Artificial Intelligence -- Chris Ryder – HKGBB0 2002 -- Page 1 of 11
What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
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Artificial Intelligence -- Chris Ryder – HKGBB0 2002 -- Page 3 of 11
What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
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This paper sets out to on a basic level discuss some of the work that has been done, and is
being done, in the area of artificial neural nets (ANN) and neural implants, especially that of
Kevin Warwick. The point that the research is aiming at is then discussed in “Future
Applications”.
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
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Since 1989 Kevin Warwick has produced machines, with more or less intelligence, set to
enhance the possibilities and abilities of humans. He says his interest for the area sprung from
his father developing agoraphobia, and the neural surgery to relieve him of it. The operation
had been successful and on return home his father no longer had a fear of open spaces. The
fact that this had been achieved simply by snipping out a few neural connections and that his
father now was quite a good snooker player, something he had been worthless at before the
operation, let Kevin grow up with a more objective view of the human brain than he felt most
people had. He had witnessed that the brain and its functions aren’t sacred or mystical.
They’re physical and can therefore be altered as we se fit, provided we have the sufficient
understanding of them. Though if would take many years still for these thoughts to be made
into plans and experiments.
One of the first systems he developed was a bathtub epileptic people could use, without
fearing to drown during a seizure. The system simply consisted of a pair of glasses the bather
should wear, when the glasses went underwater, a signal was sent that made the tub pump
empty in a matter of seconds. However simple and far from an artificial intelligence these
were the first steps down a path that would lead to ground-breaking experiments.
Through Kevin’s work on the Cybernetic Intelligence Research Group (CIRG) at Reading
University there have been several successful projects before the Cyborg 2.0 project. One of
the projects that gained a lot of publicity was the Seven Dwarfs who were able to perform a
number of behaviours with their ANN brains.
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The seven dwarfs are five small autonomous robots on wheels. Their perception of the world
consists of ultra-sonic and infrared emitter/receivers. The ultra-sonic sensors are used for
detecting objects and are positioned so to detect objects that are in front, to the front-right and
to the front-left. The infrared system is for communication between the robots, and is made up
of twelve light-emitting-diodes (LEDs) and four photo sensors allowing the robots to receive
and send information in all directions. Each dwarf had its own individual frequency so the
receiver could tell from whom it was receiving the information.
)ORFNLQJThe flocking behaviour can be found among numerous groups of animals in
nature. Sometimes to keep out from the cold or wind but more commonly to make it harder
for predators to hunt down a member of the group because of the confusion that comes from
many possible targets close together. The trouble with the seven dwarfs was mainly the
amount of noise that was being picked up when the robots were moving this close together,
for example false ultra-sonic recipments. The programming of the dwarfs was made in a
hierarchy structure as follows:
avoid objects (most basic behaviour with highest priority),
if no other robots are visible become a leader and wander,
if in a flock try to maintain position,
if a flock can be seen in the distance, speed up and head towards it, with more priory being
given to following the closest visible leader.
A photo series of the dwarfs flocking can be found in the appendix.
6KDUHGH[SHULHQFHOHDUQLQJ±The ability to learn is a important part of any intelligent being,
and to learn from peers is a crucial to surviving and being part of a society among many races,
especially humans and primates. Learning can be likened to a search process, and if you
should have to start from scratch, the process can be excessively long or even impossible. To
have someone ‘put you on the right track’ can shorten the search period and help you find
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solutions to problems you could not have solved on your own. To get the dwarfs to teach each
other the best way to navigate in the world the myriads of situations the robot could find itself
in was mapped down to five:
no object near robot,
obstacle in distance (over 500mm) to the right,
obstacle in distance (over 500mm) to the left,
obstacle relatively near (less than 230mm) the right,
obstacle relatively near (less than 230mm) the left.
The algorithm doesn’ t try to make an internal map to send to the other robots; rather it tries to
figure out the best way to react to any of these states. To each state there is a set of actions
associated, with a probability of choosing a particular action. In its initial state all the
probabilities are the same and so actions are chosen at random. Each action-loop starts of with
a scanning of the sonar sensors to decide in which state the robot is in, it then decides from
the sets of actions associated with that state and their probabilities witch action to take. It then
performs it for a short period of time and then scans the sonar system again, so the action can
be evaluated. For the evaluation a set of three rules were set up, so general so they said
nothing about what action should be taken, but only about what result it should produce.
if there is no object within range, then it is good to go forward,
if an object is relatively near, then it is good to get further away from it,
if the object is in the distance, then it is still good to have forwards motion, but it is also good to
get further away from the object.
