Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
The Kilobot Project: A Low Cost Scalable Robot System for Demonstrating Collective Behaviors
August 15th, 2014Here’s one for your This-Will-End-Badly file folder. Via: Harvard: In current robotics research there is a vast body of work on algorithms and control methods for groups of decentralized cooperating robots, called a swarm or collective. These algorithms are generally meant to control collectives of hundreds or even thousands of robots; however, for reasons of […]
Humans Need Not Apply
August 14th, 2014Via: CGP Grey: Research Credit: P7y845W4
MonsterMind: NSA’s Cyberwar Bot
August 13th, 2014Via: Wired: Edward Snowden has made us painfully aware of the government’s sweeping surveillance programs over the last year. But a new program, currently being developed at the NSA, suggests that surveillance may fuel the government’s cyber defense capabilities, too. The NSA whistleblower says the agency is developing a cyber defense system that would instantly […]
Starwood Hotels Trials Robots That Make Deliveries to Guests
August 12th, 2014Via: CNBC: Look out Rosie the Robot, Starwood Hotels’ Aloft brand has a taskmaster of its own. His (or her?) name; A.L.O. pronounced “el-oh”, the hotels’ first Botlr (short of robotic butler.) Standing just under 3 feet tall, A.L.O. comes dressed in a vinyl-collared butler uniform and will soon be on call all day and […]
Robots Will Create ‘Permanently Unemployable Underclass’
August 9th, 2014Via: International Business Times: The advancement of robots that can do our jobs for us will create a class-divide not seen since the 19th century, a report by the Pew Research Centre in America has found. As machines have continued to displace factory workers, personal assistants and receptionists over the last decade, advanced countries must […]
Why Robots Are Getting Cuter
August 6th, 2014Via: The Verge: The tendency of people to treat minimally anthropomorphic bots as humans worries some people. We are, in a sense, falling prey to a powerful illusion. The expressions and gestures are shorthand for internal states you imagine, instinctively, are like yours, but really are only code. If a thing seems alive, if it […]
Elon Musk: AI “Potentially More Dangerous Than Nukes”
August 4th, 2014Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom Via: ExtremeTech: Elon Musk, the mastermind behind SpaceX and Tesla, believes that artificial intelligence is “potentially more dangerous than nukes,” imploring all of humankind “to be super careful with AI,” unless we want the ultimate fate of humanity to closely resemble Judgment Day from Terminator. Personally I think […]
UK to Allow Driverless Cars on Public Roads in January
July 30th, 2014Via: BBC: The UK government has announced that driverless cars will be allowed on public roads from January next year. It also invited cities to compete to host one of three trials of the tech, which would start at the same time. In addition, ministers ordered a review of the UK’s road regulations to provide […]
Robot with Broken Leg Learns to Walk Again in 2 Minutes
July 30th, 2014Via: Medium: When animals lose a limb, they learn to hobble remarkably quickly. And yet when robots damage a leg, they become completely incapacitated. That’s not so much of a problem for robots that are confined to factories where help is always on hand. But robots have been evolving rapidly and are now on the […]
JIBO “Family Robot”
July 25th, 2014Via: My Jibo:
