The next generation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robots could be developed by private industry and sold in a traditional proprietary fashion. But what happens when the majority of the robotics research pool comes from academia?
Open source happens, as EE Times describes:
For the researchers involved, one crucial characteristic of the new robot is that both the hardware and software are open-source and designed for easy collaboration. Whether the researchers build better cognitive architectures, learning algorithms, sensors or limbs, once their work has been proved on the European Commission-funded iCub, it can be shared and used to improve the next generation of machines....
"Open-source is an open faucet in a desert," said Olivier Sigaud, a professor at the Institute for Intelligent Systems and Robotics in Paris.
It turns out that academic researchers have long been stymied in their research by the NDAs and cumbersome processes promoted by private, proprietary industry. Opening up the field with open source thus makes a lot of sense.
Who knows? Perhaps your Jetsons lifestyle will be powered by open source.
I recently helped my son take third-to-last place in the Pinewood Derby. Reading this, I clearly should have powered his car with Fedora.
Fedora is the operating system of choice for AllemaniACs' winning robot in the RoboCup, a soccer tournament played between robots. Fedora has fueled AllemaniACs' victories in 2006 and 2007, and appears to be poised to raise the cup again in 2008.
The RoboCup sounds fascinating. There is no human intervention in the games beyond coaches yelling instructions to the robots, and the robots responding in kind. Hopefully they respond better than my five-year old does on her mob ball team....
AllemaniACs' robot is mostly powered by off-the-shelf Fedora, with some modifications that have been contributed back to the Fedora core. Importantly, these modifications and the work done for Fedora's RoboCup success aren't limited to the electronic dreams of RoboCup's Ronaldos:
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