The probabilities are then increased or decreased according to how ‘good’ the action was.
After this the loop is repeated with the exception the scan used to evaluate the last action is
used rather than doing another one. The code looks something like this:
read sonar system,
choose probability set (automaton) according to obstacle position,
choose and perform an action an of this automation,
wait for a short period of time, whilst transmitting data to other robots,
read sonar system, whilst transmitting data to other robots,
evaluate the chosen action,
collect and Transmit information to other robot(s),
loop back to choose probability set,
(data from the other robots is handled under interrupt. The robot’s probabilities are updated
when a complete packet of data is received.)
A chart of the learning-rate can be found in the appendix.
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In August 1998 Kevin had a silicon chip, cased in a glass tube, implanted in his upper left
arm. Through the sending and receiving of radio signals the house at Reading University
where the cybernetic department is located then recognised Kevin and could record his
movements, open doors or turn on the lights for him. The chip was powered by induction
originating from huge copper coils built into doorways though the building.
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Elsewhere around the world there were a lot of experiments with neural-connected computers
on animals that pre-dated the Cyborg 2.0 project.
In 1997, at Tokyo University a microprocessor was connected into the brain of a cockroach
and worn on its back, like a backpack. The processor could send signals causing the
cockroach to walk, despite its own intensions. Similar successful experiments following this
have been done on leeches and rats.
At North-western University’ s Rehabilitation Institute in Chicago, the extracted brain of a
lamprey (a kind of fish) was mounted and connected to a small-wheeled robot. The lamprey
has a innate response to light and this was used to control the robot. The robot/lamprey was
surrounded by lights and as different lights was turned on and off the lamprey-brain sent
signals that made the robot/lamprey dash back and forth between the lights.
In Hahnemann School of Medicine, Philadelphia, the cage of a rat was equipped with a lever
that gave the rat a drink of water when pulled. Electrodes was implanted into the brain of the
rat so that when it thought about pulling the water-lever, signals were emitted that gave the rat
the water without the lever being pulled. It soon learned that it needn’ t pull the lever anymore,
just think about it.
The most complex project of this kind, tough, was conducted by Miguel Nicolelis at Duke
University Medical Centre in North Carolina. His team connected 96 electrodes to the motor
neurons of a owl monkey. As the monkey reached for a piece of fruit its arm’ s movement was
copied by a robotic arm, using the signals the electrodes was emitting.
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Some well-known research and testing in this field was done by José Delgado, who started
out back in the days of WW2, proving that electrical signals could be sent to, and received
from, the human brain. His work involved research for the U.S. military on the ‘Pandora
Project’ , set to attempt to through electromagnetic fields cause soldiers to lose self-control on
the battlefield.
More recent work has mostly concentrated on trying to help patients with infunctional body
parts. In 1992, at Duke University, researchers connected an electrode into the eye of a
completely blind patient and then causing a spark at its end through a electrical pulse. The
patient could see the spark and this ignited a whole series of similar experiments that has had
mixed, and not very impressive, results. A similar test, but with a twist, has given a patient
limited sight by passing the signals directly into his brain with electrodes. The patient, who
otherwise is completely blind, wears a pair of sunglasses with a tiny camera mounted behind
one of the lenses, this sends the images to a computer carried on the hip and this highlights the
edges between dark and light regions and passing on these altered images to the brain giving
the patient a tunnel vision of about 1,5 meters ahead, about 20cm high and 5cm wide. In this
area high-contrast objects can be picked out, say a black cap on a white table.
With cochlea implants there is a whole different story. In the past 20 years thousands of
people have gone through successful implant operations, giving them a sense of hearing. In
many cases as few as six electrons has been sufficient. This is a very straight example of just
how adaptable the human brain is, taking such a basic input and making sense of it.
Another very successful use of new understanding of the workings of the brain has followed
the discoveries done by Dr. Benebid at University of Grenoble in 1995. He showed a way of
completely subcoming the muscle failures that follows from Parkinson’ s disease. This disease
causes the body to produce too little of the neuro-transmitter dopamine, which causes the
over-activation of the subthalamic nucleus of the brain resulting in slowness, stiffness and the
characteristic handshaking. By implanting electrodes in these areas and stimulating them with
electric current, the symptoms are reversed. Implanted units in the patient’ s chest contain
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
main circuitry and power supply, with connections up to the electrodes in the brain. The unit
can be turned on and off externally resulting in the return of the disease in full effect instantly.
