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Quasar Robots
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Shaw
	Quasar Industries of Rutherford, N.J. claims that in two years it will
be ready to market a $4000 robot-butler for the home, capable of conversing in
several languages, vacuuming the rug, serving the drinks, watching the
children, and otherwise "expediting basic household tasks."
	This `Domestic Android' robot, named Klatu, is clearly a hoax,
according to leading academic and industrial scientists doing real robotics
research at such places as the Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) Laboratory at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.) in Cambridge, Mass., Stanford
University in Palo Alto, Cal., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of Pasadena,
Cal. 
	While Quasar representatives claim the company is the world's technological
leader in robotics, artificial intelligence researchers grow increasingly concerned
about the false public expectations, and possible fear, that could result from
widespread publicity about Quasar robots.  Misleading articles have appeared in
Parade magazine, People, the New York Times and other media.  
	A visit to Quasar headquarters in Rutherford confirmed that the company was
making the claims described in the articles, and called into question the honesty of
the robot company's representatives.


	A.I. researchers are skeptical about the Quasar robot's ability to see, to
carry on conversation, and to otherwise respond intelligently to an environment as
complex and unstructured as a home.  Real robots, or robot prototypes implemented on
sophisticated computers, have considerable difficulty seeing or talking--even in
limited laboratory environments, where distractions can be minimized.
	"Bringing together the best people in the world and several million dollars,
one could build a robot like Klatu--in I don't know how much time," said Mark Raibert
of Jet Propulsion Labs. 
	"Experts in A.I. and robotics at M.I.T., Stanford, Carnegie Mellon
University, Rutgers and many others unanimously agree that such a robot is far beyond
the current state of the art as we know it," said John McCarthy, a Stanford professor
and pioneer in A.I. research.  "While it is possible that someone who has no training
in it could be far ahead of us, we are entitled to be skeptical."
	"The Quasar robot is on the borderline of the barely possible," said Marvin
Minsky, professor of Computer Science at M.I.T. and co-founder of the Artificial
Intelligence Lab.  "Twenty years, a billion dollars...it's difficult to estimate
exactly what it would take to develop a useful household robot.  But it's hard to
believe Quasar, or anyone else, will have one in two years and sell it for $4000."


	In the meantime, Quasar is not doing frantic robot research to meet the
two-year deadline, but is instead busy helping stores and industries promote their
products with a prototypical five-foot-two, 240-pound "Sales Promotional Android"
(S.P.A.) robot called Sam Struggle Gear.  A rate sheet on the wall at Quasar's
headquarters indicated that Sam is rented out to stores for $900-a-day.
	Sam looks like an oversized "silver garbage can," one observer said, with a
smooth plastic bubble head and arms that move.  He walks (on wheels), he talks, and
he makes rude remarks to passers-by.
	At a downtown store in Portland, Ore., the Associated Press reported
recently, Sam was placed on the second floor as a promotional gimmick, then proceeded
to insult customers and flirt with young women.
	Someone asked him his name.  "My name is Sam Struggle Gear.  What's yours,
dummy?" he replied.  He then approached a lone woman in the crowd.  "You fool around?"
he asked.  "No, I'm married," she replied.  "Us robots like women with experience,"
he said.  When someone told him he was being impolite, he stared back, "How would you
like tire marks on your belt buckle?"
	The Associated Press did not report that Sam, who looks as if he functions on
his own, was being manipulated by remote control by unobtrusive members of the crowd,
who were concealing a microphone and control box.
	The microphone and control box were discovered by Artificial Intelligence
researchers from Carnegie Mellon University (C.M.U.) at one of Sam's similar
appearances at a downtown store in Pittsburgh.
	Mark Fox of the C.M.U. lab wrote up a detailed report:
	"Knowing of C.M.U.'s pioneering work in Artificial Intelligence, particularly
in the field of speech recognition, various friends have called C.M.U. to ask how
[Sam] might be so much better at speech recognition than our talented and dedicated
research team."
	Four A.I. department members went downtown to investigate on the day of Sam's
appearance.  Mr. Fox wrote:
	"They found a frigtening sight:  in the men's department, among the
three-piece suits, was a five-foot-two-inch image of an aerosol can on wheels,
talking animatedly to the crowd.  The robot seemed able to converse on any subject,
to recognize the physical features of the customers, and to move freely (though
slowly) in any direction.  The crowd was quite charmed by the talented machine..."
	Mr. Fox reported that a patron who asked to see the robot vacuum a carpet was
"brushed off with a reply that [Sam's] batteries were running low."
