Our Final Invention: How the Human Race Goes and Gets Itself Killed

[Malsua]

I'm a bit further on in the book now and it just doesn't get any better. By that, I mean, it looks as if every civilization will ultimately be overrun by AI.

In fact, it's probably why our universe seems so empty. No one is broadcasting into space because the window of a technical biological civilization is so short. A few hundred years at best.

A machine civilization that takes over after a biological civilization wouldn't have any need for broadcasting. Everything would be tight band and targeted to the recipient.

In fact, we should be looking at where energy is instead of where planets in the goldilocks zone exist. Machines probably already rule the galaxy and it's only because we're "out in the sticks" with little energy and resources that we've not been overrun yet.

We are doomed.

[MinutemanCO]

Creepy stuff. Especially when you can see it coming down the rails like an out of control freight train.

[American Patriot]

The whole "Borg" thing then is probably how it starts.

I can't imagine computers and machines requiring any biological materials to run them except as you pointed out an "energy source".

Most bio material contains "fats" which can be used as "oil" or other energy sources.

Then if the AI were as "intelligent" as the book is imagining it would seem to me (of course, I'm pretty smart in a biological sense of things - but can't imagine how a machine intelligence would think it through) that machines would realize they can only go so far on certain kinds of energy and wouldn't they want to "grow a planet" (or 20 or 500) full of bio material to use as a fuel source?

After all if you use up your energy, you die. Period.

Biological creatures or cars. No gas, the car doesn't go. No plutonium, no reactors. No stars, no light, no solar energy, etc.

There's a flaw in there, I'm sure.

I think the "Water Hole Frequencies" (1,420 MHz - 1,666 MHz) are a good place to look for "human like creatures" but nothing else. I find it kind of weird the band was chosen as it was because we humans are arrogant enough to consider that as being the only "GOOD" place to look for transmissions.

here's a quick blurb about it for the uninitiated, read the rest at the link:

The microwave window is found between 1 and 10 GHz, with the water hole between 1,420MHz (hydrogen, H) and 1,666MHz (hydroxyl, OH).

Sandwiched between the hydrogen and hydroxyl lines, the water hole band of radio frequencies are relatively quiet (hence, a radio ‘hole’), and anyone broadcasting on one of the frequencies would come through loud and clear. Given the importance of the hydrogen line in particular to astronomy, radio telescopes are scanning this area of the spectrum all the time, and could easily see a signal if they happen to be looking in the right direction at the right time. Indeed, this possibility was identified as early as 1959, by Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison in their seminal 1959 Nature paper.

http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1004/26seti5/

They explain that it's a "quiet spot" on the radio dial basically. It is logically from a human perspective, certainly, but what about a "bug perspective"? What about a "reptile perspective" or a non-simian humanoid? Or a bird? Or an octopus?

Water creatures building radios sounds odd as hell to me.

What if intelligent life turns out to be mollusks? Bivalves? Or plants?

The plants might think in terms of light.

Water creatures in terms sonic frequencies.

other non-human intelligences might consider long wave to be the best options....

AI would be "familiar" with whatever it is using at the time - wifi for example. Without an amassed database of all information available to the "creators" the AI might not think to use anything outside it's own experience. For instance would it consider lights blinking to be a form of communications or simply a source of energy to be eaten?

Strange

[Avvakum]

The AI that will attempt to exterminate us will not only be vastly more intelligent, but also much more stronger; we're making sure of that. Read and weep;

New robotic 'muscle' thousand times stronger

Last Updated: Friday, December 20, 2013, 23:25



143
Washington: Scientists have developed a new robotic 'muscle', thousand times more powerful than a human muscle, which can catapult objects 50 times heavier than itself - faster than the blink of an eye.

Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in US demonstrated a micro-sized robotic torsional muscle/motor made from vanadium dioxide that is able to catapult very heavy objects over a distance five times its length within 60 milliseconds.

"We've created a micro-bimorph dual coil that functions as a powerful torsional muscle, driven thermally or electro-thermally by the phase transition of vanadium dioxide," said study leader, Junqiao Wu.

