back to article How long until we can build R2-D2 and C-3PO?

The Star Wars universe is full of droids. Everywhere you turn, there are medical droids, exploration droids, labour droids, pilot droids, even battle droids. They carry out clearly defined tasks, often with a degree of independence, without needing to interact with people. In real life, we now have the technology to create …

  1. Caff

    Power

    Another issue with building such droids is the power requirements. Battery technology still leaves a lot to be desired and such bots would spend quite a lot of time charging.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Power

      "[...] such bots would spend quite a lot of time charging."

      Why not have power packs that act like meals? The bot just changes the battery for one that is already charged. That would make the down-time negligible. A snack wagon bot could carry spare batteries in the field - another would ferry them between the snack wagon and the eco-friendly charging station.

      1. Caff

        Re: Power

        No adventuring across a desert for them so.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Here's my attempt...

    Hi chaps, I'm a member of the UK R2 Builders Club, here's a couple of pics of my droid:

    http://astromech.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=87643&g2_serialNumber=2&g2_

    GALLERYSID=36fdc2fb2072a49af6778fe4864f8097

    http://astromech.net/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=87508&g2_serialNumber=2&g2_

    GALLERYSID=36fdc2fb2072a49af6778fe4864f8097

    It's only when you have to share living space with a lump of plastic the size of a washing machine that you realise what a fantastically unwieldy thing an astromech droid is! I wouldn't know where to start to make him even slightly autonomous. There are builders in the club that are working on it at a basic level (i.e. not running over kids at conventions!).

    It's a fun hobby though. Addictive too - I've just started on BB-8 :)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Here's my attempt...

      Autonomous or not, your R2 looks fabulous.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Here's my attempt...

      Not running over things is easy. What is far more difficult (as you have undoubtedly observed visiting all manner of conventions) is only slightly running over things.

      Imagine, if you will, yourself at a busy venue at the entrance wanting to move to the other side. If you would stop your progress every time another visitor, stand or display appeared in your path you would still be at the entrance at closing time.

      So what you do is thread the needle through that is the crowd, a nudge here, a bump there, a sidestep-and-swipe yonder. Every time you observe an obstacle you evaluate and decide the amount of force necessary to 'force' your way through. Every once in a while someone gets it wrong and there are the appropriate expletives to be observed.

      From humans we have grown to accept this behaviour. From droids, not so much.

      So I wish you the best of luck with further developement. May the necessary force be with you.

      Oh...and make sure the droid can get up again under its own steam when someone bowls it over.

  3. jake Silver badge

    I can subsist on brown rice & legumes & other veggies ...

    ... pretty much indefinitely[0].

    The cartoon "droids" require batteries. They are, and always will be, toys.

    [0] I typically average ~2oz/day animal protein.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I can subsist on brown rice & legumes & other veggies ...

      Yup, why bother when people are cheap as chips?

      1. Neil Barnes Silver badge

        Re: I can subsist on brown rice & legumes & other veggies ...

        Indeed. As the old saying has it - why bother with the complexity of building artificial brains when human ones are cheaper and so much more fun to make.

        1. Graham Marsden

          Re: I can subsist on brown rice & legumes & other veggies ...

          > human ones are cheaper and so much more fun to make.

          And can be built by unskilled labour...

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: I can subsist on brown rice & legumes & other veggies ...

            "And can be built by unskilled labour..."

            Their programming needs some intelligence though.

  4. Mage Silver badge

    AI versus simulated Intelligence

    We have made no progress at all on AI since 1946, all progress has been narrow areas of simulation and so called "Expert Systems". Much language in the AI field has been redefined. Computer Neural Networks are nothing of the sort. "Learning" and "Adaptive" is nearly a misuse of English. Successful language translation has almost abandoned grammar / parsing / semantics / context to use a brute force "Rosetta Stone" approach.

    Speech recognition is nowhere near as good as Audio Typist, never mind a personal assistant. It just needs less "training" that it used to.

    We don't yet have an adequate definition of natural Intelligence, so how can we define the program requirements much less write one? True natural language interaction rather than the Artificial Stupidity of phone response "robots", Siri and Cortana is very far away and probably needs true AI. It's not a question of computer power, or it could be done slowly.

    Neal Stephenson in "The Diamond Age" asks is in fact real AI even possible with a "turing machine" (i.e. ANY computer). The "book" in the story certainly isn't possible today [ignoring issues of communication and charging] without even a real time team of humans, rather than the one person. The hardware and software of the "Book" is certainly feasible, though it's more like something implemented with eInk plastic paper than OLED or LCD.

    In a way Project Xanadu is the first attempt at the "book" and while earlier than Apple's Hypercard (before HTTP/WEB) and HTTP/Web tries to solve some basic limitations of web pages.

    The hardware of C3PO or R2D2 was possible even in 1977. Though power supply and balance for C3PO a problem then, now solved by e.g. Honda's robot (though I suspect power / running time is an issue).

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: AI versus simulated Intelligence

      Sadly I would have to agree with you. Modern AI research seems more focused on producing things which can be useful, which for now means finding better ways to trick and simulate. After all, a decent simulacrum of AI can help you make appointments and do basic research through your mobile phone now, which is a far more marketable asset than a real AI at the developmental level of a cockroach would be (and even this seems beyond us at present).

      I don't think I can agree with the premise that real AI may be impossible. If it can be done in wetware I can't see any reason that it shouldn't be done in hardware too. However, throwing together an analogue computer with the necessary number of computing elements (cf neurons) to do the job isn't really feasible from a resource point of view, and emulating this type of system (let alone programming it) inside a digital computer seems a rather inefficient way to tackle the problem.

