Streamlined rules for robots
With the explosion of the Internet and the commoditization of autonomous robots (such as the Roomba) and small sensors (such as the ones in most cell phones), computer scientists have become more and more interested in distributed computing, or how disparate autonomous devices — whether servers in a network or robots investigating an underwater oil spill — can work together toward some common goal.Distributed devices have to adjust their behavior to changing circumstances. Frequently, however, their understanding of their circumstances is based only on a few local observations — and even those could be slightly inaccurate. Behavior that is perfectly reasonable in one case could prove catastrophic in another that, to a device, looks identical. Device programmers thus have to find behavioral policies that strike a balance between advancing the common goal and minimizing the risk of something going badly wrong.Optimizing that balance would mean weighing every possible option for...