WEBVTT - Robot Avatars 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.080 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:14.280 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.599 podcast that looks at the future and says I was 0:00:16.680 --> 0:00:18.919 made to build things, and I build them quite well. 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:23.439 I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Joe McCormick, and today we're 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:26.759 going to be tackling a listener request. Yes, this is 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:30.920 a listener request. That's from Chris, and Chris sent us 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:36.000 an epic email. I mean it's it's an incredible email, fantastic, 0:00:36.040 --> 0:00:39.880 Thank you so much, Chris. It's it's long. It's long, 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:41.720 but we're so we're not gonna read the whole thing, 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:43.839 but I'll give you the gist of what Chris was 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.800 talking about. Chris was talking about the sort of the 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:52.839 the combination of multiple disciplines to allow us to explore 0:00:52.880 --> 0:00:56.279 the universe ultimately with robots that would give us a 0:00:56.280 --> 0:00:59.640 telepresence in wherever those robots could go, so that we 0:00:59.680 --> 0:01:03.160 could kind of experience that ourselves. So we're talking about 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:07.480 a combination of different factors advances in robotics where the robots, 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.200 particularly humanoid robots, would be able to go around and 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.640 explore things, the ability to send those signals back to 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.520 us using a user interface that's similar to virtual reality 0:01:18.600 --> 0:01:21.959 or augmented reality headsets, and the ability for us to 0:01:21.959 --> 0:01:24.600 control those robots in real time or as close to 0:01:24.640 --> 0:01:27.520 real time as possible, so that we can experience what 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:32.440 it's like being on these remote places, including places across 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:35.200 the galaxy, right right, This is like a step above 0:01:35.800 --> 0:01:40.080 rovers and into full on robotic avatars. Yes, So we 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:43.760 wanted to talk about the possibility of that and some 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:46.000 of the challenges that we face in order to get 0:01:46.040 --> 0:01:49.480 to a point where we could have robotic avatars. And 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.080 in some ways we're really close, and in other ways, 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:57.360 for some applications there's some problems that may in fact 0:01:57.400 --> 0:02:00.520 be insurmountable. Yeah, well, we may be coming up against 0:02:00.600 --> 0:02:04.480 problems that we often encounter when trying to uh interface 0:02:04.560 --> 0:02:10.360 between technology and our brains. Yeah, exactly. But we've talked 0:02:10.360 --> 0:02:12.160 about this on the show before, but maybe we should 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:14.400 just do a real quick refresher on why it is 0:02:14.480 --> 0:02:18.079 you'd want to have robots in space exploration as opposed 0:02:18.080 --> 0:02:21.200 to human astronauts, right right, and why you would want 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:24.760 to have a robot, you know, avatar in the first place. Now, 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:26.880 there are some reasons why you would want one just 0:02:27.040 --> 0:02:29.320 here on Earth. And one of the great stories will 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:33.919 be covering later is looking into research of using robotic 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:37.960 avatar for people who are otherwise incapable of moving right. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:42.000 It gives them the ability to have a robotic body 0:02:42.120 --> 0:02:45.240 do things on their behalf, and they can control it 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:48.560 in various ways. So that's one reason, but the other 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.200 one being for space exploration or other means. Here on Earth. 0:02:52.600 --> 0:02:55.840 Robots can go places we can't. Yeah, we've got these delicate, 0:02:55.880 --> 0:02:59.200 squishy human bodies that don't breathe the vacuum of space. 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:03.440 And you, Yeah, cold, really super cold temperatures kind of 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.000 mess with us. Radiation is bad. Super hot temperatures mess 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.680 with us. We're just not that great. Yeah, organic matter, 0:03:10.919 --> 0:03:15.080 organic matter has limitations, and some of those are limitations 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:20.880 that mechanical or electro mechanical or synthetic materials either do 0:03:20.919 --> 0:03:23.560 not experience or experience to a lesser degree. Well, yeah, 0:03:23.600 --> 0:03:25.120 there there are a couple ways you want to look 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:27.640 at this. One of them is simply that it can't 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.640 like a robot can do things a human couldn't do. 