Creating Intelligent Humanoid Robots

Creating Intelligent Humanoid Robots Using the OpenCog AGI Architecture Research Proposal for the Epstein Foundation Ben Goertzel --- January 16, 2013 Executive Summary The core R&D goal of the proposed project is to use the OpenCog system to make a Hanson Robokind robot interact with humans in a manner evincing basic understanding of its environment. This includes simple English speech interaction regarding objects and events the robot perceives, and actions the robot undertakes. This involves taking OpenCog functionalities currently being prototyped for the control of virtual-world characters and using them in a robotics context. It also involves implementation of some recent, fundamentally new ideas involving the integration of symbolic Al systems (such as OpenCog's probabilistic logic engine) and subsymbolic Al systems (such as the DeSTIN computer vision system). This is viewed as an initial step toward the larger goal of creating a "robot toddler" with the rough cognitive capabilities of a 3 year old human child - which in turn is viewed as a step in a longer project aimed at creating software and robotic systems with general intelligence at the human level and ultimately beyond. If successful, the proposed research will constitute a major step in the direction of these more ambitious goals, and will constitute a dramatic step forward in generally-intelligent robotic communication, learning and interaction. This project has recently been funded for two years (2013-2014) by the Hong Kong government, in the total amount of HKD$2.6M (roughly USD$342,000) including overheads (and requiring a matching USD$38K corporate contribution). This proposal seeks additional funding to complement the government funding, so as to accelerate the project and improve the odds of success and the quality of the work. The government funding already achieved will pay for a team of 6 junior researchers/engineers (PhD student or junior programmer level), working on the project in a lab at Hong Kong Polytechnic University for 2 years. This team is already in place and possesses the needed Al software knowledge and experience. However, for optimal progress, it would be better to augment the team with two more senior R&D staff. Thus, funding is sought to expand the team by two: a senior software engineer and an experienced Al PhD. This expansion will strain the current physical facilities supplied for the team, so funding is also sought to cover the cost of renting a larger space, and a small amount of additional computing hardware. Finally, the team is currently spending a certain amount of their time on computer network administration tasks; funding is sought to pay an experienced sys-admin on a part time basis. In all, these additions will transform EFTA01103505 the team from an underfunded-but-operational student research lab, into a professional AGI development team and environment. This will result in a significant productivity boost, roughly estimated as doubling the productivity of the team. The funding sought is $480K in total, over two years. It might usefully be supplied in two tranches: 50% initially, and the other 50% after a year has passed. This will allow the hinder to observe incremental progress prior to providing the second half of the funding. EFTA01103506