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Robot bodies and how to evolve them
Evolutionary robotics has been around for about 20 years: it's about 15 years since Stefano Nolfi and Dario Floreano published their seminal book on the subject. Yet, surprisingly the number of real,...
16 January 2015, by
Alan Winfield
Robocars driving when the map is wrong
Yesterday’s note on Here’s maps brought up the question of the wisdom of map-based driving. While I addressed this a bit earlier let me add a bit more detail.
A common first intuition is that b...
02 January 2015, by
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
Cars in the UK, China, LA, CES and here : Robocar news update
I see new articles on robocars in the press every day now, though most don’t say a lot new. Here, however, are some of the recent meaningful stories from the last month or two while I’ve been on t...
01 January 2015, by
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
Readers optimistic about role of robots as care assistants for seniors
Developing robots that are capable of taking care of seniors is the goal of an increasing number of robotics companies. While there are many economic and social factors to encourage this trend, the ...
25 November 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Robocars: A natural fit for retirement communities
As people get older, they start losing their ability to drive: they start having trouble seeing in the dark and they stop driving at night; they also make mistakes, causing other people to hit them, a...
18 October 2014, by
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
Reader poll: How much control should a bathing robot have?
http://youtu.be/0ac2qwStrdo
A few years ago, researchers at the University of British Columbia (AJung Moon, Peter Danielson and Mike Van der Loos) studied the public acceptance of a number of diff...
01 October 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Poll shows bots seen more as appliance than companion, but still good for whole family
Primary reasons for considering to purchase a robot for the home
Why would you want to buy a robot for your home? When we asked our readers this question, the majority (75%) said that they’d wa...
29 September 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Live webstream: Risks and opportunities for the auto re/insurance industry
Today between 08:30-17:00 CET This live webstream by the Swiss Re Centre for Global Dialogue brings together a comprehensive spectrum of perspectives and expertise on advanced driver assistance syste...
24 September 2014, by
Robohub Editors
In praise of robot football
Republished here is a short piece for The Conversation reflecting on robot football: 4-4-2 becomes 0101: inside the competitive world of robot football, published 4 August 2014.
This summer the ...
09 September 2014, by
Alan Winfield
Reader poll: How do you feel about “Swarms of Autonomous Cars”?
A few of days ago, WIRED and Robohub covered a story about “Largest Swarm of Robots” and how self-organizing algorithms can be used by robots to form certain shapes. This inspired us to see wha...
19 August 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Robocar news: UK Legalization, MobilEye IPO, Baidu, new LIDAR and more
A whole raft of recent robocar news....
05 August 2014, by
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
Reader poll: Should an autonomous car be able to drive w/o a human passenger?
A couple of months ago, we asked our readers whether three different unlicensed groups of individuals should be able to ride in autonomous cars alone. The individuals were: a child under the legal dr...
05 August 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
What would be the energy cost of artificially evolving human-equivalent AI?
Want to create human-equivalent AI? Well, broadly speaking, there are three approaches open to you: design it, reverse-engineer it or evolve it. The third of these - artificial evolution - is attrac...
28 July 2014, by
Alan Winfield
The two cultures of robocars
I have many more comments pending on my observations from the recent AUVSI/TRB Automated Vehicles Symposium, but for today I would like to put forward an observation I made about two broad schools of ...
24 July 2014, by
Brad Templeton, Robocars.com
When fully autonomous cars are the norm, will you miss driving?
A few weeks ago, one of our readers, Javier Lopez, submitted a number of questions to the ORi team. He brought up many interesting points, and we won’t attempt to cover them all in one poll. But on...
22 July 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Building Social Robots: The Journey of Pleo
Building a robot company is difficult, very difficult. It requires unwavering belief in yourself, in your idea, in your team and ultimately in your product. But it is also one of the most thrilling ex...
11 July 2014, by
Bob Christopher and Jibo
The next big things in robotics
Last week I attended the launch event for a new NESTA publication called Our work here is done: Visions of a Robot Economy....
08 July 2014, by
Alan Winfield
Reader poll: How should an autonomous car optimize crashes?
Photo by Roland Dobbins, Wikimedia
A couple of months ago Dr. Patrick Lin, director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group at California Polytechnic State University, wrote an article on autonomous...
08 July 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
How do you want to interface with your autonomous car? Poll results
Those of you who watched the 80’s TV series “Knight Rider” might remember the dialogue between Michael Knight and its super-car, KITT. Some of you might be more familiar with scenes between “J...
07 July 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
My (autonomous) car, my safety: Results from our reader poll
You are travelling along a single lane mountain road in an autonomous car that is approaching a narrow tunnel. You are the only passenger of the car....
30 June 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Why social robots will change your life
It is a fantastic time for technology. We live in a more connected world, and compared to even a few decades ago, we have vastly improved access to information and content, and have dramatically expan...
24 June 2014, by
Cynthia Breazeal and Jibo
Reader poll: How would you like to interface with your autonomous car?
We interact with gadgets and devices everyday … some have blinking lights, some play sounds, and some can even decipher our voice commands. When it comes to interfacing with a device as exciting an...
24 June 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
If death by autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die? Reader poll results
Image credit: Craig Berry
Life and death decisions make interesting thought experiments. When you throw an autonomous car into the mix, things get even more interesting....
23 June 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Reader poll: If a death by an autonomous car is unavoidable, who should die?
Image source: Karora via Wikipedia.
There may be times when an accident or a death is unavoidable while an autonomous car is controlling the wheel.
What should an autonomous car do when such ...
10 June 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed? Results from our reader poll
Our previous poll, which asked (among other questions) whether kids should be allowed to ride in autonomous vehicles by themselves, revealed that responsibility is a key issue for most people. Are we ...
09 June 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Reader Poll: Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed?
We conducted two polls last month in collaboration with the Open Roboethics initiative to get a sense of what people think about autonomous cars. Our polls started some interesting discussions arou...
27 May 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Kids with wheels: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ autonomous cars?
Share your opinion and take our next reader poll: Should autonomous cars be allowed to speed?Reader poll results: Earlier this month, when we asked people about your general thoughts on autonomous c...
26 May 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Reader poll: Should the unlicensed be allowed to ‘drive’ an autonomous car?
Image from Wikimedia Commons
Two weeks ago we published our first reader poll in collaboration with the Open Roboethics initiative in order to find out more about what people think about autono...
13 May 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Reader poll: What do you think about autonomous cars?
Today we drive our cars. In the future they’ll do the driving.
Autonomous cars are no longer a far-off futuristic dream, but something that we can expect to see on the road within the next dec...
29 April 2014, by
Open Roboethics Initiative
Why robots will not be smarter than humans by 2029
Statue of Alan Turing. Photo credit: Neil Crosby
In the last few days we've seen a spate of headlines like 2029: the year when robots will have the power to outsmart their makers, all occasioned by ...
07 March 2014, by
Alan Winfield