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.600 It can actually accomplish a mission that we would not 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:36.640 be able to complete. The other thing is that we 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.680 don't have to value robots as much like it's okay 0:03:39.720 --> 0:03:42.200 to send a robot on a suicide mission. You don't 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:44.680 have to feel bad about it. Right, It may end 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:48.600 up being a large financial obligation, but still that's very 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.800 different than putting a human life in danger. Sure. Sure, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.960 and you know, sentencing someone to never see their family again, 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:58.640 or never use Facebook again, or right right, or just 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.600 never see Gremlin's too again. Actually, I'm getting into an 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:03.560 area where I wouldn't mind giving those things up. But 0:04:04.520 --> 0:04:07.520 Kremlins Too is still amazing. Uh No, it's it's one 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.240 of those It's also one of those things where we 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:11.640 could send them to, even if it's not a one 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.240 way mission, we could send them to places that would 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.240 be extremely risky for humans. And that that includes places 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.320 here on Earth. Obviously we use robots for that now, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:23.640 shure for deep sea exploration. Yeah, and there are also 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:26.839 reasons a robot could complete a mission that humans couldn't complete. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.480 Apart from the fact that it like the environment, might 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.640 kill a human, it can also be that robots can 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:39.000 have scientific precision that humans don't naturally have unless we 0:04:39.040 --> 0:04:41.360 have some kind of tool or something. Yeah, robots can 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:45.039 move on a level of precision that that is far 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:48.360 greater than what humans can accomplish, and we've been putting 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.800 that to good use here on Earth as well. Also, 0:04:51.000 --> 0:04:53.640 robots can have an array of sensors on them that 0:04:53.760 --> 0:04:57.560 give them access to a lot more information than what 0:04:57.680 --> 0:05:01.000 we humans can can act us with just our our 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:05.320 natural senses. Right, So they're they're robots are capable of 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.240 quote unquote seeing in a spectrum that's much more broad 0:05:08.320 --> 0:05:11.479 than our visible spectrum that we're limited to because of 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.720 our dumb media. And they can also quote unquote here, 0:05:14.800 --> 0:05:16.839 I mean pretty much any sense you can think of. 0:05:17.480 --> 0:05:20.880 We can build sensors that are much more sensitive to 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:24.000 that information than our natural sense of The robot can 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:26.640 have an onboard mass spectrometer, which I mean we have 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:30.160 a tongue. But yeah, it's just better better to use 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.120 the spectrometer than to go tasting the dust of Mars. 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:37.640 This taste radioactive. Yeah, that's not not necessarily a good thing. Okay, Well, 0:05:37.640 --> 0:05:41.440 so obviously it's not a new idea to use robots 0:05:41.480 --> 0:05:44.960 controlled by humans in certain conditions where they would be 0:05:45.000 --> 0:05:47.919 you know, preferable or more useful or at least you 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:51.280 know better to put in harm's way. For example, one 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.919 thing I've seen plenty of pictures and video of before 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:58.160 his bomb disposal robots. This was total sense. This is 0:05:58.200 --> 0:05:59.719 one of the ones that leapt to mind when I 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:02.359 was thinking about this, sort of like the predecessors to 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:05.599 the types of robots that Chris was asking about in 0:06:05.760 --> 0:06:09.359 the email we received. So, bomb disposal robots have been 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:11.719 around for a while. The earliest one I could find 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:16.480 was designed in nineteen seventy two by Lieutenant Colonel Peter Miller. 0:06:16.680 --> 0:06:19.080 I say lieutenant because he was in the British Army. 