      If it really is just a matter of having enough computing resources we'll probably get there eventually, but it's anyones guess how many years of Moore's law (and whatever rate of development succeeds it) will be needed to achieve it. If there's a cleverer way around the problem then it hasn't been invented/discovered yet - and it's difficult to predict how long these types of breakthrough take. Either way, making estimates of how long it will take to produce "True AI" just seems like crystal gazing to me, and basing it on current efforts at faking AI isn't really an informed approach.

  5. Michael Habel

    Before we get on to Rosé the Maid(bot)

    Where are our flying Cars and, 3D Hollo TV's?

    1. Goldmember

      Re: Before we get on to Rosé the Maid(bot)

      Watch this recent Channel 4 series first.

      THEN come back and say you want flying cars and holo TVs before your very own Gemma Chan bot (or "synth").

  6. Michael Habel
    Terminator

    That moment whan...

    Your shiny new AI decides that Humankind is expendable.

  7. DrXym

    What we all want to know

    Are any of these robots programmed for "pleasure"?

    1. Pompous Git Silver badge

      Re: What we all want to know

      Are any of these robots programmed for "pleasure"?

      Fake Human Blues

      Hey, anita, anita banana

      Hey, anita, would you hold my banana;

      I'd like it now, I don't mean mañana...

      [With apologies to Kevin Ayers]

  8. Jediben

    "Invented at MIT, the still unreleased robot’s abilities will include talking to and recognising people and remembering their preferences."

    Right as soon as the three letter agencies are done ensuring everything it records is uploaded correctly...

  9. Goldmember

    "it’s unlikely that we will see a full version of either of them in any of our lifetimes."

    Awwww :-(

    That's put a downer on my Friday.

  10. Graham Bartlett

    Are they sensible anyway?

    C-3PO, fair enough. He's got to be able to work in a social environment with other mostly-humanoids.

    But R2-D2 is supposed to be able to repair things, particularly spacecraft. Sure he can do some software, but when it comes to anything physical he's not the droid you're looking for. If I'm going to have an astromech droid on my X-wing to fix up battle damage, I'd like it to have long enough arms to reach damage anywhere on the ship, or to be able to move itself to where the damage is. A swing-bin on wheels is not going to be my first choice of design.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Are they sensible anyway?

      A swing-bin gadget was about as far as Lucas's budget would swing. Even then the delays and cost were a strain. The same thing happened with the "Rover" prisoner retrieval device in "The Prisioner". McGoohan opted for a simple weather balloon pushed around by fans. Cheaper. and it's pretty nightmarish as well.

      BTW, the movie inspiration for R2-D2 and C3PO is these guys.

      1. Michael Habel

        Re: Are they sensible anyway?

        Not sure what those two are supposed to be. But it looks like an Akria Kurosawa Film so thumbs up! But, wouldn't Laurel & Hardy have not worked better as a reference?

        1. DropBear
          Facepalm

          Re: Are they sensible anyway?

          "But, wouldn't Laurel & Hardy have not worked better as a reference?"

          They might have, but as it happens they weren't the reference - those two peasants of Kurosawa were. See bottom of the page 47 of this sample from "The Secret History Of Star Wars". Actually, read the rest of the sample too, it's quite entertaining - but I warn you, the more you read of it the more likely you are to end up looking like this every time someone talks of Lucas's "genius" --->

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Are they sensible anyway?

          > " ...it looks like an Akria Kurosawa Film..."

          Yes indeedy. Hidden Fortress is one great movie. I like it better than Seven Samurai. It's those two pathetic peasants...

  11. Roger Kynaston
    Coat

    I for one

    Welcome our bullet shaped overlords complete with gold plated humanoid interpreters.

  12. Graham Marsden
    Terminator

    We're not...

    ... the droids you're looking for...

    1. Michael Habel

      Re: We're not...

      Yeah it's almost too bad that it's looking to ex-terminate you!

  13. martinusher Silver badge

    Has that Sinclair Spectrum Look

    When you look at droids like R2-D2 and C-3PO you just see rather dated technology. R2-D2 in particular has a distinctly Z80 look and feel to it. This problem isn't unique to Star Wars, its the fate of most Science Fiction -- the future always looks different because changes in technology aren't just 'more', they're 'different'.

    Perhaps the biggest change is that there really is no need for an intelligent robot, a sort of mobile CPU. We live in an age of networks and that connectivity has redefined how we view processing and peripherals. Some of the concepts are still forming -- this whole IoT business is the world stumbling around trying to make sense of the possibilities -- but we have enough of it at our fingertips right now to see the future.

    1. annodomini2

      Re: Has that Sinclair Spectrum Look

      Also copyright, trademark and other legal factors come into play.

      The only thing that came close was probably the clamshell phones.

  14. MatsSvensson

    Hmm, looks like the problem is a bad motivator.

    I think i have one that will fit....

    *riffle riffle*

    Ah, here it is.

    PORN!

  15. Christian Berger

    I'm pessimistic about this

    Whenever I'm looking at modern IT, I see trivial problems solved in ever more complex ways. At the same time there's less and less sensible computer education.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm pessimistic about this

      trivial problems solved in ever more complex ways

      e.g. JQuery

  16. Ken Y-N
    Gimp

    Just a note - Pepper is actually French, from Aldebaran Robotics, although the personality is Made in Japan.

    And for all you pervs, the Pepper AUP was recently updated to exclude sexual services, perhaps because a pixellated Pepper penis in a pr0n production may not quite be the best selling point.

  17. dliebster73

    No. We. Can't. I attended the 2015 DARPA Robotics Finals.

    These robots couldn't open a door knobwithout falling down out of confusion, nor drive a buggy around 5 obstacles over 200 meters. We are about as far from these two droids as we are from recreating einstein in a test tube.

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