16.402J) - RSS: Debate Information

Debates

The field of Robotics has certain philosophical aspects to it. We will learn about this by means of class debates, which will occur at the end of the term. A list of debate topics is included in your syllabus. You will be asked to sign up for a topic and for the "pro" or "con" position for that topic. You will have to prepare a 15-minute argument for the idea you signed up for. You will deliver this argument orally in groups in front of the class.

A. RSS Debate

A robotics debate team consists of two groups of two (sometimes 1), debating on a resolution chosen in advance. Most teams will be 2-person teams.

Debaters should prepare presentation materials (powerpoint slides would be appropriate). Before you do this, read the following suggestions from Prof. Bruce Donald on giving a good talk. Remember that your time is extremely limited - don't prepare 30 minutes of great material, since we won't see most of it!

After the debates, debaters are required to turn in an essay (1-2 pages) that argues their point in writing.

I. GENERAL DEBATE RULES

B. RSS Debate Rules - subject to (slight) change

Debates shall be organized as follows:
- When debating in teams, the constructive speeches and the rebuttal speeches will be given by different team members.
- A timekeeper selected from the class will keep time.

Rules of Evidence
In debate, source citations of evidence must be stated the first time a source is used.
Rules of Evidence Authenticity
1. Evidence must not be fabricated or distorted, in penalty of losing the debate.
  1. Fabrication: falsely representing a cited fact or statement of opinion as evidence; or intentional omission/addition of information within quoted material.
  2. Distortion: misrepresentation of evidence or of citation which significantly alters meaning or content.

In your debate, you should be sure to describe the basic concepts in adequate detail so that the jury (the class) can follow.

II. How to Win a Debate

In order to win, debaters will need to do a literature search and some extra reading (beyond the assigned papers) in order to assemble an adequate armamentarium of technical material.

The best way to win an RSS debate is to make the most convincing technical arguments in favor of your assigned position (pro or con). For example, you could argue that while a particular theory of AI claims to work on certain search problems, you have proven that, for these problems, the search space is so constrained that any search technique (including random) will perform well! Or you could perform a careful complexity, soundness, or completeness analysis to demonstrate your point. Or you could try implementing the algorithm and show it performs well (or poorly).

Arguments by authority ("Rodney Brooks claims that X, and I believe him"; "John Hopcroft, a Turing Award winner, believes neural networks are bad so we should too") should not be used.

However, precise technical arguments ("Cybenko [give ref] has proven that any continuous function can be modelled using a neural network -- this means they have great expressive power") and technical rebuttals ("Yes, but Cybenko's construction requires an exponential number of hidden units -- great expressive power at great expense is not useful!") are excellent debating points.

You must argue aggressively for your assigned position (pro or con). Never say "Well, I've been assigned pro, but I really agree more with con."

Finally, don't forget that the way you handle yourself during the debate will influence your audience! Even the most coherent and strong arguments can be undermined with poor presentation. This is perhaps unfortunate (and less problematic with a "well-educated" audience), but true. Be well-prepared, professional, respectful of your opponent, and courteous to your questioners.

III. Grading of Debates

All debaters (not teams!) will be given a grade based on their performance.
Debaters who do not show up for their assigned debate, come unprepared to debate, or do not turn in an essay will receive an F.
The jury (the class) will discuss the debate afterwards. During this discussion, the jury may cross-examine the debaters, and the debaters may cross-examine each other. That is, during this time, the debaters can (and should) continue to press their points.
At the end of each debate the class will vote for the winner. Your grade will not depend on this vote. Your grade will be based on your argument, oral presentation, and written presentation as evaluated by the course staff.

IV. Debate Topics

The resolutions chosen for the debates do not reflect a judgement on the research. They are merely chosen to be controversial and to stimulate discussion.

Resolved, that deliberative robot architectures are marvelously clever search techniques whose running time and information requirements make them completely inpractical for real-time performance, unlike reactive robot architectures that will always give the needed robot action in the required time.

Pro:

Con:

Resolved, that building many sensors into our robots as a way of robustly solving problems is a habit that should be kicked. Instead "just say know" (Matt Mason): use task-specific knowledge to solve the problem.

Pro:

Con:

Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are important and can and should be designed into all robots that interact with people on a regular basis.

Pro:

Con:

In the near future we will be able to build robots that are as intelligent and powerful as humans, and will therefore have the ability to take over from humans. We should therefore stop conducting research into robotic intelligence.