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.359 His bomb disposal robot was built as a means of 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:27.080 a matter of necessity. At the time, the British Army 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.240 was dealing with a lot of car bombs that were 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:33.919 being left by the Irish Republican Army and so or 0:06:34.000 --> 0:06:36.880 rather the Irish republic Army, and so he wanted to 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:42.120 find a way to be able to to pull cars 0:06:42.160 --> 0:06:45.280 that might have explosive devices in them to a safe 0:06:45.400 --> 0:06:48.520 zone surrounded by sandbags, that sort of thing, so that 0:06:48.560 --> 0:06:51.240 it could be detonated without putting people in harm's way. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.520 And a lot of the times before he had made 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:58.680 the first bomb disposal robot. It was essentially the job 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:02.320 of somebody who was very brave and padded down as 0:07:02.400 --> 0:07:06.680 much as possible, armored up to physically go look into 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.560 a car, sometimes having to open a car door, which 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:12.560 could be a triggering device to get access to a bomb. 0:07:12.760 --> 0:07:14.400 So they were trying to find a way to make 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.680 this safer and he came up with the idea when 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:19.520 he was thinking back on something else he had done. 0:07:19.560 --> 0:07:21.920 It turned out that that Peter Miller was something of 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:25.360 a tinkerer and someone who often would think, how can 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:28.440 I make this easier? Uh? And one of the things 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:30.600 he thought about was a way to make it easier 0:07:30.600 --> 0:07:32.679 for him to mow the lawn so that he didn't 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:35.000 have to do it personally. And what it did was 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.000 he he did something really simple. He had a lawnmower 0:07:38.040 --> 0:07:40.600 that had powered wheels so it could move on its 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.680 own once you apply you know, gas to it. Essentially, 0:07:44.440 --> 0:07:46.920 he tied a rope to it, put a stake in 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.400 the ground that the rope was attached to, and let 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:51.760 it go so it would go in a circle. And 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:53.680 every time it completed a circle, it was it was 0:07:53.720 --> 0:07:57.680 winding the rope around the steak. It was tall enough 0:07:57.720 --> 0:07:59.720 in it there would be a shorter length of rope 0:08:00.000 --> 0:08:03.440 next go around, so it was concentric circle. So it's 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.000 like an early mowing room. It's brilliant in theory for 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.200 some reason that it seems like it wouldn't actually work 0:08:10.240 --> 0:08:13.400 in practice. It worked for him enough for him to think, 0:08:13.560 --> 0:08:16.880 maybe I can come up with something similar, but use 0:08:16.960 --> 0:08:21.080 it for this this very dangerous activity. And he thought, well, 0:08:21.120 --> 0:08:24.640 the lawnmower wouldn't really work as well. And he saw 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:29.840 someone using a motorized wheelbarrow, and he literally went to 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:34.160 the garden center, bought a motorized wheelbarrow, brought it back 0:08:34.160 --> 0:08:37.280 to headquarters. They were given carte blanche to do whatever 0:08:37.320 --> 0:08:41.360 they needed in order to actually put this thing together. 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.280 So they disassembled the wheelbarrow so they just had the 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.960 chassis and they created a robot that had a toe 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:51.080 hook on it. It was essentially a grappling hook and 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:55.079 they could power it remotely. And by remotely, I mean 0:08:55.120 --> 0:08:58.959 they tied ropes to the controls. By power you mean 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.440 human power or yeah, there was a human standing several 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:07.840 feedback using ropes to guide and power the willbarrow as 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:09.920 it would move to a car. And in fact they 0:09:10.000 --> 0:09:13.640 had to test this out almost immediately. They had to 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:16.680 go to Belfast with it. They used it to hook 0:09:16.760 --> 0:09:20.560 a car and it started to tow the car back, however, 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:23.760 and it was actually there was another vehicle I believe 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:25.800 that was connected to it to help it pull back 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.000 because the wheelbarrow wasn't strong enough to tow a car. 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:32.800 I don't believe. However, what happened was the wilbarrow unfortunately 0:09:32.840 --> 0:09:36.679 fell over during that first real life It wasn't even 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:38.200 a test, this was a real life use of it. 