PhD studentship: Humans and robots

This PhD studentship sounds like fun. If I had better programming skills and if I were masochistic enough to do another PhD, I'd definitely apply. After all, it's only a few short steps from here to the robot war. We should prepare.

Symbiotic cooperation between humans and robotic swarms

Start date and duration: December 2010, 4 years

Location: "Dalle Molle" Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA), Lugano, Switzerland (http://www.idsia.ch)

The objective of the research is the development of novel methods for self-organized control and coordination of heterogeneous teams of humans and robot swarms interacting in symbiotic peer-to-peer modality. The applicant will devise novel ways to include humans' unique sensory-motor and cognitive skills in the loop of robotic swarms. The applicant will investigate different means and combinations of multi-modal communications based on visual cues, human gestures, vocal commands, stigmergic signalling, and radio messages. Particular attention will be also devoted to the modelling of human and swarm emotions and to the study of how to use them to effectively affect motivations, goals, action selection, and learning.

The investigated topics will be a follow-up of IDSIA's previous research in the domain of swarm robotics (http://www.swarmanoid.org, http://www.swarm-bots.org). The research will be carried out in the context of a Swiss research framework.

Candidate Profile:

We are looking for an excellent and highly motivated candidate with a strong interest and a scientific background in: robotics, cognitive sciences, machine learning, and swarm intelligence. The candidate must have a MASTER degree (or equivalent). She/he is expected to have good programming and mathematical skills, and to have a positive attitude toward interdisciplinary research and teamwork.

Time frame, Enrollment, and Salary information:

- Expected duration of the studentship: 4 years, starting from October 2010
- The candidate will be affiliated to the Faculty of Informatics at (http://www.inf.unisi.ch/) and will be supervised by Prof. Luca Maria Gambardella (IDSIA, http://www.idsia.ch/~luca).
- English is the official language both at the Faculty of Informatics of US and at IDSIA.
- The gross salary is roughly 40,000 CHF (29,000 EURO) per year (corresponding to a net salary of about 2,700 CHF/month). There is travel funding in case of papers accepted at conferences and for project meetings.

Research environment:

IDSIA is a research institute affiliated to the University of Lugano and the University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland. IDSIA is a truly international, stimulating, and dynamic environment. It currently hosts about 50 people, including senior researchers, postdoctoral fellows, and Ph.D. students.

The research activities carried out at IDSIA address a number of different domains, including: swarm robotics, machine learning, combinatorial optimization, networking, bio-inspired computing, data mining, information theory, complex systems, and simulation.

How to Apply:

Applications should be submitted electronically to Dr. Gianni A. Di Caro at the following address: gianni AT idsia DOT ch

Must include:

Detailed curriculum vitae (including grades)
List of two references (including email addresses)
Statement about the research interests of the candidate, pointing out their relationship with the topics of the project (1 page)
Links to master thesis and publications
The position is open until filled. Candidates are strongly encouraged to send their applications before September 30, 2010.

// Jacob Lee, via ANTHRO-L

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I can see my house from here ...

I realize that this is extremely delayed due to my recent lapse in posts and the fleeting state of news in the blogosphere, but I feel that it is worth posting nonetheless. Google has launched its Street View option on Google Maps (US). I spent some time browsing the few available streets in my hometown and concluded that if I am ever in need of a street-level view of a particular building or square foot of pavement, it might come in useful. Over all, however, the novelty seemed to wear off quickly as I found the display increasingly choppy and I struggled to find something worth looking at. As a service, it would probably be better if it were integrated into Google Earth as a desktop application, rather than Google Maps as an online tool.

Of course, there are more critics of this new service than there were of governmental wire-tapping. A host of unethical and dangerous activities are quoted as possible threats to personal privacy and safety. I am undecided as to whether or not this is a good idea, because all good ideas can often be perverted into bad ideas. However, what does interest me is how this relates to the ever-increasing confusion over what constitutes "public" and "private" space. In many (if not all) countries around the world, new technologies - from mobile phones to satellite imagery - are changing the ways in which people interact with, and understand, spatial demarcations in everyday life.

Here's an excerpt from the article:

"There's a distinction between what Google has a legal right to do and what is the responsible thing to do," said Bankston, who believes the company should have blurred the images of unwitting pedestrians before it posted the street-level pictures. "It's a problem we as a society have to grapple with, and I think we are just now seeing the fault lines emerge." While he thinks some of the issues raised by Google's new service are prime fodder for a healthy debate, Weinstein worries that it might inspire overly repressive laws.

"It's a tough area, but it just seems there is no way around the fact that public spaces are public spaces," Weinstein said. "You don't want to create an environment where it becomes illegal to take photos in public. It can be riskier not to be able to see something than it is to be able to see something."


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Artificial Intelligence

I know that this is well out of date by now, but it has re-appeared on my list of things to discuss with my first year undergraduate students. For an upcoming examination revision session, I will be explicating the relevance of AI to anthropology and computing. The Guardian recently reported that the Engineering Department at Essex University are building 60 mini-robots to act as surrogate humans with the intention of discovering "the processes and mechanisms of the emergence of culture and cultural behaviour" [source]. Will this research tell us anything that conventional evolutionary anthropology can't or hasn't? Will it have any correlation with human society?

"Winfield is quick to throw in a caveat. 'The behaviours that emerge and evolve will not be human but decidedly robotic. We do not expect these artificial memes to have any meaning in a human cultural context - they will only be meaningful within the closed context of this artificial society. One of our key challenges in this research will be to identify and interpret these patterns of behaviour as evidence for an emerging robot culture and to see whether this new understanding may shed some light on how culture emerges and whether this has any implications for human, animal or artificial societies. In a sense we will be using robots like a microscope to study the evolution of culture.'"

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