
Total Horse Takeover - reedwolf
https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/Wa2hASzbxyvutHJff/total-horse-takeover
======
GlenTheMachine
This analogy does a surprisingly good job of highlighting what is wrong with
robotics right now as well. Robots are hard to control at a low level, and
typically you don’t want to. But sometimes you have to. We don’t have very
good ways of specifying tasks or behaviors at different levels of granularity
and having the robot figure out the right affordances to that tasking.

Huh. I may have just figured out my next research proposal.

~~~
LeifCarrotson
What do you mean "Robots are hard to control at a low level"? That's the only
level where they're easy!

At the lowest granularity, they have servomotors, encoders/resolvers, and
kinematics that convert motor rotation to a motion in 3D space. Robot
manufacturers have made the code to make a joint or linear move to a
predefined X/Y/Z/i/j/k location in space using those tools really quite
simple. Inputs and outputs to control grippers and other end-of-arm tools are
also straightforward. As long as you keep the process low-level, they're
incredibly reliable and easy to program: a clever maintenance technician can
pick up a pendant for the first time and have a well-scoped task programmed in
a week. A competent sales engineer can clamp a small robot to a conference
room table and demonstrate picking up and putting together your product in a
one-hour sales demo.

It's when you expand the scope when it gets really complicated: ask it to pick
up a variety of objects, located by vision algorithms in arbitrary
orientations and locations, that are moving in real time, in a changing
environment, is simply a hard problem - and I think it always will be. Robots
really only know how to move their tool center point from one location to
another, and asking them to "do what I mean" and "pick up one of these and put
it on one of those without making me worry about low-level stuff" is a level
of simplification that has never really worked in any other domain.

~~~
GlenTheMachine
It’s hard in two senses: one, it’s hard to translate low-level commanding into
meaningful work in all but the most controlled of environments. That’s why
robots that are economically viable today are nearly all on factory floors:
that’s basically the only setting where you can control the environment well
enough for them to be useful.

And two, for “advanced” robots (quadrupeds/humanoids) it’s _very_ hard to get
them to even balance, much less walk. Yes, there are robots that do this today
— surprisingly well, in fact. But there is a tremendous amount going on
algorithmically under the hood to make it happen. Figuring out how to make
them work took decades of research in controls.

This is largely a restatement of what you said above, so I suppose it depends
on what you mean by “low level”. My intent above was low level in horse terms,
which includes standing and walking. Things humans think of as atomic
behaviors.

------
shireboy
I’m sure it’s just because I’ve never owned one, but I have often thought
horses were the first “self driving” vehicle, and could still have some
features superior to automobiles. You can feed them hay, they occasional apple
and sugar cube, and they are largely carbon neutral. Even producing natural
fertilizer as a byproduct of combustion. Built in cruise control, obstacle
avoidance, and voice control, and a limited ability to self navigate and self-
park.

~~~
pjc50
Cars took off because, among other things, they require considerably less
maintenance (especially cleaning!) and are more reliable (horse illnesses can
be a serious problem). While they are self-replicating, it takes human time to
train a foal to usefulness, and bloodline maintenance can get complicated and
expensive if you're after something more specific than just "a horse". The
methane emissions aren't great for global warming either.

~~~
CalRobert
Not just methane. The automobile had the advantage of removing millions of
pounds of horse manure from city streets.

~~~
lucideer
Aside from the so-called "great horse manure crisis" story being somewhat
vaguely sourced (horse manure was of value back then and was traded as such),
even if it were true or at least becoming a growing problem, I feel this
problem is likely overstated. If cars had not removed it, we would've solved
this problem by other means.

Human "manure" was also as big a problem: sewers were relatively recent and
still being build, and toilets were a brand new invention. Yet we've largely
solved this issue without getting rid of people from cities.

------
hprotagonist
with horses in particular, you don’t “control”. You establish a relationship
and negotiate. Goats are like this too, as are huskies and malamutes and some
other dog breeds.

Relate and negotiate turns out to be a much healthier metaphor for getting
shit done, too.

~~~
jessaustin
Every domesticated animal is like this. (I'm not including animals like e.g.
goldfish because ISTM there important ways in which they are not
domesticated.) The other important aspect is that members of any particular
species or lineage within a species have largely the same behaviors. Training
and experience might add useful behaviors, but they don't completely eliminate
existing behaviors.

