A Robot Has Passed The Self-Awareness Test

A robot in New York has passed the classic ‘wise men puzzle’ used to test whether a machine is ‘self-aware’.

The logic puzzle involves a fictional king who is set the task of choosing a new advisor and gathers the three wisest people in the kingdom. He tells them the test will be fair to all of them and then places either a blue or white hat on the head of each and tells them that the first to stand up and announce the colour of their own hat will become his advisor.

According to TechRadar, Roboticists at the Ransselaer Polytechnic Institute adapted the riddle for a trio of robots where two were prevented from speaking. All three were asked which one of them was able to speak.

Initially, all three attempted to answer ‘I don’t know’ but when one heard that it was the only one with a voice it added ‘Sorry, I know now!”.

While the puzzle may be simple for a human to solve, the process is far more complex for a robot as it requires an element of self-awareness.

While the robot passing this particular test is unlikely to lead to an army of self-aware cyborgs executing a robot uprising, it does have important implications for the future of robotkind.

By passing logic tests like this, robots are able to build up human-like reasoning skills that will prove useful in future technology such as driverless cars.

In 2014, a computer became the first to pass the famous Turing Test, which is passed if a computer is mistaken for a human more than 30% of the time during a series of five-minute keyboard-based conversations.

(Image credit: Rex Features)