29
POPSRobots Forming Human-Like Societies "Evil is utterly fundamental to human nature" actually understates the scope of the problem, there were also silicon souls on the side of the angels. Some robots advanced fearlessly into poison zones, flashing warning lights to keep other robots out of harms way.
26
POPSRobot Programmed to Love Goes too Far Admittedly over the board, however given enough iterations this may be a necessary step in the evolution of robots/humans interaction, leading to full fledged co-habitation.. ;-)
24
POPSThe Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century Tesla is my greatest hero. Given the right management I believe he could have achieved his goal of delivering power wirelessly to the world for free. He tapped into the electromagnetic field we are a part of... like almost no other.
23
POPSHow bad is giving it up for good?
Considering its duration and tenacity, some have suggested that such a belief structure must be an essential part of the human condition or psyche. Others have even suggested that perhaps there is some kind of ‘god gene’ operating or ‘spiritual’ aspect of DNA that makes us adhere to these convictions. Whatever the reason though, it’s also generally supposed that the majority of human beings will continue to maintain their faith in a higher power either ruling over their lives or, at least, being responsible for original creation. In particular, how much of humanity can humans retain once they begin melding with machines? Or the other way around, when the very nature of prosthetics, synthetic organs and implants determine how much in us is actually organic and what parts non-natural? When the contents of consciousnesses can be downloaded to memory devices or uploaded from them into brains, it’s going to be difficult to preserve the same self-image of our human wholeness.
23
POPSAI Singularity: The Next Stage of Human Evolution? "Technology is heading here. It will predictably get to the point of making artificial intelligence," Yudkowsky said. "The mere fact that you cannot predict exactly when it will happen down to the day is no excuse for closing your eyes and refusing to think about it."
19
POPSA Robot Controlled by Self Organizing Biological Neural Net "Within a week we get some spontaneous firings and brain-like activity" similar to what happens in a normal rat -- or human -- brain, he added. But without external stimulation, the brain will wither and die within a couple of months. "Now we are looking at how best to teach it to behave in certain ways," explained Warwick. To some extent, Gordon learns by itself. When it hits a wall, for example, it gets an electrical stimulation from the robot's sensors. As it confronts similar situations, it learns by habit.
18
POPSThe future of Mind Control research is showing that the brain can act independently of the body. One day, you could be sitting in an office and controlling a device from across the room—or in another building. And it’s not just flicking a switch. It could be a nanotool that’s moving through a tiny environment, and you can control it and see what it’s seeing.” That kind of extension could lead to new spectrums of scale and force, not to mention new kinds of sensory input altogether. Instead of merely imagining that you’re grasping a nanotool with virtual fingers, you could learn to pilot it like a minuscule spaceship—only with your mind. And if that device had any sensors, you might be able to process the data as though it were a tiny camera.
18
POPSA Robomedic for the Battlefield Now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) are developing technology to give battlefield medics a helping hand--literally. Howie Choset, an associate professor of robotics at CMU, has engineered a snakelike robotic arm equipped with various sensors that can monitor a soldier's condition. The robot can be wirelessly controlled via a joystick, so that a doctor at a remote clinic may move the robot to any point on a soldier's body to assess his injuries as he's being carried to a safe location. The robot's serpentine flexibility allows it to maneuver within tight confines, so that, in case a casualty can't be extracted from the battlefield immediately, the robot can perform an initial medical assessment in the field.
17
POPSThe Evolving AI Ecosystem He takes his theory further, all the way in to the tubes of the internet. In collaboration with Professor Tim Berners-Lee – the co-inventor of the World Wide Web – the pair have been investigating the next generation Web. “What is emerging now is a digital ecosystem,’ says Professor Shadbolt, ‘involving lots of simple systems which connect millions of complex ones – humans!” And there begins to be a certain amount of logic and a lessening of the fear I feel for the day when I am some robots whipping boy. We see such developments already in websites such as Facebook and Flickr, and programs such as Google Earth and World of Warcraft. We are being linked together, ever so slowly by a collective consciousness.
17
POPS“What is Life?” Evolution of Robots is Causing Scientists to Question “Robots are not human, but humans aren’t the only things that have emotions,” she said. “The question for robots is not, Will they ever have human emotions? Dogs don’t have human emotions, either, but we all agree they have genuine emotions. The question is, what are the emotions that are genuine for the robot?”
