The 2 Year Old vs. The Washing Machine

A short while ago David Bruemmer, VP of R&D at 5D Robotics, came and spoke with us about a major design challenge they faced with building their robots. A lot of time the customer wasn't even sure what they wanted, or worse: they thought they knew what they wanted but were incorrect. A number of the problems boiled down to one feature, whether the 5D robots should be autonomous or intelligent. Many of their clients thought one style would be what they wanted when really another would get the job done. It took David breaking down the definitions with clear examples in order for them to really become clear. An autonomous object would be a washing machine, you tell it what to do, say go, and the machine goes off and executes the same sequence of events every time. Intelligence is where things got more interesting, David's example was a 2 year old. He defined intelligence as the ability to soak up data from the surrounds and learn from those stimuli. With that in mind, the 2 year old is a perfect example. No where else is there something or someone that can learn to walk, speak, eat, develop coordination and truly be a blank slate mind eager to learn. The dichotomy between the washing machine and the 2 year old is certainly a unique one to keep in mind while designing our final application of our smartsurface. Do we want a 2 year old that can predict the next rainfall, tell you when dusk will be and learn from its surrounding, or will a washing machine suffice if it just sits outside and executes the code it is supposed to at the time it is supposed to?