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:40.240 This was before they had really had chance to test 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:43.600 this thing. It phil fell over on its side and 0:09:43.640 --> 0:09:47.000 they ended up deadening the car by rockets where it 0:09:47.080 --> 0:09:49.440 what where it ended up after it'd been towed just 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.400 a short distance. But they still considered it a success 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:55.240 because it didn't it didn't require someone to get into 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.400 harm's way to pull the car further away from it 0:09:58.440 --> 0:10:00.640 was actually at a car dealership is where the car 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.800 was so uh they considered as a success, and in fact, 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:07.680 Peter Miller would go on to oversee the development of 0:10:07.720 --> 0:10:11.840 more sophisticated robots, ones that had a true remote controllability 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.400 not just with ropes, and ones that had more like 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.760 an articulated arm so it could do things like pick 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.600 up a suspicious package and move it physically to a 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.040 different location. Uh, you know, ended up being sort of 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.679 the genesis of bomb disposal robots. And so we've got 0:10:28.679 --> 0:10:31.920 a lot more advanced ones now, including ones that have 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.960 cameras so you can operate remotely and see what quote 0:10:35.000 --> 0:10:38.280 unquote see what the robots sees. Yeah, yeah, and uh, 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:42.000 of course there's lots of other military use robots. A 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:45.319 lot of them are used for for for simple reconnaissance missions. 0:10:45.640 --> 0:10:50.000 In fact, the company that makes room bas has military 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:54.520 reconnaissance robots that are pretty awesome. Um. But uh, that 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:59.679 gets into our next bullet here, which is reconnaissance drones. Yeah, 0:10:59.760 --> 0:11:03.240 so drones obviously being used for reconnaisance around the world 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:07.320 right now. Uh, the earliest drones were really kind of 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.000 electronic drones. That we were the earliest electronic drones, I 0:11:10.000 --> 0:11:12.800 should say, because you could count like unmanned balloons from 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:16.520 the nineteenth century and the really tragic time that they 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:21.440 strapped bombs to bats and yeah, yeah, that could be 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.000 considered part of it too, But in this case, we're 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.520 talking about electronic drones that were just used as target 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:31.080 practice UH for combat pilots and anti aircraft gunners, and 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:33.760 then eventually in the nineteen sixties, the US Air Force 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.920 funded development of unmanned reconnaissance drones like the Ryan Model 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:42.319 one seven, also known as the Lightning Bug, which had 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:44.680 to be launched from a Lackey d C one thirty 0:11:44.760 --> 0:11:48.480 Hercules airplane. UH. They had cameras aboard the drones, but 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:51.679 they were just taking series of photographs and had to 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.480 be retrieved so that you could see what they had gotten. 0:11:54.880 --> 0:11:57.120 The nineteen sixties, they didn't have a satellite up link 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.920 to automatically, you weren't getting a live need from the drone, 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:02.800 so you actually had to You had to find the 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:05.240 drone after it landed and retrieve it so that you 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.040 could get the information that was captured. But this meant 0:12:08.080 --> 0:12:11.520 that you had an unmanned vehicle as opposed to someone 0:12:11.640 --> 0:12:14.800 flying like a Youtubo spy plane, which you know had 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.240 previously been shot down. But so the Union, so that 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.400 was a big issue. UH. In nineteen seventy two, the 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:24.360 Ryan Model one four seven SC TV was introduced, which 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:26.400 had a TV camera that sent a live feed to 0:12:26.440 --> 0:12:30.200 the d C one thirty drone controller. Aircraft. No telling 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:32.920 if the sc TV also had Canadian humor on it. 0:12:33.840 --> 0:12:37.120 Oh yeah, how many of you are familiar with that 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.440 sketch show. That's a dated reference right there. At any rate, 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:44.440 today we've got lots of different drones with cameras on them. 