17
POPS Robots and Humans: Intel say equal by 2050 Robots: From the Factory Floor to Your Kitchen - Robots today are primarily used in the factory environment, designed to perform a single task repeatedly and bolted down. To make robotics personal, robots need to move and manipulate objects in cluttered and dynamic human environments, according to Rattner. They need to be cognizant of their surroundings by sensing and recognizing movement in a dynamic physical world, and learn to adapt to new scenarios. Rattner demonstrated two working personal robot prototypes developed at Intel’s research labs. One of the demonstrations showed electric field pre-touch that has been built into a robot hand. The technique is a novel sensing modality used by fish but not humans, so they can “feel” objects before they even touch them. The other demonstration was a complete autonomous mobile manipulation robot that can recognize faces and interpret and execute commands as generic as “please clean this mess” using state-of-the-art motion planning, manipula
17
POPSRobots Detect Behavioral Cues to Follow Humans
“As humans, we constantly incorporate other peoples' current actions as clues (cues) as to what they may do in the future,” Sanjay Joshi of the University of California, Davis, told PhysOrg.com. “For instance, we have a ‘sixth sense’ on the highway to know that a certain car will swerve into our lane soon, based on the driver's current driving patterns. Then, we may become more defensive in our own driving. In our work, we wanted to begin the process of allowing robots to use behavioral cues (of humans or other robots), to make the robot's mission more reliable and accurate. In social work environments populated by numerous people and robots, these types of cues should be abundant.” The researchers explained that behavioral cues that robots might use could include any action or signal that the leader exhibits that hints at a future action. These might be intended behaviors, such as pointing or waving. Other cues might be unconscious, such as behaviors that indicate stress or sadness,
16
POPSRobots Evolve And Learn How to Lie "The fourth colony sometimes evolved “cheater” robots instead, which would light up to tell the others that the poison was food, while they themselves rolled over to the food source and chowed down without emitting so much as a blink. Some robots, though, were veritable heroes. They signaled danger and died to save other robots. “Sometimes,” Floreano says, “you see that in nature—an animal that emits a cry when it sees a predator; it gets eaten, and the others get away—but I never expected to see this in robots.”
16
POPSRobot builders seek a little help from sci-fi "People that thought of it as a camera with legs were really pleased, but people that thought of it as a photographer were really disappointed," he says. Smart thinks those raised expectations were down to the impact of unrealistically human-like robots in movies and books. "People don't really know what they are. C-3PO in Star Wars is very humanlike, intelligent and capable, but real robots are not like that at all." Instead of just forcing people to alter their expectations, Smart thinks it makes sense to study how people's ideas about robots are influenced by fiction. That knowledge could be used to design robots that make the most of those expectations. "My real concern is to get people and robots to play together nicely," says Smart. Engineers might learn from fictional robots in other ways, says Sharkey. "It would be worthwhile to study the way computer animators make us connect with simple, non-human objects." Pixar's WALL-E, for example, is easy to connect with, he
16
POPSA Robot that Navigates Like a Person The machine is controlled by algorithms designed to mimic different parts of the human visual system. Rather than capturing and mapping its surroundings over and over in order to plan its route--the way most robots do--the European machine uses a simulated neural network to update its position relative to the environment, continually adjusting to each new input. This mimics human visual processing and movement planning.
15
POPSThe Next Big Sensation? "Technological advances will someday be complemented by cultural changes, and cavorting with robots just won't seem weird anymore." Why is it important to humans that machines are beginning to touch us back? "It was incredibly important to humans when robots started to look at you, recognize a face and make eye contact," "The eye contact turned out to be a significant Darwinian button. We are hard-wired for that. That's how we sense the presence of an other. Same thing with touch. That is the way we connect with an other that knows about us, that understands us. It is in our evolution. We are hard-wired to communicate with each other by touch. It's how we stroke babies, how we want to be comforted. . . . "A heartbeat is a powerful way of signaling the presence"
15
POPSLiving Safely with Robots, Beyond Asimov's Laws "As robots are beginning to spread from industrial environments to the real world, human safety in the presence of robots has become an important social and technological issue. Currently, countries like Japan and South Korea are preparing for the “human-robot coexistence society,” which is predicted to emerge before 2030";
Most Pops
see Most Pops
10
Clips
Latest Pops
Latest Comments
Tags
Print
Save
Turn on live update