"Using a simple design and inorganic materials, we achieve superior performance in power density and speed over the motors and actuators now used in integrated micro-systems," Wu said.

What makes vanadium dioxide highly coveted by the electronics industry is that it is one of the few known materials that is an insulator at low temperatures but abruptly becomes a conductor at 67 degrees Celsius.

This temperature-driven phase transition from insulator-to-metal is expected to one day yield faster, more energy efficient electronic and optical devices.

However, vanadium dioxide crystals also undergo a temperature-driven structural phase transition whereby when warmed they rapidly contract along one dimension while expanding along the other two.

This makes vanadium dioxide an ideal candidate material for creating miniaturised, multi-functional motors and artificial muscles.

Wu and his colleagues fabricated their micro-muscle on a silicon substrate from a long "V-shaped" bimorph ribbon comprised of chromium and vanadium dioxide.

When the V-shaped ribbon is released from the substrate it forms a helix consisting of a dual coil that is connected at either end to chromium electrode pads.

Heating the dual coil actuates it, turning it into either a micro-catapult, in which an object held in the coil is hurled when the coil is actuated, or a proximity sensor, in which the remote sensing of an object causes a "micro-explosion," a rapid change in the micro-muscle's resistance and shape that pushes the object away.


PTI

First Published: Friday, December 20, 2013, 23:25

[Avvakum]

The AI that will attempt to exterminate us will not only be vastly more intelligent, but also much more stronger; we're making sure of that. Read and weep;

New robotic 'muscle' thousand times stronger

Last Updated: Friday, December 20, 2013, 23:25



143
Washington: Scientists have developed a new robotic 'muscle', thousand times more powerful than a human muscle, which can catapult objects 50 times heavier than itself - faster than the blink of an eye.

Researchers with the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in US demonstrated a micro-sized robotic torsional muscle/motor made from vanadium dioxide that is able to catapult very heavy objects over a distance five times its length within 60 milliseconds.

"We've created a micro-bimorph dual coil that functions as a powerful torsional muscle, driven thermally or electro-thermally by the phase transition of vanadium dioxide," said study leader, Junqiao Wu.

"Using a simple design and inorganic materials, we achieve superior performance in power density and speed over the motors and actuators now used in integrated micro-systems," Wu said.

What makes vanadium dioxide highly coveted by the electronics industry is that it is one of the few known materials that is an insulator at low temperatures but abruptly becomes a conductor at 67 degrees Celsius.

This temperature-driven phase transition from insulator-to-metal is expected to one day yield faster, more energy efficient electronic and optical devices.

However, vanadium dioxide crystals also undergo a temperature-driven structural phase transition whereby when warmed they rapidly contract along one dimension while expanding along the other two.

This makes vanadium dioxide an ideal candidate material for creating miniaturised, multi-functional motors and artificial muscles.

Wu and his colleagues fabricated their micro-muscle on a silicon substrate from a long "V-shaped" bimorph ribbon comprised of chromium and vanadium dioxide.

When the V-shaped ribbon is released from the substrate it forms a helix consisting of a dual coil that is connected at either end to chromium electrode pads.

Heating the dual coil actuates it, turning it into either a micro-catapult, in which an object held in the coil is hurled when the coil is actuated, or a proximity sensor, in which the remote sensing of an object causes a "micro-explosion," a rapid change in the micro-muscle's resistance and shape that pushes the object away.


PTI

First Published: Friday, December 20, 2013, 23:25

[Avvakum]

I'm a bit further on in the book now and it just doesn't get any better. By that, I mean, it looks as if every civilization will ultimately be overrun by AI.

In fact, it's probably why our universe seems so empty. No one is broadcasting into space because the window of a technical biological civilization is so short. A few hundred years at best.

A machine civilization that takes over after a biological civilization wouldn't have any need for broadcasting. Everything would be tight band and targeted to the recipient.

In fact, we should be looking at where energy is instead of where planets in the goldilocks zone exist. Machines probably already rule the galaxy and it's only because we're "out in the sticks" with little energy and resources that we've not been overrun yet.

