Ruth Schulz and her team of researchers at the University of Queensland and Queensland University of Technology, have invented a type of robots that have been designed to develop their own language. What the robots have done so far, is simply to map out a region inside a room, then meet up and exchange information about their section of the room. They’ve also invented a couple of words to designate some specific places in this room, for instance, they would meet up at “jaya” which means the center of the room.
It’s interesting to note that, exactly like the tech support guy answering the phone at your satellite company’s help-desk, they still do not understand or communicate in English or any other high-level language, and they still need to be programmed by keystrokes, so we’re still far from the day when the sentence: “Butlerbot, make me a sandwich.” will be uttered to, and understood by, an otherwise inanimate dummy.
