DCAWD.com

The robots, called LingoDroids, are equipped with microphones, speakers, cameras, range finders, and sonar that they use to map their surroundings and speak to one another.

Once the LingoDroids have their bearings, two of them are introduced to each other. In order to share information, they need to communicate. Since they don't share a common language, they do the next best thing: they make one up. The LingoDroids invent words to describe areas on their maps, speak the word aloud to the other robot, and then find a way to connect the word and the place, the same way a human would point to themselves and speak their name to someone who doesn't speak their language.

The LingoDroids also question one another about the locations they've seen. By talking about places they've seen or experienced in abstract terms, the robots can invent additional words to describe distance and time required to move between places. Using this method, two LingoDroids used by the researchers managed to map out 5-meter-wide maze all by themselves, complete with agreed-upon names for different places.

Before you start worrying that these little robots are secretly plotting the demise of the human race, the researchers have plans for them. They created the LingoDroids to study language, but they're also looking for ways to make communication between humans easier, and even to streamline communication between humans and machines.

To understand the concept behind the project, consider a simplified case of how language might have developed. Let's say that all of a sudden you wake up somewhere with your memory completely wiped, not knowing English, Klingon, or any other language. And then you meet some other person who's in the exact same situation as you. What do you do?

What might very well end up happening is that you invent some random word to describe where you are right now, and then point at the ground and tell the word to the other person, establishing a connection between this new word and a place. And this is exactly what the Lingodroids do. If one of the robots finds itself in an unfamiliar area, it'll make up a word to describe it, choosing a random combination from a set of syllables. It then communicates that word to other robots that it meets, thereby defining the name of a place.

Sabre wrote:I'm curious if they were using a neural network or what to accomplish this.