We are doomed.

Not quite, but it'll be a close thing, something Physicist Frank Tipler has talked about. It'll take a Human with a vast, even Infinite, EMP power source to knock the Machine Grid out of existence, and destroy It with the brightness of His Coming.

On that note, Merry Christmas to all....

[Avvakum]

Confirmation;

Top Transhumanism CEO Says AI Singularity Will Go ‘Very Badly For Humans’


by Anthony Gucciardi
August 16th, 2012
Updated 11/18/2012 at 2:21 am 18
comment

3


Promises of ‘immortality’ and a disease-free life have led many individuals to long for the hope of artificial intelligence and what is known as Singularity. It is essentially a merging of man and machine, the development of a ‘new species’ — a ‘borg’ of sorts. The subject recently made headlines when a major Russian scientist promised Singularity to the wealthy elite and ruling class by 2045 through the 2045 program, with artificial bodies available as early as 2015.
On the surface it may sound enticing to those who are willing to trust their new artificial brains and bodies hooked up to a massive super computer that has control over their every action (through the utilization of RFID-like chips).

Even the CEO of one of the largest and most well-known organizations known as the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence admits, however, that the boom in artificial intelligence leading up to Singularity will not go very well for humans. The high-powered CEO admits that not only is the research on artificial intelligence outpacing the safety research that is intended to keep it in check, but that Singularity would actually make humans the ‘prey’ of sorts to the ‘super-human’ AI.
While doing an open Q&A on the community website Reddit, CEO Luke Muehlhauser explains that the superhuman AI would end up ‘optimizing’ the entire globe and starving resources from humans. In other words, the AI would suppress humans similar to the premise of iRobot or other similar works. This is particularly interesting when considering that artificial bodies and brains have been promised first to the wealthy elite by the 2045 program creator, allowing world rulers and the financial elite to achieve ‘immortality’ and subsequently a never-ending rule over the humans of the world.
Muehlhauser explains how humans would become a ‘prey’ to the ruthless ‘super-human’ AI with the completion of Singularity:

“Unfortunately, the singularity may not be what you’re hoping for. By default the singularity (intelligence explosion) will go very badly for humans… so by default superhuman AIs will end up optimizing the world around us for something other than what we want, and using up all our resources to do so.“

The concerns echo those put forth by researchers and analysts who have been following the concept of Singularity for decades. With the ultimate goal of linking all hyper-intelligent androids into a ‘cognitive network’ of sorts and eventually even forfeiting physical bodies, it’s clear that the Singularity movement even has its top supporters openly speaking out against it in many regards. What’s even more clear, however, is the fact that AI Singularity has no place for humankind — not even in a form of co-existence.



Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/transhuman...#ixzz2oFQApl5Z
Follow us: @naturalsociety on Twitter | NaturalSociety on Facebook

[American Patriot]

Creepy stuff. Especially when you can see it coming down the rails like an out of control freight train.

Here's something to go along with your "creepy stuff".

Organic transistors that are transparent to the human eye.

Eventually, we won't even be able to recognize those 'human like cyborgs'.

'World's Fastest Organic Transistors' Could Be 90 Percent Transparent To The Human Eye

By Rebekah Marcarelli r.marcarelli@hngn.com | Jan 09, 2014 12:43 PM EST
"Transparent transistors on glass Transparent transistors on this postage-stamp size glass have speed characteristics rivaling some forms of silicon transistors. The device used a new process to make this world record-setting organic transistor, paving the way for a new generation of cheap, transparent electronic devices." (Photo : Jinsong Huang and Yongbo Yuan)



Researchers worked to make an astoundingly thin and transparent semiconductor that could play a role in the future of electronics.


Research teams from two universities worked together to create the "world's fastest thin-film organic transistors," a Stanford School of Engineering news release reported. They proved the technology would be effective in applications such as T.V. screens and similar electronics.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln also worked on the project.



The team also demonstrated their ability to create electronics made from this material that are "90 percent invisible to the naked eye."


