A.销售成本 B.赞助
混合痔是指A、痔与瘘同时存在 B、两个以上内痔 C、直肠上下静脉丛彼此相通所
最新回复
(
0
)