alt Hacker News> They react to their environment. That's the classifier.
An industrial robot arm, out of the box, only has internal sensing (joint position, torque etc) and a start/stop button - can't sense the external environment at all.
But I've got a light on my porch that turns on when it gets dark.
By the 'react to the environment' definition the former is not a robot, and the latter is.
Replies
ktallett • yesterday at 2:03 PM
It would have to have a force torque sensor which interacts with the environment around it (aka the object being manipulated). Hence it being a robot arm.
However if indeed an industrial arm doesn't have that, then yes robot is the wrong term for it.
The distinction between internal and external variables is interesting in its own right, but both devices are technically robots. A thermostat is also a robot.
We're starting to need gradual words to linguistically orient ourselves: automaton, drone, robot, android, etc. Where "robot" is a narrowing of the technical "feedback loop device".