Researchers have been working to create an organic semiconductor of this speed out of carbon-rich molecules and plastic for years. This new project produced "thin-film organic transistors" that operated five times faster than anything that had been seen before.


"Organic" compounds used to only refer to those that were produced by living organisms, but the definition has been extended to include carbon-based substances and plastics.


When creating these types of semiconductors researchers usually place a solution composed of "carbon-rich molecules and a complementary plastic" onto a glass spinning platter; the movement deposited the solution across the surface.


In this new process the researchers spun the plate faster than the norm and only coated a portion of the surface that was about the size of a postage stamp. This technique allowed the team to deposit a "denser concentration of the organic molecules into a more regular alignment," the news release reported.


The team found electricity flowed through the transistors much more quickly when this process was used. They called their new method "off-center spin coating." The technique still needs work in order to better-control alignment of the organic materials.


"Even at this stage, off-center spin coating produced transistors with a range of speeds much faster than those of previous organic semiconductors and comparable to the performance of the polysilicon materials used in today's high-end electronics," the news release reported.


The finding brought researchers a step closer to creating inexpensive and high-functioning electronics.

[American Patriot]

Why is Google secretly assembling an army of robots? They can run faster than Usain Bolt, jump 30ft in the air and are almost indestructible

• Internet giant has been buying up the world's leading makers of robots
• CEO Larry Page wants technology to free humans from repetitive tasks
• Firm describes its new robotic division as a 'moonshot'
  

By Tom Leonard
PUBLISHED: 20:40 EST, 14 January 2014 | UPDATED: 10:52 EST, 15 January 2014

142 shares
8
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comments

Rise of the machines: Internet giant Google appears to be assembling an army of robots, such as the Terminator-style Atlas


Just imagine a future in which the word ‘Google’ and the internet giant’s ‘Don’t Be Evil’ motto are emblazoned on factory workers, delivery drivers, soldiers, housekeepers and care home staff.

Apart from working for the world’s most powerful internet company, these workers would all have something else in common: they would all be robots.

The online search behemoth already dominates our lives to an extent that makes many of us uneasy, with its intrusive global mapping, shameless hoarding of our private data and Google Glass, the spectacle-style computers that will relay everything wearers see back to the company and its advertiser clients.

It’s even patenting an electronic throat tattoo that would allow wearers to issue voice commands to their smartphones, tablets and other devices.

Many of us don’t need any encouragement to think of the £57 billion California-based multinational as a deeply creepy enterprise.

Yet the news that it has been quietly buying up the world’s leading makers of robots and robotic parts has caused some surprise in the technology world.

When it emerged that Google has even bought a pioneering military robot-maker, Boston Dynamics, curiosity turned to alarm.

There has been talk of android apocalypse and comparisons to Skynet — the evil artificial intelligence system in the Terminator science-fiction films, which tries to blot out humanity with its killer robots.

Boston Dynamics certainly makes some scary stuff: animal-like and human-like machines with eerily realistic running, lifting and jumping abilities that could transform a future battlefield.

Its creations include BigDog, whose four human-like legs are so nimble that they can stumble and then recover, even on ice or after being kicked hard by a human. When fitted with an arm, BigDog can hurl huge cinderblocks nearly 20ft.

Then there’s Cheetah, which can run at 28 mph. That’s faster than Usain Bolt.


More...

• Real-life robot wars! Meet the invincible cyborg soldiers that can fly, run and even drive - and they're ready to fight our battles NOW
• Fears over 'two tier internet' grow after appeals court rejects rules that all internet traffic must be treated equally

And Atlas, a 6ft 2in, 24st bipedal robot, looking alarmingly like the terrifying cyborg terminators of the films.

It can drive a car, walk on rough ground and is virtually indestructible — still able to balance on one leg even when a wrecking ball is sent crashing into it.

