In May 2003, in an interview with Wired magazine, Marvin Minsky denounced robots and proclaimed that A.I. is in a state of decay, lamenting the state of his own 40 year old lab @ MIT, saying that not enough research is going into making computers use common-sense rather we are wasting our time on making "stupid little robots". As much as I respect Minsky and his work in classic AI, I disagree with him on a few points one being that I personally believe that there hasn't been enough work done in making practical robots like this vac, devices that help us in everyday life. If we spend more money making such utilitarian devices and then keep enhancing them we might just end up with the types of common-sense systems that Marvin describes.

And this is of course where Roomba comes in, ironically developed by MIT graduates, this UFO-shaped vacuum cleaner will traverse your floors, covering roughly 75% of the surface area and do a very decent job cleaning them. When it's done it will let out a beep and will continue beeping until you turn it off.

The reason I got Roomba was because I'm lazy and I hate cleaning up. My apartment is about 750 sq. ft. in size with hardwood floors in the living room/bedroom and tiles in the bathroom and linoleum in the kitchen. I will usually unleash Roomba by opening up all the doors, picking up from the floor the types of items that might get caught up in the roller such as any towels, socks, etc and pressing the 'Large' button. A note here, there is really very little difference between the 'small', 'medium', and 'large' room sizes. It has more to do with how long Roomba will run rather than with the size of the rooms. After the button is pressed, Roomba starts spiraling out and begins on its quest.

What strategy does Roomba use to not get stuck and cover the floor-space? My best guess is it uses adaptive AI whereby rather than trying to create a conceptual map of your room or apartment, which would be stupid and inaccurate, Roomba will adapt to the situation at hand. It has various sensors which are activated when it bumps into a wall or a chair. When a sensor is activated, Roomba will adapt to the obstacle by backing up or changing its direction. The robot has 360 degrees of freedom, meaning it can do a 280 degree turn without moving at all and thus can easily get out of a tight spot. It seems to me that if my room was a perfect square with nothing in it and I placed Roomba in the middle it would cover close to 100% of the space because it would just spiral outwards until it reached the walls and then it would have "hugged" the walls all around and done the same thing several times but because I usually apply Roomba to my entire apartment, it has to deal with various obstacles all over the place that I'm too lazy to move out of the way and thus it has to rely on its avoidance-algorithms more and thus can not possibly cover all of the area.

There are situations when Roomba can do a better job than a human. This is when it goes under the couch and bed. It would have been either impossible or very difficult for a person to vacuum those types of places.

Finally, the proof that Roomba did the job well is when I empty out the dirt from the receptacle bin. It always amazes me that it was able to find so much dirt in an otherwise clean apartment.

Can Roomba replace a professional cleaner? No. Is Roomba sufficient for someone like myself who would not mop the floors if their life depended on it? Absolutely. And I can also impress my friends with it as well.

To close this on a philosophical note, I believe the goal of technology is to improve our lives. Roomba is a perfect example of technology performing the unpleasant job of sweeping floors with enthusiasm and relative efficiency. Until Minsky comes up with a system that can "think" and finds a practical application for it, I'm going to use my "stupid little robot" to clean up my apartment and do something more satisfying with my time.

Recommended:
Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 130