	When the C.M. U. observers explored the robot's sensory mechanisms, Mr. Fox
wrote, they discovered that "pushing and blocking it had no effect; it didn't seem
able to tell that an object was blocking its path.  Covering the faceplate didn't
seem to change its behavior either...
	"...we began looking around the room for evidence of remote control,"
Mr. Fox continued.  "Lo and behold, about ten feet from the robot, standing in
the crowd, we spotted a man in a blue suit with his hand held contemplatively
to his mouth like Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer in the famous
Rembrandt painting.  After watching for a while, we noticed that whenever the
robot was talking, the man in the blue suit could be seen muttering into his
hand.  Further seeing that this man had a wire dangling suspiciously from his
waist to his shoe...we approached this stranger. `Do many people figure out
what you are doing?' we asked. `No,' he said, `they are usually too busy
watching the robot to notice me.'"
	Later, another C.M.U. group looked for the source of the robot's motor
control.  Mr. Fox wrote:
	"[Our group] found a furtive-looking and rather disagreeable person loitering
in the back of the room.  He was carrying an airline flight bag, with his hand stuck
down inside the bag...He became extremely agitated when we asked him what was in the
bag, and asked if we were police.  We dispatched a person to watch him...to find
correlations between movements of his hand and movements of the robot...We never did
get to see in the bag.  However, we did see the man with the microphone say to a
store official,`Tell him we want to take [Sam] for a walk,' whereupon the store
official wandered over to the `bag man' and whispered something to him."
	Mr. Fox concluded, "The robot is thus, as we suspected, a complete fake.  It
uses mechanisms no more sophisticated than remote control and two-way radio..."
	An independent but similar investigation in Detroit by a group of researchers
from General Motors reached the same conclusions.  The investigators reported that
they discovered the `microphone man' hidden in a men's changing room.
	But the Associated Press had reported that Sam's taped responses were
"triggered by certain keywords uttered by humans."
	Marvin Minsky pointed out that although certain million-dollar computer
robots can identify some English words--albeit without total accuracy--"pulling words
out of connected speech [i.e. responding to keywords] is hard.  And it has never been
done, to my knowledge, in real time."
	Real time refers to as computer's ability to process information and respond
appropriately in the same amount of time a similar task would take a human.  At
certain tasks, such as doing calculus problems, the computer operates faster than
any human.  But when called upon to respond to a specified, simple English sentence,
a sophisticated computer takes minutes, not seconds.  The A.I. community spent five
years and $100 million developing a computer that could respond, in minutes, to
verbal questions revolving around a limited and predetermined topic of conversation.
	William Kornfeld, a researcher at the M.I.T. Artificial Intelligence Lab,
further described some problems encountered when trying to get robots to understand
speech, or to talk.  The two areas of research are called speech recognition and
voice synthesis.
	"Voice synthesis is considerably easier than speech recognition, provided
the computer already knows what it wants to say," said Mr. Kornfeld.  "You have to
attach a voice synthesizer to the computer.  The synthesizer can string together
phonemes on command from the computer."
	Phonemes are elementary sounds, usually vowels or consonants.  The
synthesizer stores some 150 phonemes, including, for example, a phoneme for the "th"
as it sounds in "father" and another phoneme for the "th" as it sounds in "bath."
	One can feed a given sentence into the computer memory simply by typing the
sentence into the computer console.  The computer can then verablize the sentence, in
monotone, by electronically feeding the sentence's phonemes into the
synthesizer.	
	The synthesizer is attached to the computer through an interface--much in the
same way other peripheral devices, like mechanical arms and cameras, are attached.
The interface converts electronic signals from the computer into another sort of
electronic signal, to which the peripheral can respond.
	"Now speech recognition is much more difficult for the computer," Mr.
Kornfeld said.  "The human ear does a lot of processing that is not understood."
	One problem is that when listening to a human voice speaking at a normal
rate, the computer has difficulty figuring out when one word ends and another begins.
"Some systems can pick out individual words spoken very distinctly," Mr. Kornfeld
said, "but none can respond to random voices in a public setting, the way Sam
Struggle Gear supposedly does."
	"Furthermore, speech recognition involves a whole set of problems related to
getting the computer to understand a natural language, like English," Mr. Kornfeld
said.  This problem is the same whether one is talking verbally to the computer, or
typing into it's console.  When one is typing, the computer can at least tell when
one word ends and another begins.  And it doesn't have to worry about distinguishing
among people's spoken accents.  No one types with an accent.
