astronomy

Hans Moravec

Hans Moravec is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Hans Moravec rather than just read about it. In short: Hans Peter Moravec (born November 30, 1948) is an Austrian-born Canadian computer scientist and an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, U.S. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology.

Key takeaways

Hans Moravec belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Hans Moravec to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Hans Moravec from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Hans Peter Moravec (born November 30, 1948) is an Austrian-born Canadian computer scientist and an adjunct faculty member at the Robotics Institute of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, U.S. He is known for his work on robotics, artificial intelligence, and writings on the impact of technology. Moravec also is a futurist with many of his publications and predictions focusing on transhumanism. Moravec developed techniques in computer vision for determining the region of interest (ROI) in a scene.

Career Moravec attended Loyola College in Montreal for two years and transferred to Acadia University, where he received his BSc in mathematics in 1969. He received his MSc in computer science in 1971 from the University of Western Ontario. He then earned a PhD in computer science from Stanford University in 1980 for a TV-equipped robot which was remotely controlled by a large computer (the Stanford Cart). The robot was able to negotiate cluttered obstacle courses. Another achievement in robotics was the discovery of new approaches for robot spatial representation such as 3D occupancy grids. He also developed the idea of bush robots. Moravec joined the newly established Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon in 1980 as a research scientist, becoming research professor in 1995. He has been an adjunct professor at the institute since 2005. Moravec was a cofounder of Seegrid Corporation of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 2003, which is a robotics company with one of its goals being to develop a fully autonomous robot capable of navigating its environment without human intervention. He is also somewhat known for his work on space tethers.

Futurism

Predictions Hans Moravec has made some concrete predictions as to the future of intelligence, by estimating the computational cost (measured in instructions per second) of various operations of human intelligence, and comparing it with the future of computer computational power as predicted by Moore's law. In When will computer hardware match the human brain (1998), he estimated that human brains operate at about 10 14 {\displaystyle 10^{14}} instructions per second, and that, if Moore's law continues, a computer with the same speed would cost only 1000 USD (1997 dollars) in mid-2020s, thus "computers suitable for humanlike robots will appear in the 2020s".

Mind Children In his 1988 book Mind Children, Moravec outlines Moore's law and predictions about the future of artificial life. Moravec outlines a timeline and a scenario in this regard, in that the robots will evolve into a new series of artificial species, starting around 2030–2040. Moravec also outlined the "neural substitution argument" in Mind Children, published 7 years before David Chalmers published a similar argument in his paper "Absent Qualia, Fading Qualia, Dancing Qualia", which is sometimes cited as the source of the idea. The neural substitution argument is that if each neuron in a conscious brain can be replaced successively by an electronic substitute with the same behavior as the neuron it replaces, then a biological consciousness would be transferred seamlessly into an electronic computer, thus proving that consciousness does not depend on biology and can be treated as an abstract computable process.

Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind In Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind, published in 1999, Moravec further considers the implications of evolving robot intelligence, generalizing Moore's law to technologies predating the integrated circuit, and extrapolating it to predict a coming "mind fire" of rapidly expanding superintelligence. Arthur C. Clarke wrote about this book: "Robot is the most awesome work of controlled imagination I have ever encountered: Hans Moravec stretched my mind until it hit the stops." David Brin also praised the book: "Moravec blends hard scientific practicality with a prophet's far-seeing vision." On the other hand, the book was reviewed less favorably by Colin McGinn for The New York Times. McGinn wrote, "Moravec ... writes bizarre, confused, incomprehensible things about consciousness as an abstraction, like number, and as a mere "interpretation" of brain activity. He also loses his grip on the distinction between virtual and real reality as his speculations spiral majestically into incoherence."

Publications Moravec, Hans (1988). Mind Children. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-57618-6. Moravec, Hans P. (June 15, 1988). "Sensor Fusion in Certainty Grids for Mobile Robots". AI Magazine. 9 (2): 61. doi:10.1609/aimag.v9i2.676. ISSN 2371-9621. Moravec, Hans P. (1999). Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. Oxford New York Paris: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513630-6. Moravec, Hans (1999). "Rise of the Robots". Scientific American. 281 (6). Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc.: 124–135. Bibcode:1999SciAm.281f.124M. doi:10.1038/scientificamerican1299-124. ISSN 0036-8733. JSTOR 26058531. Retrieved September 25, 2024. Moravec, Hans (1998). "When will computer hardware match the human brain". Journal of Evolution and Technology. 1 (1).

See also Artificial general intelligence Moravec's Paradox Mind uploading Simulated reality Space elevator Technological singularity Tether propulsion Time-loop logic Vision guidance

References

External links "Superhumanism--Interview with Hans Moravec by Charles Platt". Archived from the original on 2019-02-17. Retrieved 2016-11-13. (Interview with Moravec on technical progress and artificial intelligence) Hans Moravec's official website at the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Center Hans Moravec's official biography page Hans Moravec's webpage at the Robotics Institute Moravec Bush Robot Final Report NOVA online interview with Moravec in October, 1997. Moravec, Hans (March 23, 2009). "Rise of the Robots--The Future of Artificial Intelligence". Scientific American. Wikiversity:Mind Children

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Hans Moravec

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Hans Moravec claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Hans Moravec before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Hans Moravec ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Hans Moravec

In research: Hans Moravec appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Hans Moravec in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Hans Moravec is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1948 births, Acadia University alumni, American transhumanists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Hans Moravec outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Hans Moravec in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Hans Moravec means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Hans Moravec out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Hans Moravec in simple terms?

Why does Hans Moravec matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Hans Moravec?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Hans Moravec.