Archive for the 'Rise of the Machines' Category
The Coming Artilect War
June 3rd, 2010Via: Technofascism Blog: If you haven’t heard of Hugo de Garis, AI researcher and Professor at China’s Xiamen University, then you’ve probably never heard of an Artilect either. A contraction of Artificial Intellect, the Artilects are future creations that, according to de Garis, will be immortal, godlike robotic beings that, due to being built on […]
U.S. Department of Defense Wants Autonomous Robot Army by 2034
May 29th, 2010Via: TechnoFascism Blog: “It will save lives”, or so the argument goes. Sending a robot warrior onto the battlefield instead of humans seems like the logical next step in a world moving toward greater efficiency and automation. Everyone seems in love with this new technological trend of automated devastation: from the corporations that will profit […]
IBM Patent Application Describes “Intelligent” Stop Lights That Turn Off Cars
May 27th, 2010What could possibly go wrong? Via: Daily Tech: Running red lights and failure to stop leads to untold numbers of traffic accidents around the world. Sitting at a red light with cars idling also burns fuel that really isn’t needed. IBM has filed a patent application that outlines a system that would turn the motors […]
USC/DARPA LittleDog Robot
May 23rd, 2010And Now… Telepresence Robots
May 19th, 2010Via: Wired: Robots have replaced humans on assembly lines, battlefields, space missions and rescue operations. Now how about doing something useful, like sitting through endless meetings for you? Meet the Anybots QB, a telepresence robot that can represent you in the office by sitting in conference rooms, going to meetings and rolling about through the […]
Phantom Ray UAV Capable of Completely Autonomous Operation
May 15th, 2010Via: MSNBC: Boeing’s sleek fighter-size Phantom Ray stealth jet will make its first flight by year’s end. This unmanned airborne system is designed for a variety of warfighter roles ranging from reconnaissance and surveillance to aerial refueling, electronic attack and hunter/killer missions. The 36-foot-long aircraft, which will serve as a test bed for advanced technologies, […]
Why We Could All Use a Heavy Dose of Techno-Skepticism
May 15th, 2010Via: Technofascism Blog: A new prophet, Jason Silva, joins the ranks of Ray Kurzweil as evangelist for the emerging Singularity techno-religion. In his new film, “Turning Into Gods”, Mr. Silva promotes the central tenet of this new cult: that all of us will one day become all-powerful deities, that will play with genes and atoms […]
U.S. Government Can Execute Its Own Citizens With No Judicial Process And Based On Secret Intelligence
May 15th, 2010What do we learn from the New York Times in the article below? Some legal authorities are deeply uneasy about the U.S. Government’s arbitrary assassination of Americans. That is supposed to soothe us, I think. We can rest assured that someone feels deeply uneasy about the government murdering its own citizens. I don’t know about […]
Man Fitted with Robot Arm Controlled by the Mind
May 13th, 2010It’s unfortunate that killer robots are the inescapable flipside of this kind of stuff. Whether you love the machines, or dread them (or both), this is pretty remarkable. Via: BBC: Every morning Christian Kandlbauer wakes up, dresses himself, and gets in his car to drive to work. This may sound mundane, but for the 21-year-old […]
U.S. to Expand Pakistan Drone Strikes
May 6th, 2010Via: Al Jazeera: The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been granted approval by the US government to expand drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions in a move to step up military operations against Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters, officials have said. Federal lawyers backed the measures on grounds of self-defence to counter threats the fighters pose […]
