Will Robots Replace Riders?

Maybe I hang out with all the wrong people:  I have yet to meet anybody who likes the idea of a driverless car.  They may not enjoy driving, but they are skeptical that a computer program, or whatever would guide the vehicle, can make the same kinds of judgments a driver could make.

Then there are those people who enjoy driving.  I don't imagine many of them would be crazy about losing one of their pleasures.

So why, then, would anyone want to teach a computer how to ride a bicycle?

Computer scientist Matthew Cook, from what I can see, isn't trying to make a machine that can usurp the role of a cyclist.  Rather, he says, "we do not have great insight into how we ride a bicycle" no matter how well we may ride.

 

In 2004, when he was at the California Institute of Technology, he created a simulator and made 800 unsteered runs with it to see how far it could go when there is no one to steer it.   The image above shows the tracks of those runs, initiated when the "bicycle" was pushed to left to right, and how far they went before falling down.  Oscillations from side to side, visible in the chart, occurred because the bicycle was moving too slowly to keep itself stable.

As a result of this work, he found that it took a simple network of only two neurons to keep the bike stable:  one to calculate the required lean of the bicycle to execute a given judgment in direction, and another to translate that change into an amount of torque to apply to the handlebars.

Cook says his work could have "many applications", but doesn't specify what they are.  My guess is that it might be helpful for people to regain skills and faculties lost or impaired in crashes and other traumatic events:  Simulators like Cook's might, for example, provide insights into how our minds and bodies allow us to do some of the things--like balancing a bicycle or walking--we do instinctively. Also, I could see how "test dummies" for bikes could be developed to better test helmets and other products.

I just hope no one develops robots that can push us aside and take our bikes!  

A Straightforward Oxymoron?

The first time you saw or heard the word "oxymoron", what did you think?

Perhaps it's indicative of the time in my life when I learned it that I thought about a stupid kid with zits.  Back then, a product for treating acne that had "Oxy" in its name had recently been introduced.  Is that product still being made?

Anyway, being the sort of person who remembers examples better than abstract definitions, whenever I heard the word "oxymoron", I would think of "military intelligence", "dietetic candy", "authentic reproduction" and "business ethics".  Oh, and there was a sign I saw in a supermarket:  "Fresh frozen jumbo baby shrimp."

Here's another one to add to the list:  a riderless bicycle.   

From Wired.com

Now, such a thing may be plausible, at least in an etymological or epistemological sense.  (I teach college. I have to use words like those at least once a year.  There, I got it over with!)  After all, a bicycle is nothing more than a vehicle with two wheels.  So, I suppose, one could have a bicycle without a rider.  Of course, I have to ask:  Why?

Well, someone seems to have a reason:  research.  Yes, you can get away with inventing practically anything for research purposes. But I think this project may have practical applications:  The riderless bicycle's creators are trying to learn more about gyroscopic forces and what keeps wheeled vehicles stable.

Maybe one day, if I have money to burn, I'll buy one of those bicycles for someone whom I tried, and failed, to turn into a cyclist!