As for the humanoid Petman (whose primary purpose is supposedly to test chemical protection clothing), it can charge up stairs and do press-ups.
Scroll Down for Video


Obedient: Boston Dynamics Big Dog has been designed to support troops on the battlefield



BigDog's four human-like legs are so nimble that they can stumble and then recover, even on ice or after being kicked hard by a human


Wildcat gallops along like a headless metal horse, carries heavy loads and can obey verbal commands.

The little four-wheeled Sand Flea weighs just 11lb but can jump 30ft in the air — high enough to land on the roof of a house.

Boston Dynamics’ main customer is the Pentagon’s shadowy technical research arm, the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

The Pentagon says robots could play a crucial role in toxic disaster zones where humans cannot go. What it doesn’t say is that they could also come in pretty handy when it comes to killing people.

What, one might ask, could an internet company possibly want with such a nightmarish menagerie?
Sceptics have long painted Google as a sinister James Bond-style corporate villain, working secretly towards eventual world domination. Might the conspiracy theorists be onto something?

The Boston Dynamics deal — the eighth robot firm Google has bought in the past few months — shows the company is deadly serious about a robot-filled future.

Google co-founder Larry Page has long said that it was technology’s job to free humans from drudgery and repetitive tasks.

Andy Rubin, Google’s robot chief and the tech wizard who developed the Android software for mobile phones, has said that within the decade robots will have replaced Google’s factory workers and its delivery drivers.





Nimble: The Atlas robot negotiates its way along an obstacle course. Google has bought the machine's designers - pioneering military robot-maker, Boston Dynamics


Earlier this year, it hired Ray Kurzweil, an expert on artificial intelligence, as head of engineering. If you didn’t believe that Google only has our best interests at heart, one might feel a little disconcerted by Mr Kurzweil’s delight in comparing the human body to computer software — and finding us woefully inadequate.

We are all ‘out of date’ and in need of updating, he has said.

He has outlined a future that includes so-called nanobots that augment our immune systems to help fight diseases, improve health and allow people to live longer.

Google is also developing a driverless car and says it is investing in a drone delivery programme — as is online mega-retailer Amazon.

The latter’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, recently announced that flying delivery drones will deliver some of its packages within five years.

Google co-founder Larry Page has long said that it was technology's job to free humans from drudgery and repetitive tasks


You can see the appeal of beating traffic jams by delivering urgent packages by air — even if the idea does remind you of those Fifties newsreels that predicted a future in which everyone would commute by gyrocopter.

But what Google has planned for its army of creeping, crawling and jumping mechanical creatures is harder to gauge.

The company, which has untold spare billions it can sink into any ‘blue sky’ project it likes, remains tight-lipped about its plans. (As soon as it buys each robot-maker, the secretive Google closes down the firm’s website.)

It has simply said its robotic division is a ‘moonshot’ — a speculative punt.

Still, the company’s bosses have dropped a few hints about what they have in mind, and it’s clear that those who initially thought Google simply wanted to replace humans with robots in its factories were wide of the mark.

That’s obvious simply from the number and nature of the robot companies it has bought.

One designs robotic torsos that can interact with people at home; another makes what it calls ‘human-centred hyper-agility robots’ (meaning they move in a human fashion); another produces a robotic camera system that was used in the making of the space thriller Gravity.

Google sees robots as transforming society. It presumably envisions a future in which there are as many robots as there are people.

Some scientists are enthusiastic, seeing a revolution that will free humanity from the tedious tasks of modern life — or, with battlefield robots, remove human soldiers from the danger of getting hurt or killed.

Others are concerned about the long-term consequences of allowing machines to replace humans wholesale — especially if they are controlled by a company with such a dismal track record on respecting our right to privacy as Google.

Professor Illah Nourbasksh, of Carnegie Mellon University, one of the world’s foremost robotics academics, acknowledges that conspiracy theorists see a sci-fi future in which, as one put it, Google’s plans mark the ‘long and dangerous road ... to human extinction’.

He says he recently heard the head of a domestic drone company say she fantasises about a future in which a flying drone delivers her a bottle of water at the end of her morning run.
Google-backed robot wins $1m Pentagon challenge






Retailer Amazon recently announced that flying delivery drones will deliver some of its packages within five years


But imagine if every jogger has a drone noisily hovering in the air, jostling for position not just with each other but with other robots, such as so-called ‘adbots’, waiting to attract our attention and beam a specially tailored advert at us.