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:47.280 They can give you a live feed, including consumer drones, 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:49.439 the type of stuff like the Parrot a r drone 0:12:49.480 --> 0:12:51.720 where you can control it with a smartphone, get a 0:12:51.760 --> 0:12:54.319 live feed of the camera to your smartphone. You can 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:57.199 play games with other people who owned them, and you 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.440 do a little like kind of tag like games using 0:12:59.480 --> 0:13:02.000 your smartphone as the user interface. So these are a 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:05.640 commonplace now, Yeah, yeah, it's it's kind a long way baby. Yeah. 0:13:05.679 --> 0:13:08.040 And so again this is a way of us extending 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:14.200 our presence beyond our immediate surroundings, right, although still fairly uh, 0:13:14.240 --> 0:13:16.120 I mean, with the use of the consumer drones is 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:20.520 still fairly uh modest. You know, something that is a 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:24.720 lot like a direct robotic avatar would be something like 0:13:24.920 --> 0:13:31.440 robotic surgery. Yeah, because that involves directly translating a humans 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:36.240 movements into the movements of robotic arms and tools. That's 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:39.640 sort of like just giving you this tiny direct presence 0:13:39.720 --> 0:13:43.319 inside somebody else's body, which is creepy yeah, but also 0:13:43.400 --> 0:13:46.760 cool sure, And like all robotics, this can work in 0:13:46.800 --> 0:13:50.480 a few different ways. Most of the robotic surgery things 0:13:50.520 --> 0:13:54.440 that exist today are shared control systems, and and that 0:13:54.520 --> 0:13:57.320 just means that a doctor is yes, is directly using 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:02.240 robotic equipment to perform a surgery. The robot in question 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:05.880 here isn't really thinking and it can't really react to 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.880 anything that happens. The robot doesn't decide where to cut 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:15.080 right exactly. Um Now, tell usurgery and doctor supervised robotic 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.280 surgery systems are are in development. But you know, tell 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:23.200 usurgery requires really good, really stable Internet connections. No one 0:14:23.280 --> 0:14:26.280 wants something to go terribly wrong in someone's body because 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:28.720 the Internet went down. Can't. You clearly can't have any 0:14:28.800 --> 0:14:31.800 latency issues either, because you need to. For example, a 0:14:31.840 --> 0:14:36.120 lot of these systems have warning warning algorithms in place 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:38.440 so that if you start straying too close to a 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:41.400 very sensitive very Let's say that you are performing a 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.760 surgery to remove a cancerous tumor for a sample, and 0:14:44.760 --> 0:14:46.960 you're starting, you would start to get to a point 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:49.640 where you're going to be cutting into healthy tissue. A 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.640 lot of these have a system involved where you get 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.960 a feedback to the surgeon, so the surgeon knows, even 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.480 though they're not in the same space as the patient, 0:14:58.000 --> 0:15:02.280 that they can't go any further without potentially harming the patient, right, right, 0:15:02.320 --> 0:15:07.040 And there's a large process of scanning and uh, data 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:10.160 collection that happens before any of these surgeries would start, 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:13.800 so that frequently they'll kind of mark off areas around 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:16.840 the edges where you're supposed to cut, so that right, 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:18.800 so that you get that feedback and get you get 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:20.800 the margin, I think is what they call it. Yeah, yeah, 0:15:20.840 --> 0:15:23.080 and you know, sometimes they will even have stops in 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:25.960 place to tell the robot like no, you do not 0:15:26.080 --> 0:15:29.040 move past this point, please and thank you, which makes 0:15:29.040 --> 0:15:33.960 a lot of sense. And then uh, doctor, supervised robotic 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:38.520 surgery requires just so much of that scanning and programming beforehand. 