Ken Goldberg on Robots in Nature Machine Intelligence
Ken Goldberg published "Robots and the return to collaborative intelligence" in Nature's new volume Machine Intelligence this January!
His comment reflects on how four exciting sub-fields of robotics — co-robotics, human–robot interaction, deep learning and cloud robotics — accelerate a renewed trend toward robots working safely and constructively with humans.
Nature Machine Intelligence was launched in January 2019 and is an online only journal for research and perspectives from the fast-moving fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics.
From the comment:
Despite enormous progress in robot sensing, learning and control, robots cannot fully replace the unique perception and communication skills of humans.
A possible way forward is shown by new research into combinations of robots and humans that incorporate insights in collective human intelligence. Collective intelligence builds on results in group psychology, anthropology, ecology, political science, sociology and business management theory to study and model the performance of human teams for innovation and problem solving. In contrast to a hypothetical sci-fi ‘singularity’ where superhuman AI and robot systems surpass humans, I propose a constructive and inclusive alternative: ‘multiplicity’, where humans collaborate with AI and robots to mutually complement each other.
Considered together, robots will enhance human work and life rather than replace us in our homes, hospitals, factories, farms and freeways, suggesting a future where robots are more social than solitary.
Read the comment here!