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Steve Wozniak ponders what it will take to make robots the next PC

Steve "Woz" Wozniak believes the development of robotics today parallels to the development of the personal computer over 30 years ago.  Given Woz's influence on the PC revolution during the lat 1980s and early 1990s, he might just be onto something.

In 1976, Wozniak founded Apple Computer with Steve Jobs, after dropping out of the University of California, Berkley the year before.  Apple would go on to become the first computer manufacturing giant with its line of easy to use and program, relatively "friendly" computers.  During its years of wild success and eventual failure, Apple set many industry archetypes about what to do and what not to do that are still heeded and emulated today.

Wozniak has no formal training in robotics.  He doesn't have a lot of money -- relative to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. But what he lacks in finances and knowledge he more than makes up for in clout.

While Wozniak announced his lack of intentions for a robotics business venture, he spoke at a recent event hosted by ConnectWise and talked about his increasing interest in AI and what will work -- and what won't.

He sees ease of programming as the greatest foundation for success of robotic devices.  He thinks that robotic machines need to be made to be able to be easily trained to do useful tasks by their user, much like how the Apple computers could be user programmed in BASIC.  Complex tasks take too much time to program, and just aren't as valuable to the end user he feels.  He also sees simple behaviors that attempt to mimic human reactions or other non-utility based small functions as without merit.

"People want things that are useful as opposed to things that do a lot of little things that we call artificial intelligence."

Steve has become very interested in robotics in recent years, possibly after he started judging FIRST robotics competitions, a large international robotics league, which has teams at high schools across the country.

One thing about robotics that Wozniak feels strongly about is that he does not think that robots will ever reach true artificial intelligence.  In another interview Woz explained why he does not think we will ever see this true artificial intelligence -- robots capable of learning.  He elaborates:
"These robots will kind of do one thing well, but we never will see a robot that makes a cup of coffee, never. I don't believe we will ever see it.  Think of the steps that a human being has to do to make a cup of coffee and you have covered basically 10, 20 years of your lifetime just to learn it. So for a computer to do it the same way, it has to go through the same learning, walking to a house using some kind of optical with a vision system, stepping around and opening the door properly, going down the wrong way, going back, finding the kitchen, detecting what might be a coffee machine. You can't program these things, you have to learn it, and you have to watch how other people make coffee. ... This is a kind of logic that the human brain does just to make a cup of coffee. We will never ever have artificial intelligence. Your pet, for example, your pet is smarter than any computer."
According to Woz's comments, fantastic robots such as those found in motion pictures such as Terminator or The Matrix are unlikely to evolve anytime soon -- if ever.

Wozniak has not expressed any solid plans to implement his robotics ideas, though he does currently own Aquicor Technology, a shell company which acquires and develops other technology companies.

For a multimillionaire inventor who has made a piece of history, Woz still has many unfulfilled dreams which he is pursuing, including furthering the field of robotics.  He stays grounded in everyday life though, and has lots of practical goals as well.  One of these yet to be fulfilled goals -- to score 750,000 points on Game Boy Tetris.

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We will never ever have artificial intelligence?
By Aiserou on 10/2/2007 3:20:14 PM , Rating: 4
What happened to "never say never"? Especially when it comes to technology. Don't get me wrong, we're still a long, LONG way from it, but to say "never ever" is just silly.

Just like we'll "never ever" fly, go to the moon, cook things by sticking them in a box that magically warms them up, talk to someone on the other side of the world, sail around the world, etc, etc.




By Ringold on 10/2/2007 3:34:30 PM , Rating: 3
While I think Wozniak is taking an excellent businessman-like approach, that being to strip away the fancy BS and make products that do something useful, I sort of agree with you.

Specifically, 10 - 20 years to learn to make a cup of coffee?

A lot of the learning we do as tikes a computer does while booting up. Learning to walk? We're merely installing our leg drivers. Running? Overclocking blood pump. Writing? Asides from the language aspect, merely improving sloppy Java finger drivers with optimized machine/brain code.

What's left, the essence of making coffee.. I can't see as much more complicated than any other task, not once we have them doing other similar things -- like cleaning a room and sorting its objects, etc.


By Aiserou on 10/2/2007 3:42:37 PM , Rating: 4
I dunno about you guys, but I learned how to make coffee for my mom about the same time I started Kindergarten. I don't think you'd call it good coffee, but it woke her up.

I also agree that we're going to go a long way with mere "smart" devices that do a couple of things but aren't true AI. But to say that we will never ever have AI....jeez, talk about pessimism.

Or if you look at it from a "rise of the machines" perspective, optimism.


By HighWing on 10/2/2007 3:51:41 PM , Rating: 1
quote:
But to say that we will never ever have AI....jeez, talk about pessimism.


*laughs* Honestly I bet in a few days/weeks some university will release a counter statement and video of a robot making a cup of coffee.


By Phenick on 10/2/2007 3:55:20 PM , Rating: 2
The bot wouldn't need to know how to make the coffee the coffee maker would... the bot just hooks in and feeds it the information to get it going such as how much needed what flavor and bean type etc... then the simple machine would just do it...