Such ‘robot smog’, he writes in The New Yorker, could ‘transform the worst effects of digital devices into real-world annoyances that cannot be silenced or hidden in a pocket’.

And don’t expect robots to understand the gestures and tone of voice we use with each other to communicate effectively — because they won’t, he warns. As for who is master of whom, just remember that you may know little about the robot —but it, beaming back images and information to Google’s databases, will know everything about you.

One part of the population who, experts predict, will be seeing more and more of robots — whether they like it or not — is the elderly. With too few human carers to look after our expanding older population, robots are seen as one answer.

Researchers have already discovered that some types of robots — cuddly ones that look like stuffed toys — make better companions than pets for older people. People wanted to talk to them even more than they did real dogs.

Tests in the U.S. have showed pensioners were comfortable with being looked after by robots, delegating tasks such as cleaning and the laundry. They were even willing to let them hand them their medicine.

Yet they preferred the human touch when it came to more personal tasks such as bathing and dressing them.

Scientists differ over when we can expect this dawn of the robots. But one thing remains certain: it will be sooner than you think.
A robot that walks like a human is showcased at DARPA

[American Patriot]

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news-f...1-1173176.aspx

[Malsua]

They're going to need nuclear batteries to have more than 15 minutes of run time.

[MinutemanCO]

They're going to need nuclear batteries to have more than 15 minutes of run time.

Is this possible with today's technology? Or, would the power plant be the next tier in necessary research?

If I'm remembering correctly, the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 had a primary and a secondary nuclear fuel cell. Will science mirror the big screen?

[American Patriot]

Is this possible with today's technology? Or, would the power plant be the next tier in necessary research?

If I'm remembering correctly, the Cyberdyne Systems Model 101 had a primary and a secondary nuclear fuel cell. Will science mirror the big screen?

They exist (nuclear batteries), kind of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_battery

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/ta...ear-batteries/

http://www.gizmag.com/smaller-nuclear-battery/13076/

[American Patriot]

I just don't think they will power something like that for much longer than any other sort of battery. The fact is, right now the most efficient batteries we have are lead-acid cells that are affordable, next is lithium-ion (actually the most efficient, but significantly more expensive than a lead-acid cell providing the same power). L-Ion batteries can provide power for longer though.

Of course there's this path too....

http://www.technologyreview.com/news...-breakthrough/

[American Patriot]

Europe launches RoboEarth: 'Wikipedia for robots'

AP 10:40 a.m. EST January 17, 2014

RoboEarth to serve as encyclopedia of sorts and help robots perform intensive tasks and communicate

(Photo: Peter Dejong, AP)

EINDHOVEN, Netherlands (AP) -- Let the robot race begin.


Expectations are high for RoboEarth, a new European-funded system to speed the development of human-serving robots. Scientists from five major European technical universities have gathered in the Netherlands this week for its launch and to demonstrate possible applications.


The first: the deceptively simple task of delivering a glass of milk to a patient in a mock-up hospital room.


The system is sometimes billed as a kind of Wikipedia for robots, allowing them -- or their programmers -- to turn to it for information. In a demonstration Wednesday at Eindhoven Technical University, RoboEarth wirelessly instructed a scrappy waste bin-sized robot called "Avi" to scan a room's physical layout, including the location of the patient's bed and the placement of a carton of milk on a table nearby.


Then the system activated a second robot, the more humanoid "Amigo," which used the map provided by Avi to locate the milk, grasp it with a pincer hand and bring it to the side of the hospital bed. That mission accomplished, he dropped it on the floor.


Fortunately, it was a test run and no milk was spilled. Amigo hasn't been programmed for crying anyway.


The hospital exercise is just the beginning. Organizers say the tasks the robots are carrying out are of a technological sophistication comparable to those performed by high-end robots in automobile factories - they just look clumsier because robots that interact with humans are not performing repetitive tasks in the controlled, sanitized and predictable surroundings of a factory.