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:41.680 And you know, like we've just been saying, these machines 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:45.920 are not the computer programs really aren't complex enough to 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.600 stop or change plans if something goes wrong. So there's 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.120 just an element of of oh involved. Yeah, yeah, I 0:15:52.160 --> 0:15:54.440 think a lot of the questions about robot surgery are 0:15:54.480 --> 0:15:57.680 also involved sort of in the idea we discussed not 0:15:57.720 --> 0:16:00.000 too long ago about what happens if a robot breaks 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:03.240 the law. The underlying question is who's responsible for the 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.680 autonomous actions of a robot? Uh, And so people probably 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.760 just aren't yet comfortable with the idea of giving a 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:15.000 robot full free reigin, even when it might do as 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:18.560 well as a human in practice. Yeah. Even scarier than 0:16:18.600 --> 0:16:22.120 a pushing robot is a robot that's already performing lapard 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:26.680 scopic surgery on your heart. H But but the concept 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.880 is definitely awesome. You know, using tiny endoscopic cameras, a 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:34.240 robot can show a surgical team in two D or 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:37.360 even three D what's going on inside of a patient. 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:41.840 And and robots can make such small, controlled movements, um 0:16:42.000 --> 0:16:46.400 so consistently, you know, without fatigue, no handshaking, right right, 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:48.760 you know, some surgeries take hours like half a day 0:16:48.880 --> 0:16:51.360 even And and robots don't get tired and don't get 0:16:51.360 --> 0:16:53.640 shaky hands when they miss their three pm snap time, 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.960 right exactly. And in that way, this really is a 0:16:57.000 --> 0:17:00.280 lot more like the idea of a robotic avatar than 0:17:00.360 --> 0:17:03.080 some of the other things we might consider, because the 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:07.520 tools are becoming extensions of the doctor's hands, right and 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:12.679 and they are enhancing the doctors already formidable h experience 0:17:12.720 --> 0:17:16.360 and abilities to the point where the doctor is capable 0:17:16.480 --> 0:17:20.080 of carrying out moves that may not have been possible 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.400 under his or her own normal, you know, human motions. 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.240 So it also one thing that this Another huge benefit 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:31.560 this gives us is minimally invasive surgery where you don't 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.919 have to do the the you know, you may not 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:37.920 have to make a big incision in order to perform 0:17:38.000 --> 0:17:40.560 some of these surgical procedures because you're able to make 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.760 these very precise movements with tools that can go into 0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:48.920 a relatively small uh cut. And that also means that 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.560 you have a faster healing time and less chance for infections. 0:17:52.640 --> 0:17:55.200 So there are other benefits as well, right, and so 0:17:55.440 --> 0:17:59.639 the question of have we ever used anything like a 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.760 robe abotic avatar and space exploration is a little different 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.120 though than the kind of examples we've talked about before. 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.840 So if you are controlling a bomb disposal robot or 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.000 a robotic surgery tool like the Da Vinci robot, or 0:18:15.119 --> 0:18:17.760 even a drone that's you know, pretty far away, it's 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:21.879 still close enough that you can have direct interaction and control. 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.479 Um it might not be so like fully immersive, like 0:18:25.520 --> 0:18:28.679 you're becoming the robot. But there's some kind of analogy 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.440 between that and having a robotic avatar. Space exploration is 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.240 a little different for a few reasons, right, Yeah. Yeah. 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.040 So one of those is that if we look at 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.919 the history of using robots in space, you could argue 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.800 that things like probes kind of sort of fit the 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.200 bill in the sense that they have sensors on them 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:52.159 that extend our ability to look or whatever into space, 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.640 depending upon the sensors. Uh. They typically have an antenna 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.160 that will allow them to transmit information back to Earth 0:18:58.200 --> 0:19:00.879 and occasionally receive messages saying, hey, you need to do 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:04.679 a small course correction. That that's about the extent of 0:19:05.240 --> 0:19:09.480 the interaction between probe and Earth. It's mostly a data 0:19:09.600 --> 0:19:14.280 gathering system. There's a lot of autonomy and disconnectedness. Yeah. 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.840 Rovers however, those are much more recent. Uh, they date 0:19:18.080 --> 0:19:21.520 really back to the nineteen seventies when the Leno cod 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:25.160 rover launched by the then Soviet Union to the Moon. 