	"Understanding natural language involves many processes," Mr. Kornfeld said.  "One is
called parsing, in which the computer is programmed to decide what function each word
in a given sentence serves. `Where is the subject, the verb, the object?' the
computer asks itself.  This gets complicated when one considers that people don't
necessarily understand sentences through literal parsing.  For example, if I told you
'I ate a can of beans for supper,' you would know what I meant.  But if I told the
computer the same thing, it might think that I had eaten the can.
	"The A.I. community is working now on case-grammars, in which one assumes
that the interesting words in English are verbs," Mr. Kornfeld said.  "Sentence
analysis begins with the verbs.  Each verb is associated with slots that must be
filled.  For example, the sentence `I open the door with a key' has three slots:  the
agent is `I,' the object is `door' and the instrument is `key.'
	Mr. Kornfeld said, "We've made some progress, but we cannot do what Quasar
claims its robot can do.  At this point, a real robot could certainly not crack a
joke, as Sam Struggle Gear does."


	Beyond the AP story, media reports about Quasar robots included a New York
Times article, Sept. 3, about a so-called `Century security guard':  "Century I, made
of metal, plastic and electronics, has a single purpose:  to find and immobilize
intruders.  Senators (sic) in the robot can detect movement, body heat or any noise
and then it `looks in on you,' said Quasar's robot expert, Anthony J. Reichelt.
	The Times article continued:  "Then the stalking begins.  Century can roll
along at 20 miles an hour...when the robot gets within about eight feet of an
intruder, it orally instructs the intruder to stop in his tracks.  If disobeyed the
robot gets tough.  Just how tough depends on available options....a high frequency
sound transmitter can cause extreme pain in the inner ear...a strobe light [can]
temporarily blind the intruder, an electronic gun can deliver a powerful shock and a
mechanism can spurt laughing gas."
	Henry Lieberman, who works at M.I.T's A.I. lab, commented, "It can't
possibly see well enough to follow an intruder.  It can't have much depth
perception.  If you threw a broom in its path, it would get totally confused,"
he said, adding, "or maybe it would just start sweeping the sidewalk."
	David Taenzer, a vision researcher formerly associated with the M.I.T. A.I.
lab, briefly explained an approach to getting a robot to see.  "The computer uses a
camera attachment, and is programmed to look for particular patterns of light and
dark.  For example, if you put a checkered or striped object against a white
background, the computer could locate the object in its visual field.  Similarly, it
can recognize simple toy block formations.  It is programmed to look for block edges,
vertices and shadows, and tries to determine whether it is looking at a wedge, a cube
or a pyramid.
	Mr. Taenzer said the computer could not recognize anything as complex as a
human face.  "But given a human form to look at, it might be able to tell where a
sweater ends and the pants begin.
	"The computer knows that the intensity of light across most objects varies
smoothly, whereas the intensity of light between objects changes rapidly," Mr.
Taenzer explained.  "In other words, the intensity of light across a white sweater
will vary slightly from point to point.  But if the computer suddenly comes across
black pants, it will notice a big difference in the light intensity.  Thus it learns
to distinguish between objects."
	"Remember, we're talking of limited laboratory conditions," Mr. Taenzer said.
"At this point, the computer cannot process and make sense of objects in the real
world."


	Quasar nevertheless offers detailed, if murky descriptions of how Klatu (the
domestic android) and Sam Struggle Gear (the Sales Promotional Android) can do what
scientists claim they could not possibly do.  Their abilities are listed on
promotional handouts, which Quasar mails to anyone who expresses interest.
	Sam's capabilities are described on a blue brochure:  "Through a
multiplex system of specialized personality programming interfaced with sponsor
product knowledge and supporting technical and local colloquilisms (sic), SPA
creates SPONTANEOUS CONVERSATION with spectators for maximum audience
participation."
	The brochure informs prospective customers that "SPA teams consist of a
programmed performing ROBOT with basic specified body color, a back-up Robot and
support equipment; one Quasar ROBOT Master, a professional with at least three years
Show experience and an assistant Monitor Technician."   The brochure never clearly
indicates whether the robot is directly controlled by humans.
	Klatu's abilities are described on a green brochure:   "With over eight years
of intensive research, design and testing, each Domestic Android when installed will
represent the ultimate in modern domestic convenience and pride.
	"Language memory and vocabulary response will be fused into an operative
personality designed to harmonize with that of the human owner," the brochure says.
"Verbal replies to directives will be tuned to...the owner's individual personality."
