Robot Aces Self-Awareness Test

Do not get too excited about this particular bit of news that a robot has passed a self-awareness test for the first time, as we are still very far away from that kind of self-awareness like that of Skynet or JARVIS from Iron Man. Still, it is quite an achievement, and this robot has achieved such a “status” after solving a ‘wise men’ riddle, which so happens to be a logic quiz that has been aced by humans only all this while. So do not worry about having something like the T-800 running around amok, but it might be the precursor.

In conducting this particular experiment, with Professor Selmer Bringsjord of New York’s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute leading the charge, a trio of robots were provided with a modified version of a traditional logic test that has been referred to as the “wise men” riddle. The original riddle involves a trio of wise men who want to jostle for being the king’s new advisor. The king has tested them by presenting them with a riddle, placing a hat on each of their heads in a manner where they can see the other hats but their own.

The puzzle has the following parameters :- (1) Each of the hats will be either white or blue, (2) and none of the wise men cannot communicate with one another, (3) with everything being a fair contest. In order to determine the winner, the wise man would have to declare correctly his own hat color. Since it is a fair contest, all three hats will need to be of the same color. Interesting, don’t you think so?

Edwin Kee
Categories: Robots
Tags: AI (Artificial Intelligence), Science