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.280 Um That was a remote controlled rover equipped with a 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.600 camera that sent back images of the Moon. The first 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.840 unmanned rover to land successfully on Mars was the sojourner 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:39.919 in that was carried aboard the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, and 0:19:39.960 --> 0:19:43.000 we've since used a few other rovers to explore Mars 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.640 UH and also we've used it to look at other 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:49.440 you know, rovers to look at other bodies as well. However, 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:51.920 the further out we get, the more we're no longer 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:56.280 talking about real time, and that's the big change between 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:58.200 the ones we were talking about earlier, the ones where 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.679 we're on the same planet as the robots. So the 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:06.359 lag time and communication tends to be either undetectable or 0:20:06.400 --> 0:20:09.560 so short that we can we can adapt to it. Sure, sure, 0:20:09.720 --> 0:20:12.760 a few seconds is adaptable. If you're talking about the 0:20:12.880 --> 0:20:15.479 fourteen minute lag tend to get a message back and 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.200 forth to Mars, or is it? It can be even 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.159 longer than that. It's fourteen minutes. It was fourteen minutes 0:20:21.200 --> 0:20:24.520 when when the Curiosity rover landed to get a message 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:28.320 one way, but that was just because of the positions 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.320 of Earth and Mars. It can actually be much longer 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.200 because Mars can be and Earth can be on opposite 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.840 ends of UH from the Sun, and to bounce a 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:40.200 message back to it is is obviously twice the going rate. 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:46.480 So yeah, twenty eight minutes between um, your your robot 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.439 and yourself is a really long time. You're like, all right, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:54.240 I'm driving towards this cliff. Oh crap, Like, oh I 0:20:54.280 --> 0:20:56.400 fell off that cliff half an hour ago. I wasn't 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.439 aware of it. Yeah, um yeah, that's it's actually a 0:20:59.480 --> 0:21:02.959 real issue. So we'll talk a little bit more about 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:05.960 the latency and lag in just a second. But before 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:09.640 we do that, let's talk about another thing that's really cool. 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:13.520 We have a story about something that is much closer 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:16.639 to having a robotic avatar than any of these. I mean, 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.560 it's it's actual purpose is to have that sense of 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:24.159 of of ability to move around in an environment on 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:28.200 behalf of someone. Right, Well, a a true robotic avatar, 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:30.480 kind of like you've seen I don't know, in the 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:35.240 movie Avatar or something. What it is that the one 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:38.400 with him night shy, I'm along the little kid who 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:42.959 can control you can stop talking air. Uh So, in 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:46.240 any of these movies where you have somebody who assumes 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.040 sort of a robot body, like they plug their brain 0:21:49.160 --> 0:21:52.400 into something and now they're controlling a robot, that's sort 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:54.320 of the idea of you know, you have a robot 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.240 avatar acts on your behalf, you sort of become the 0:21:57.400 --> 0:22:02.840 robot mentally. Uh, nothing like that exists today, but people 0:22:02.880 --> 0:22:06.439 are working on things like that. For example, robots that 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.240 are sort of on one hand, giving you feedback through 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:14.240 at least visual kind of screen information. Ideally it could 0:22:14.240 --> 0:22:18.720 be some kind of virtual reality or augmented reality feedback. 0:22:18.840 --> 0:22:22.240 But then you can also control them with your mind. Yeah. 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:26.119 So this is referencing a really cool report that we 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:30.119 saw in I O nine. Researchers at the c n 0:22:30.359 --> 0:22:34.960 R S A I S T Joint Robotics Laboratory and 0:22:35.200 --> 0:22:38.600 the c n R S L I R M M 0:22:38.600 --> 0:22:41.520 Interactive Digital Human Group they need to work on some 0:22:41.600 --> 0:22:46.600 of those easily pronounceable acronyms. Learn it's a great acronym. 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:50.639