Society of Robots - Robot Forum

Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: rockrobotics on March 13, 2010, 10:51:29 AM

Title: Talking Robot
Post by: rockrobotics on March 13, 2010, 10:51:29 AM
How could you make a robot that can learn to talk just by hearing how other people use words?  I know this would also need alot of programming, not just robotics stuff, but my Dad has professional programming software (Visual Studio 2008), but he's to busy to do something so complicated like this.  If anyone knows how to program and can help me please post a comment!  Thanks!
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: waltr on March 13, 2010, 11:36:28 AM
This task has been the subject of software development research for many years. The results have gotten better but are still not good enough for commercial use. Very, very difficult.

Try doing some googling to see if you find some of the University papers. I'm sure some are available on the web.

good luck
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: rockrobotics on March 13, 2010, 11:49:00 AM
got it waltr
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: cyberfish on March 13, 2010, 01:03:11 PM
Speech recognition and general purpose AI are two of the hardest subjects of computer science currently under heavy research (and they haven't gotten too far with the latter despite decades of research). You are trying to combine the two :).
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: little-c on March 13, 2010, 02:58:01 PM
If the stupidity is still in your brain....

I am at a university with a (****ing annoying spelling) department that does work on child development and speech therapy, and has a cybernetic department that works on these things. I can ask some questions and pick up the relevent papers on the subjects of learning to speak and learning algorithms.

there is certainly chat boxes that learn to speek there are a lot of common implementations of those.

depending on status of the project Im currently after, I can certainly give you the information you need to get started.

I can probably do some reaserch for you, Im pretty sure if I ask nicely then someone will be helpful enough to reply.

Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: rockrobotics on March 13, 2010, 04:41:20 PM
Thanks alot! :D

I'm actually a beginner, but If I actually try this (Hopefully) then I'll be sure to ask you!
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: little-c on March 13, 2010, 04:59:39 PM
you might find Ive stolen your idea.

this one is going in the folder of projects I haven't got round to doing yet...
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: Soeren on March 13, 2010, 09:02:36 PM
Hi,

Optimism is good!

However, before taking on a substantial project (and this must be infinity beyond possible at this time),  it's a very good idea to assess just the bare necessities, or outline if you will, of what has to be done to reach the goal.


The current state of matters, among the best and brightest scientists, is a fumbling start, where we know how little we know.
We still have a lot to learn to replicate even a mediocre attempt at intelligence - that's why I really hate the term Artificial Intelligence (AI), as the term implies that it is intelligence, just made artificial (i.e. by humans you may say).
The best we have today can rightfully be termed nothing more than Simulated Intelligence (SI) and as long as humanity cannot define exactly what intelligence is, we can not hope for anything more than simulating it.

Besides this, to get closer to the target, we have to give robots behavioral responses based on sometimes irrational stuff and at least based on real world rationality, but all we can do is equip them with simulated behaviour.
To loosely quote Immanuel Kant, who probably couldn't imagine robots as we know them at all, "you can give a machine the behaviour based on sensors, but as long as it doesn't feel the vision, taste, smell etc. intelligence is out of the question" (his idea, my wording).

So even with programmed behavioral responses, it's all just a sim - we have to accept a "Skynet" to get there and what would become of us then ;D

Without ("real") intelligence, really understanding language is impossible, too many words sound the same but have different meaning due to context, cultural influence (even within a family or small town) and lots of other "modifiers" and let's not forget that more than 50% of interface communication is nonverbal (and in several hard to describe ways that we learn only through our intelligence).
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: rockrobotics on March 13, 2010, 09:34:16 PM
First of all Soeren you seem soooo smart I bet you could do soooooo much!!! I'm not kidding!!  And little-c you're kinda annoying! :( (no offense)
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: little-c on March 14, 2010, 02:42:31 AM
its a trait.
Title: Re: Talking Robot
Post by: rockrobotics on March 14, 2010, 10:23:01 AM
LOL!!!