The Problem of Pattern Recognition Robot Reality A Dream of Electric Cocktails Robert McLaughlin Stories of a golden future pepper science fiction - where computers make life better and menial robots serve you martinis as you return home from a long day at work. Unfortunately, given the state of the art in computer intelligence, the robot would be unlikely to find its way from the bar to the dining room. On your return home, you would be greeted by the sound of breaking glass as the robot yet again misses the doorway. The world can be a horribly confusing place for a young robot. My research teaches them to see and make sense of the world, which includes doorways.
Robots have a rather narrow view of the world.
To see it through a robot's eyes, imagine taking a photograph of your kitchen and examining it through a microscope. The problem is that, like a robot, you are only seeing a small part of the picture at a time. Teaching a robot to see the bigger picture has proved surprisingly difficult. Rest assured that there are more noble motives here than a love of fresh and unspilt martinis. A robot with the capacity to navigate a house bearing a martini could navigate the surface of Mars bearing a mining probe.