Tuesday, April 03, 2007

Do Robots Need Sleep?

By Bill Christensen
Source: LiveScience


In his recent paper What Do Robots Dream Of, Dr. Adami, Professor of Applied Life Sciences at the Keck Graduate Institute, speculates that a robot might benefit from some "down time" just like people do.

Recent work in the study of dreaming indicates that more than just subconscious entertainment is going on. Sleep appears to help us work through and understand events of the day. Sleep also seems to provide a mechanism for impressing important memories on the brain, to make sure we have a long-term record of an event or concern. Sleep also seems to have a role in learning a skill; people who practiced a skill and then slept on it were more skillful than those who had not yet had a chance to sleep.

Dr. Adami speculates that if robots were given an alternate state, one in which the robot stopped exploring and instead focused on a problem or obstacle, it could provide benefits for them just like it provides benefits for human beings.

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