back to article Yes, just what they need: Curious Dr MISFA injects a healthy dose of curiosity into robots

Computer scientists in Germany hope to make humanoid robots smarter by programming the 'droids with a sense of “artificial curiosity.” The bots gain their inquisitiveness from an algorithm dubbed Curious Dr MISFA, which is described in this paper [PDF] that appeared on arXiv this month. The software uses unsupervised and …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "[...] decides when the robot should stay on a channel or switch by learning the easiest abstractions first [...]"

    Sounds like a case of ADHD?

  2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Unhappy

    Unfair to ADHD sufferers everywhere.

    A marker symptom for this is not just the very short attention span for 90%of the world. It's the very obsessive focus on a narrow part of it.

    So that would be switching channels incessantly, then hitting one and watching nothing else.

    In a decade we may think this is a small step forward to actual AI.

    Or not.

  3. Rol

    Robopedia

    An on-line encyclopaedia that is written solely by certified AI inquisitor machines.

    The purpose of which is to provide a 100% accurate database of everything in the universe, that is cross-referenced and highly indexed to assist droids in their daily chores.

    Robopedia eventually negated the need for every droid to be fitted with the highly expensive Inteli 101 AI processor as they only need to identify an object and or scenario to then be able to access the database for a fully comprehensive interaction projection.analysis.

    Today's droids unarguably have the most powerful sensory inputs ever, but boy are they dumb.

  4. AceRimmer1980
    Terminator

    I'm reminded of an episode of Outer Limits, where a curious robot kills a cat.

    1. John Smith 19 Gold badge
      Unhappy

      I'm reminded of an episode of Outer Limits, where a curious robot kills a cat.

      Today of course an intelligent robot would simply check YouTube.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not sure how good of an idea this is

    Curiosity helps children learn. It also causes them to stick a fork in a wall socket and pick up a real gun thinking it is a toy.

  6. Captain DaFt

    What could possibly go wrong?

    AI: "OOH, what does this button marked 'Don't Touch... EVER!' do?"

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