But with the implant turned on the symptoms of the disease are completely cured.
The experiment most similar to the Cyborg 2.0 project was done in 1999 at Emory University,
Atlanta. There Philip Kennedy and his team used brain implants to let completely
immobilised patients control the cursor of a computer by thinking about different parts of
their body. The implant is powered by induction rather like in the Cyborg 1.0 project but with
the patient wearing a cap with the coil rather than a doorway. - The implants were laced with
neurotropic chemicals, originally extracted from the patient’ s knee, to encourage neuralgrowth around the implants well in their position. Over several months following the
operation the nerves they were in grew into them, making a better connection.
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On the 14 of March 2002 Kevin had a chip implanted in the meridian nerve of his left arm,
where it would be for the next three months. This implant was a step towards a bi-directional
communicating brain implant, which Kevin ultimately aims at. The meridian nerve was
chosen because most of the nerves in this part of the body are connected to the hand, with
very few splinter nerves – something like a freeway, and is a clean pathway to the nervous
system. Signals sent and received here are electronic impulses that control dexterity, feeling,
even emotions. Many of these signals exist in the nerve at any given time; it carries more
information than any other part of the anatomy, except the spine, the optic and the auditory
nerves. The interface chip chosen was an array of a hundred metal pins connected to a silicon
chip that could send and receive electric signals from the pins individually. The implant was
inserted into the nerve just above the wrist with a hydraulic gun and its wiring was led a bit
further up the arm and then out to a main circuitry unit on the outside of the arm. When Kevin
moved his hand the signals were picked up by the array, but still letting them pass. The
signals were converted from their analogous form into digital and sent on to a computer via
radio. The system worked the same way backwards, converting digital signals from the
computer into analogous and passing them on into the nerve. This function was the one that
caused the most worrying perspective before the operation; would the receiver pick up noise
from the environment and passing it on up the Kevin’ s brain, possibly hurting him?
With the implant well in place, its functionality was tested.
ƒ No complex signals could be sent or received, only binary information. Although a
slight variation in ‘strength’ of the motor-controlling signals could be detected, the
team weren’ t able to make any use or understanding of it.
ƒ Only very limited ‘feeling’ signals travelling from the hand up the nerve could be
picked up, but coping them and sending them back trying to produce phantom-pain
was not successful.
ƒ No emotional feelings could be detected.
Kevin and his team tried a number of uses of the implant.
8OWUDVRQLFH[WUDVHQVRU\LQSXWThis was done by putting an ultrasonic emitter/receiver
(sonar) on a cap Kevin wore and then blindfolding him. The sonar impulses were passed on to
Kevin’ s arm the frequency increasing as the object got closer. This experiment worked very
well and with some practising Kevin could tell just how far off the object was. Although with
this crude signalling its application of giving blind people another sense is very far-off.
5HPRWHFRQWUROOLQJWHFKQRORJ\This included a robotic hand, one of the seven dwarfs, a
motored wheelchair, the cybernetics building at Reading University and light-emitting
jewellery. All of these were in fact successfully by Kevin but only through binary signals. The
dwarf and the wheelchair could perform a number of operations under Kevin’ s influence
through a system where the action to be performed changed in a time-controlled loop with
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
Kevin sending signals when the current action was the on he wanted to be done. With the
house Kevin could choose actions from a menu by clenching and unclenching his hand.
([FLWLQJWKHQHUYHVUHPRWHO\Kevin could feel the signals like a sort of buzzing and copying
the motor-signal to contract the index finger was causing the same effect when sent into the
verve from the computer at an 80 percent success rate. That the same signal didn’ t trigger the
same response in all of the cases they couldn’ t find any explanation to.
1HUYRXVV\VWHPWRQHUYRXVV\VWHPFRPPXQLFDWLRQKevin’ s wife was for this experiment fitted
with an implant as well, though a much simpler one. It was made up of an electrode-needle
that was pushed into the meridian nerve at the same place as Kevin had his implant and the
end sticking out was connected to a circuitry unit that could process and produce signals both
ways and was connected to a computer. The same sort of signals that Kevin had witnessed
and sent could now be sent between him and his wife.
