CAS CONNECT 2015

27 Rise of the Robots? Not quite, but OSU’s computer science department has a broad impact STORY AND PHOTOS BY Jamie Hadwin CONTINUES Even though computers are growing exponentially more powerful, Ken Jennings may have spoken a little early there in 2011. I, for one, welcome our new computer overlords.” — Ken Jennings, Jeopardy ’s biggest winner, upon losing to IBM’s Watson supercomputer Just look at the work Dr. Christopher Crick of the Oklahoma State University Department of Computer Science and his students are doing with computers and robots. Robots have inspired numerous Hollywood films and science fiction novels. More recently, news sources such as National Public Radio and network broadcasts, as well as numerous science and economic journals, have covered a future with robots. So will robots eventually overtake the human race? Spending a day with Crick’s robots makes it seem like that won’t be happening anytime soon. He is quick to point out, however, that with human guidance, robots could eventually fulfill a vari- ety of functions that are dangerous or unpleasant for humans. “It would be nice, for example, if we could send a bunch of robots out to explore a disaster scene to find danger zones and find where people might be buried and then come back and tell us about it,” Crick says. “We’re nowhere near having robots that can do that, but we need to use our resources to start working with robots, instead of them working for us.” Crick and his students are working on a project that involves robots trying to solve mazes with human guidance. As the mazes become more complicated, the researchers expect the humans to make mistakes as pressure mounts for quick deci- sions. The purpose: See if robots can detect when their human guides begin to struggle and realize they should “back off” in requests for instructions.