Robots Invent Their Ownlanguage

Australian scientists have

invented a new breed of

robots called Lingodroids, programmed to make, use,

and share language. The bots

can coin words to describe

places they have been, places

they want to go, and plans

for getting there. “When they need a new word, they

invent one,” says Janet Wiles , a cognitive scientist at the

University of Queensland who

leads an interdisciplinary team

on the project. The rolling chatterboxes “see”

using 360-degree cameras,

laser range finders, and sonar.

A microphone functions as

their ears, and a speaker acts

as a voice box, emitting the familiar beeps of a touch-tone

phone. As for brains, Wiles

outfitted each Lingodroid

with an alphabet of beeps

that correspond to letters.

Then she programmed them to play a series of games in

which they paired the letters

into nonsensical combinations

like “ja” or “ku” and joined

those syllables to coin

neologisms as needed. For example, in one game two

robots roamed through a

course and met in an

unfamiliar part of it. The

meeting triggered one robot

to name the spot “jaya” and share the new word with its

partner, who then added the

word to its lexicon. In this

way the robots slowly built a new language to describe

their travels [pdf] and eventually even learned to

communicate and understand

directions. Wiles notes that although the

language may seem simple,

for robots, grasping spatial

information is incredibly

complex. “We don’t realize

how sophisticated our use of language to describe the

world around us is,” she says.

Ultimately, she hopes to teach

her robots to chat up humans,

paving the way for robotic

caregivers, companions, and butlers.