	Klatu is said to be a "Human Monitor...children, elderly and invalids can be
monitored, with the robot immediately reporting any changes in normal location or
physical activity."  The robot also has a "Social Program...arriving guests will be
greeted by your personal Domestic Android, welcomed into your home and have their
outter (sic) garments stored until retrieval is required.  Serving refreshments and
meals will be accomplished via pre-programming and voice command."   The robot also
does "Habitat Maintenance...vacuuming covered areas and polishing floors will be
pre-programmed upon installation...it will also assist in vacuuming furniture and
high ceiling areas."
	Marvin Minsky was skeptical.  "A million-dollar machine could perhaps pick up
a coffee cup--a black coffee cup on a white table.  And it might make a mistake and
go for the cup's shadow.
	"I don't see how the robot could open the door," Prof. Minsky said.  "It's
difficult to turn a doorknob.  It requires fine motor coordination.  And how would it
know where to put coats?  How could it give the right one back?
	"Watching the kids is inconceivable," Prof. Minsky said.  "How could the
robot possibly tell if they were doing something dangerous?  Besides, some
sophisticated computers do have motion detectors, but these only detect motion, they
don't say where the motion is.
	"As for cleaning a room," Prof. Minsky continued, "it might be possible for a
pre-programmed robot to navigate around a room without bumping into things--sort of
the way airplanes navigate in the dark.  But the robot might make errors, and it
would get confused if anything were out of place.  You'd have to spend all your time
making sure nothing is out of place.  That sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?"


	Klatu's predecessor, Sam Struggle Gear, is a successful sales promotion
device--he attracts attention, draws a crowd, causes excitement.
	He is harmless to the extent that manufacturing companies wishing to
capitalize on the popularity of "Star Wars" by having a robot parade around a
department store in brand-name underwear or outerwear, are welcome to do so. 
He is not harmless to the extent that people are fooled into believing the
robot is for real, i.e. that he functions on his own by computer program,
without human intervention. 
	And they are fooled.
	A representative of Abraham & Strauss (A & S) department store in
Brooklyn, where Sam put in an appearance Nov. 21 on behalf of William Barry
Company, a men's outerwear manufacturer, said, "The crowd did not realize that
there was a fellow with a microphone moving along with the robot.  It was
fascinating."
	Another representative said, "The robot is programmed to do anything. 
It has a 4800-word vocabulary, and functions by itself."  When asked whether a
human was controlling the robot, the representative claimed to be "not
sure...But the crowd was pretty amazed that Sam was a real robot."
	Quasar lists Gimbels department store as a "satisfied customer," but
the divisional merchandise manager said, "We've been planning to use the robot,
but haven't gotten to do it yet.  I think it's a terrific idea, though.  It
talks, moves and answers questions.  Of course there are people on the side
controlling it."
	The merchandise manager said Gimbels became interested in the robot
when it was offered as a sales promotional device by William Barry Co.  A call
to William Barry, to determine what they knew of the robot's authenticity, was
confusing.  First they said they had used the robot.  Then they said they knew
nothing about it.  Then they said, "If you want to know about the robot, you'll
have to call Quasar."


	A call on Quasar Industries Nov. 23 at their headquarters in
Rutherford, a New Jersey suburb near New York City, confirmed that the company
was indeed making the claims cited in newspapers, magazines and wire stories. 
It also confirmed the scientific community's suspicion that the Quasar
operation is a slippery one. 
	Quasar operates out of a storefront office at 59 Meadow Rd.  Without a
Quasar brochure indicating the address, one would have difficulty locating the
place, for the phone is unlisted, it has no Quasar company sign on the door, no
address number and no doorbell.  One knocks on the door next to 61 Meadow Rd.
and hopes for the best. 
	The main room consisted of a receptionist and three "robots"--Sam
Struggle Gear, the security guard, and the top-half of a robot-mannequin
similar to the kind one finds at Disneyland.  They were not available for
demonstration because, the receptionist said, "They're asleep."
	A letter on the receptionist's desk indicated she is Eileen Reichelt,
wife of Anthony Reichelt, Quasar's president.  Ms. Reichelt summoned Robert
Doornick, a marketing manager, to answer questions about Sam Struggle Gear and
Klatu. 
	Mr. Doornick's prose was as elusive as the language of the green
brochure, cited earlier.  He avoided specific explanations of how the robots
work.  But he clearly made false claims about how they operate. 