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Though the experiments done in the Cyborg 2.0 project don’ t amount to very much, their aim
is well worth discussing. Kevin suggests a number of reasons why neural-system direct
communication and its replacement of speech is worth pursuing. Human speech is very errorprone and slow. Your thoughts have to be converted into representations of them (words) and
then again converted into pressure waves in the air (sound) and at the recipient then converted
back into thoughts. A language is something you have to learn and the process of converting
your thoughts into a language satisfactory is a task most people don’ t feel they’ ve ever fully
mastered. Everyone has troubles finding the right words sometimes. Especially if the person
you’ re trying to talk to speaks a language you’ re not confident in or know at all. Because of
its serial fashion and the many points where something might go wrong, speed is greatly
impaired. Also sound dissolves into thin air after a short distance, you can’ t have a
comfortable conversation with anyone further than a few meters away. Machines can
communicate over enormous distances, in parallel with little or no error. Direct neural system
communication would be more like the machine way of communicating making the soundencoded messages we call speech seem silly. The possibility to stimulate muscle movement
my remote can set the more paranoid to thinking about techniques to remote control an entire
person but the possible advantages to those with impaired muscle control I believe highly
outweighs the risk of such a scenario. Those would be the people who back in the Stone Age
said “Oh, let’ s not learn how to master fire, somebody might get burnt.”
Though the research that has taken place so far doesn’ t raise any serious moral discussion the
future goals they suggest does, especially the upgrading of humans which Kevin fondly
claims to have done with his implant and the self-learning robots like the Seven Dwarfs. On
the question of upgrading humanity it is just a future step of the path that has taken us from
the flint arrowhead to the PC. They are both tools, used to extend the capabilities of humans.
Just as binoculars are an extension of human sight, books an extension of our memory and the
computer is an extension of our mind. New tools like windows, the mouse and voice
recognition are increasing effiency by changing the interface, moving us closer into the
machine. The day will come when we simply plug in. Today most of such direct connections
are medical ones, from Captain Hook we have moved to motorised prosthetics and implants
giving us back lost senses, or even ones we never had. From assisting implants like the
pacemaker and those that restore function, like cochlea implants we are moving towards the
day when the replacement is better than the part replaced, and then there will be people that
will want to have the implant, even if they don’ t need it. The day when a computer will truly
become an extension of the human mind is a question of perception. It might be an implant to
cure a disease, like the Parkinson’ s implant, or it might be a librarian that wants to keep in
mind the whole library list. But before then, the lines between PC and person will be so
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
blurred we won’ t think very much about it. Walking into the store to buy more memory to a
PC that’ s standing at home at your desk or one that you’ re wearing in the back of your head
isn’ t that different. Rod Brooks, Marvin Minsky’ s successor as head of the AI lab at MIT,
finds this path the only way to go. “There will hardly be any humans, who aren’ t also robots,
or cyborgs. Implants, prosthetics and other human enhancers will revolutionize medicine and
wipe out the borders between human and robot. The human body is a machine, a wonderful
one, but still a machine.”
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It is my, and many other’ s, belief that today’ s research in ANN’ s (like the Seven Dwarfs) with
machines learning from experience and teaching each other will lead to a kind of intelligence
that we cannot dismiss as lesser than ours because it is different. It is also my belief that the
implant technology we see today will lead us to one day replacing our own organs with,
artificial, more efficient ones. These two trends in science I believe will lead to that when the
day comes we say “Here we have constructed a true artificial intelligence” we won’ t be very
different ourselves.
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
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What came first; the robot or the egg? – Why post-humanism will happen.
5HVRXUFHV
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Graham-Rowe, D.,’ Half fish, Half robot’ , 1HZ6FLHQWLVW 10, June 2000
Huges, J.,’ Embracing Change with All Four Arms’ 7DNLQJ6LGHV&ODVKLQJ9LHZVRQ
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Easton. Dushkin/McGraw Hill, 2000
Huges, J.,’ Brain Death and Technological Change: Personal Identity, Neural Prostheses and
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Penrose, R., The Emporer’ s New Mind, 2[IRUG8QLYHUVLW\3UHVV, 1989
Warwick, K.,’ Cyborg 1.0’ , :LUHGYROQR 2000
Warwick, K.,’ The March of the Machines’ ,&HQWXU\ 1997
Warwick, K.,’ I, Cyborg’ &HQWXU\, 2002
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www.cyber.rdg.ac.uk/CIRG/robots/flocking.htm
web.mit.edu
www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/behind3.html
www.generation5.org
www.ai-forus.org
www.changesurfer.com
www.zdnet.co.uk/news/specials/2001/01/ai/