12/22/2005

I think, therefore I am Roomba(tm).

Robot Demonstrates Self Awareness
Discovery— A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it. This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot’s computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others….could eventually lead to robots able to express emotions. Under development by Junichi Takeno and a team of researchers at Meiji University in Japan.…more…

I decided that the above Discovery story was vague on specifics. I thought I would visit Junichi Takeno website and read what his research group’s basic philosophy was on “robo-awareness.” However, there was NO specific information on his site , saaaa, typical Japanese behavior: that is, if the Professor says, “the robot is aware” it is. Sheesh.

Here’s the lab’s homepage in funky machine translation from the Japanese.