	"Sam Struggle Gear is a computerized robot operated by an on-board
computer.  He is programmed with a Don Rickles type personality, but he could
be programmed otherwise.  He knows 250 words, which he recognizes with 80 to
100 percent accuracy. 
	"No," Mr. Doornick said, "Sam is not operated by microphone.  There is
no person in the background speaking for him.  Machines can talk, you know." 
He also said Sam could move by himself, without human intervention. 
	When confronted with the scientific community's skepticism, Mr.
Doornick claimed, "Quasar is in the forefront of robot technology."
	Mr. Doornick said that Sam Struggle Gear was similar to Klatu, who is
scheduled to go into people's homes in two years.  "Except Klatu will have to
be programmed with the layout for each individual house," he said. 
	"The technology has been here all along," Mr. Doornick said.  He said
the technological aspects of Klatu were already developed in Sam Struggle
Gear.  "We're working on the Domestic Android's appearance right now.  How can
we make it aesthetically pleasing?  Appearance is important.  With a
well-designed appearance, we will be able to reduce the cost of the Domestic
Android from $40,000 to $4000."
	Mr. Doornick said Quasar had thus far built only one Domestic Android,
which was not available for demonstration because it was on loan to Penthouse
magazine until after Jan. 1.  A call to Penthouse revealed that they did not
have the robot.  A Penthouse representative said that a freelance photographer
had taken pictures of the robot for a Penthouse story, but that the robot had
never been in the Penthouses office. 
	The green brochure (mentioned earlier) does not explicitly state that
the Domestic Android can operate and move around by itself, without human
remote control.  Mr. Doornick stated this explicitly.  "The robot can do its
tasks even when you're not home," he said.  "You operate it with a Quicom,
which looks like a remote control box for a TV set.  With the Quicom you can
tell it to vacuum at a certain time, then leave your house, and it will do
what you told it."
	Mr. Doornick was called to the phone and Ms. Reichelt explained that
the Domestic Android differed from Sam Struggle Gear in that the android
understood only 50 words and spoke 200, whereas Sam could speak 4800 words. 
When asked to elaborate, and clarify the number of words Sam could speak, she
got flustered and ran to bring back Mr. Doornick. 
	Mr. Doornick explained that Sam could not understand whole sentences,
but could respond to specific words in a sentence.  He also said that with an
additional minicomputer, the Domestic Android could be programmed to speak
several languages.  "It needs more memory to do this," he said. 
	A scientist from M.I.T. later pointed out, "It's not just a question
of memory.To speak more languages the computer would need more sophisticated
programs--more 'smarts'--not just more memory."
	Mr. Doornick contradicted himself when trying to explain how the
Domestic Android could watch the baby.  "It can see," he said at one point. 
"It can't really see," he said later.  "Seeing is possible and we're working
on it.  But the robot can monitor the position of the baby.  It can tell if
the baby is leaving the room or staying close by.  If the baby is crying, it
can alert the adults downstairs."
	Mr. Doornick had to answer another phone call.  He said Quasar was too
busy that day to lead a tour of the robot factory. 
	But a former visitor to Quasar reported that he had been admitted to
the "factory," after assuring Quasar management that he was "just as
interested in Quasar's show business aspects as in real scientific research." 
The visitor reported, "I saw nothing--no laboratory, no artificial
intelligence research.  The robots were eight foot shells, completely empty. 
I saw a so-called medical assistant robot.  It was hollow.  A total fake."
	
	
	Sam Struggle Gear treads a narrow line between ingenuity and trickery. 
Because observers may believe that he can really talk, and move around without
bumping into things, observers may also be inclined to believe Klatu, the
domestic robot, could also exist. 
	Quasar's motivation for pretending it has invented a robot is unclear. 
The company is apparently not yet taking investor money for the robot, nor is
it lining up advance orders.  Whether one writes to Quasar as an interested
investor or an interested buyer, one gets the same response:  the green
brochure, the blue brochure and some pictures.  Some scientists have
speculated that Quasar will eventually begin taking money from wealthy,
unsuspecting elderly people, who could perhaps use a real household robot. 
Others feel Quasar is making outlandish claims just to drum up business for
the department store appearances. 
	"The problem is, these claims bring public expectation, fear and
belief that's not based on reality," Marvin Minsky said.  "People might feel
robots are taking over.  Or they might feel that since the task is
accomplished, it is not necessary to support robot research.  Or they'll
become disillusioned with this robot,  making things difficult for a company
with a legitimate product."  Most importantly, he said, "The public ought to
know what's true about such things."