What was the first robot that could 'reason' about its own actions?
It was slow, clumsy, and shaky on its wheels - but it could plan its own moves in a world of colored blocks.
The answer
Shakey the Robot, developed at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI) from 1966 to 1972, was the first general-purpose mobile robot able to reason about its own actions. Standing about 5 feet tall on a wheeled platform, it combined a TV camera, range finder, and bump sensors with the STRIPS (Stanford Research Institute Problem Solver) planning system. Shakey could navigate rooms, push large objects, and rearrange blocks on platforms by breaking complex goals into sequences of primitive actions. The STRIPS planner it pioneered became foundational to AI planning research and influenced robotic systems for decades.
Source: SRI International
- robotics
- planning
- history
More from AI & Machine Learning
- What radical question did Alan Turing ask in 1950 that launched the entire field of artificial intelligence?
- Can a machine fool you into thinking it's human - and does that mean it's truly intelligent?
- What happened at a small Dartmouth workshop in 1956 that gave artificial intelligence its name?
- How did a 1958 invention called the Perceptron convince people that machines could learn like brains?
- Could a 1966 chatbot really make people believe they were talking to a therapist?
- Why did AI research nearly collapse in the 1970s after such promising beginnings?