For instance, cattle have a way of existence in which they are comfortable.
(They really don't like anyone directly behind them, but off the rear quarter
is tolerable. Structure like a fence or a road makes it easier for them to
walk in a straight line. A single animal might be comfortable in isolation
most of the time, but will seek to join a group when stressed. A path that is
comfortable at a given speed will not be followed at a higher speed. Etc.) One
person who understands that way and is willing to work within it can move a
large herd more quickly and easily than twenty ignorant people.

ISTM human beings are also "domesticated", although they display a broader
range of interesting behaviors than other domesticated animals do.

~~~
Supermancho
> The other important aspect is that members of any particular species or
> lineage within a species have largely the same behaviors

Re: Why we domesticate horses, but not zebras.

~~~
simonh
Zebras have a different herd mentality to Horses, pretty much they don't have
one. They do move around in groups for mutual protection, but they live more
as individuals and do not follow a single alpha male herd leader as horses do.
So with horses you can set yourself up as the alpha leader and they will
follow you, but that doesn't work with Zebras. This combined with their more
aggressive nature has made them impossible to domesticate.

------
PhasmaFelis
> _Flaccid horse mass isn’t that helpful, not even if we throw in the horse’s
> physical strength to move itself according to your commands, and some sort
> of magical ability for you to communicate muscle-level commands to it._

Flaccid Horse Mass is my new band name.

------
kickscondor
Original link on Meteuphoric: [https://meteuphoric.com/2019/11/04/total-horse-
takeover/](https://meteuphoric.com/2019/11/04/total-horse-takeover/)

I'm glad to see this blog active again after a year of quiet.

~~~
etjossem
Thank you. Please read directly from the source instead of participating in
anything to do with LessWrong.

~~~
herendin2
Why?

~~~
jessaustin
For one thing, this page should have just linked to the original rather than
replicating it in full. HN doesn't replicate work done by others, and is
superior to "Greater Wrong" in that respect.

~~~
SilasX
Yes, but the GP was asking to avoid linking LW altogether — not just when
there’s a better original source —- which seems ... overbroad (and flamebait).

Full disclosure: I organize for LW Austin group.

~~~
etjossem
LessWrong can be reasonably characterized as a recruiting ground for pyramid
schemes and/or a cult of personality. It is an attempt to reframe
libertarianism as apolitical and as the only rational, correct course of
action. Effective altruists are urged to donate to unaccountable AI research
projects controlled by LW essayists.

For many reasons, I don't believe it's responsible to link people there.

Some starting points below, but please do your own research:

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWrong](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/LessWrong)

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Effective_altruism](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Effective_altruism)

------
peterburkimsher
I'm surprised to see that there's no other commenters who read this as a
metaphor for managing a company.

Communicating the main goals to engineers (take me to London) is essential.
The engineers might not know where, or even what "London" is. Pointing the
horse's head in the right direction and saying "go" is all you need to do to
make progress in the right direction. Micromanaging every leg movement, or
telling the horse to use a bicycle is counterproductive (Agile! Jira!
Confluence! Monday! Whatever the latest trend is!) If the horse teaches itself
to ride a bicycle (engineers choose a system because they need it) then that
does reduce the control that management has. Is that a bad thing if it still
gets you to London faster?

------
jd007
Forget a horse, the same argument can be made on a person's own self. Our
conscious mental efforts cannot even "total takeover" our own bodies.

------
bayesian_horse
Horses (and other animals in training) are problem-solving agents. To teach it
something, you pose problems to it that it can figure out.

Especially for dogs, you pose a problem in the form of "How do I get a reward
from this Hooman?" And by adjusting the difficulty of the required solution a
dog understands what you want.

------
yuranlu
This article reminds of me of this game that demonstrates how difficult it is
to operate a horse:
[http://www.foddy.net/CLOP.html](http://www.foddy.net/CLOP.html) (enabling
flash required)

------
jaspax
My read on this was that it's a useful metaphor for the economy, with the
state as the rider and the horse as the industrial base. The original
communist idea was to direct industrial output in some detail, which worked
about as well as trying to control the individual muscles of a horse. The US,
meanwhile, directs the economy by deciding "I want $X billion dollars worth of
helicopters" and then letting the private sector figure out the low-level
actions required to get there. The Chinese are probably an even better example
in this regard.

------
notelonmusk
[https://youtu.be/OnWolLQSZic](https://youtu.be/OnWolLQSZic)

------
gumby
This is really the argument for abstraction