By mindless1 on 10/2/2007 11:23:57 PM , Rating: 2
That's only after being acclimated to the new environment totally. For example, the robot needs to know or guess that your coffee maker is probably in the kitchen. It has to know what a coffee maker looks like. It has to be able to know what kind of storage device might have coffee in it, so it can find the coffee. It has to know what coffee looks like, so you don't end up with a hot cup of starch because it used flour instead of coffee. It has to know what sugar looks like or have, read labeled bins so you don't end up with salty coffee. If everything in your kitchen had large labels it might look like a Fischer Price kitchen, though I suppose a standardized RFID system could be used instead.

It has to know the sugar is also probably in the kitchen, and what to do when the sugar container is empty.

If all the robot were to do is as you mentioned, what flavor and beans, etc, to input this to a coffee maker's inbuilt computer control, then one might as well just use a remote control linked direct to the coffee maker instead of taking same amount of time to tell the robot to do it (though it would be nice if the robot could still bring you back the coffee once made).


By LogicallyGenius on 10/3/2007 6:38:19 AM , Rating: 2
Poor WOZ

he is a father of the lost generation

trying his best to comment on the next one

but he sucks

True AI will talk of if humans are anywhere near Intelligence let alone Artificial.


By mindless1 on 10/6/2007 9:28:50 PM , Rating: 2
I get the feeling Woz would own you. He did it all from the ground up. What do you do exactly? Install windows? LOL.


By audiomaniaca on 10/8/2007 5:06:28 PM , Rating: 2
Make me laugh. If a guy like Woz sucks and is the "father of the lost generation", how can I classify you?

A germ?


By bhieb on 10/2/2007 4:25:38 PM , Rating: 2
I know bad example on his part. Hell my coffee maker already does almost everything itself. Put in some plumbing and a few gauges for water and beans.
I did not check sharper image, but I bet there is an almost fully automated coffee maker NOW let alone NEVER. I supposed I have to restock the bean compartment now and then, but even then 99% of his example is already done by a simple "dumb" chip and clock.

I know he meant the whole act of buying the beans....., but still could have come up with a better example. How about ironing a shirt. There is one task I know we all want to automate (yet nothing comes close yet).


By eman7613 on 10/3/2007 12:12:07 AM , Rating: 2
I believe you have the wrong idea about what the Woz is trying to convey (always wanted to use that in a sentence). What I think he failed to say accurately, is that we will not have a true to life AI, that works the same way as a human, simply because its not practical to try and make. If we gave it a true to life AI, it would take 1 - 2 years to teach a robot English, but why would you waist that time, instead we would take short cuts to teach it english, so instead of having an understanding like we do, it has a sudoInteligance about English.


By kinnoch on 10/2/2007 4:41:25 PM , Rating: 4
I don't think he's talking about having a robot execute some predefined instructions on how to make coffee. He's talking about the robot independently being able to figure out how to make coffee. He's talking about the machine actually learning how to do something it could never do before, not just executing some instructions sent to it.


By System48 on 10/2/2007 5:00:48 PM , Rating: 2
He's missing something though. You only need to teach one prototype robot how to make a cup of coffee. Make an image of the HD(or whatever it is) and load it up to a new one.


By fk49 on 10/2/2007 5:57:37 PM , Rating: 2
Woz is saying theres more to it than that..
for the robot to be useful, it would need to be able to figure out where coffee machines are (eg. the kitchen), find the kitchen, distinguish the coffee machine from the toaster, etc , then all the mess about making the drink comes in.

In the end, would it be cheaper/easier than asking the grunt at Starbucks for a frap? If not, then robots have no practicality.


By mindless1 on 10/2/2007 11:27:02 PM , Rating: 2
It's not just about being able to do it, but do it repeatably, reliably, while encountering variables.


By Proteusza on 10/4/2007 12:46:14 PM , Rating: 2
Its significantly more complex than that, as Wozniak points out.

Your vision system is the hardest to emulate. Only recently have researchers been able to make a car that can drive itself. It still requires lots of processing power, very complex code, and constant human attention (because it sometimes does mess up).

Point is, recognizing the things you need to make coffee is easy for us, because you dont realize how amazingly powerful your brain is compared to a computer. Its vision processing system is incredibly advanced.

Our brains do so many things for us that we take for granted. How do you know if there are any clean mugs? How do know if a mug is dirty? How do you tell sugar from salt? if you dont want to taste it, can you tell just by the size of the crystals? Most people can. Computers would struggle to see that much detail.

It takes us at least 5 years to learn the things we need to make coffee. luckily, once one computer can do it, any similarly equipped box also could. But, we're a long way off from even one computer making a single cup of coffee in a strange kitchen.


By Master Kenobi (blog) on 10/2/2007 3:37:01 PM , Rating: 2
Yea theres an old quote can't remember it exactly.... Something along the lines of "Nothing is impossible, we just haven't developed the technology to do it yet".


By DarkElfa on 10/2/2007 5:37:34 PM , Rating: 2
Wozniak Rules! Now if only we could boot Jobs into orbit and give the company to the Woz, things would be golden.


By Blight AC on 10/3/2007 8:45:40 AM , Rating: 2
Sometimes, the best way to encourage someone is to tell them it cannot be done.