This robot self-awareness test

Roboticists at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York have constructed a trio of robots that were put through the excellent 'insightful men riddle' test of mindfulness - and one of them passed.

In the riddle, an anecdotal lord is picking another counselor and accumulates the three savvies individuals in the area. He guarantees the challenge will be reasonable, then puts either a blue or white cap on each of their heads and lets them know all that the first individual to stand up and accurately find the shading they could call their own cap will turn into his new counsel.

Selmer Bringsjord set up a comparable circumstance for the three robots - two were kept from talking, then each of the three were asked which one was still ready to talk. All endeavor to say "I don't have the foggiest idea", yet stand out succeeds - and when it hears its own voice, it comprehends that it was not hushed, saying "Sad, I know now!"

Notwithstanding, as we can expect that every one of the three robots were coded the same, in fact, each of the three have finished this mindfulness test.

Human-like abilities
It might sound a pretty simple task for a human, but it's not for a robot - the bot must listen to and understand the question, then hear their own voice saying "I don't know" and recognise it as distinct from another robot's voice, then connect that with the original question to conclude that they hadn't been silenced.

Logical puzzles requiring an element of self-awareness like this are essential in building robots that can understand their role in society. By passing many tests of this type, it's hoped that robots will be able to build up a group of human-like abilities that become useful when combined.

Bringsjord's work will be presented at the RO-MAN conference in Japan, which runs from 31 August to 4 September 2015. Oh, you want the correct answer for the wise men puzzle? Well, the only fair contest would be if they were all the same colour!

Source: techradar.com