Ever heard of the ‘wise men’ puzzle? The puzzle, where a king calls his three wisest men and gives them all either a white or blue hat to wear on their heads and asks them to tell the colour of the hat on their head without communicating with each other standing in a line. So far only human beings have been able to solve this riddle but when based on this premise a logic puzzle was presented to a robot in an experiment conducted by Professor Selma Bringsjord of New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the robot showed its capability to respond to the puzzle.

In the experiment, the robots were programmed in such a way that they were made to believe that two of them were given a “dumbing pill” which would make them lose the ability to speak. By pushing a button on the top of two robots, the two robots were actually muted. One robot had a placebo button and was not muted.

When the researcher asked all the three robots about the kind of pill they all were given, the unmated robot replied “I don’t know”, not only this but the robot stood up and waved its hand saying, “I know now. I was able to prove that I was not given a dumbing pill.” Based on this experiment, it was concluded that the robot not only understood the rules of the contest but also recognised the sound of its voice and displayed such level of awareness that enabled it to distinguish itself from the other two robots. The experiment thus kindled hope of having self-aware robots in the future.

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Author:Technology Blog