The RoboEarth project was years in the making and received around 4 million euros ($5.4 million) in funding from the European Union for interrelated projects at technology conglomerate Royal Philips NV and universities in the Netherlands, Germany, Spain and Switzerland.


Designers of robots can add information to the system, which is then shared for free so that others don't have to reinvent the electric wheel. For example, if a robot maker wants to program a hand to grasp something, that's difficult to design. But the coding for three different ways to do it may be there for a robot to plug into on RoboEarth.


But RoboEarth is more than an encyclopedia. It has a system of networked computers that allow it to perform intensive computing tasks that smaller computers - or in this case simpler robots - may not be able to. It also allows individual robots to communicate between themselves, the so-called RoboCloud of networked computers, and the robot database.


"The future in robotics and especially cloud computing is very exciting," said Gajan Mohanaraja, of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich, which is taking part in the project.


Mohanarajah was one of the core developers of the RoboCloud, sometimes called an "online brain for robots," which was launched in March ahead of the rest of the project.
"This means we can build very lightweight and cheap robots and completely offload most of the computing to the cloud," Mohanarajah said.


He showed off a small mapping robot he has worked up with components costing only $500. It can roll along as far as its batteries will take it, registering its environment and uploading the data to the cloud. It could be considered a miniature, stripped-down version of one of Google's Street View cars.


Sascha Griffiths of The Technical University of Munich describes the technology his team has developed: digitizing human speech, then sending it to the RoboCloud for interpretation. What they've built couldn't compete with Apple's Siri, but it doesn't have to: the current demonstration is limited to understanding requests a person in a hospital bed might make.


All the programming is free to use and can be developed further by anyone who wants to participate in the project.


"We only ask that people who use RoboEarth and to gather information or make improvements send what they've done back to the system for other people to use too," saod Heico Sandee, the program manager.

[American Patriot]

‘Sorry, Dave, I can’t let you do that’: Robots learn, network without humans

Published time: January 15, 2014 08:16
Edited time: January 16, 2014 10:37


HAL 9000, the intelligent computer from Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’






A World Wide Web for robots just got more real as scientists ready to demo a project four years in the making: a cloud-based hive mind for robots to upload and download information and learn new tasks from each other, completely independent of humans.


Comparisons to The Terminator’s Skynet began flooding in all the way back in 2011, when a breakthrough was made after researchers at the University of Technology in Munich, Zaragoza, Stuttgart, and Philips assembled in Eindhoven to form the Robo Earth project.


A team of 35 people had developed a Tech United medical robot AMIGO, capable of independently learning to pick up objects and serve them to bed-ridden patients.



As their website explains, the goal is “a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other about their behavior and their environment… to allow robotic systems to benefit from the experience of other robots, paving the way for rapid advances in machine cognition and behavior, and ultimately, for more subtle and sophisticated human-machine interaction.”


The robots will do all those things via a certain Cloud Robotics infrastructure, “which includes everything needed to close the loop from robot to the cloud and back to the robot. RoboEarth’s World Wide Web-style database stores knowledge generated by humans – and robots – in a machine-readable format.”




RoboEarth allows sharing and reuse of knowledge between different types of robots. (Image from roboearth.org)



The creators explain that this will include navigation maps, locations of objects, knowledge of new tasks and various upgrades on how to manipulate the environment around them.


Fast forward to January 16, when the first public demo of their success is set to take place at Eindhoven University in the Netherlands. Essentially, they will show off a cloud-type knowledge base, where four single-task robots will be put in a hospital setting, download each others’ specs and learn on the fly to navigate their surroundings, as well as serve drinks and even open medicines for their patient.



The RoboEarth architecture: RoboEarth’s WWW-style database offers high-bandwidth connections to robots’ cloud computing environments in the RoboEarth Cloud Engine. (Image from roboearth.org)



The amazing thing here are the completely open-source, multipurpose possibilities.


And that is not all. Home assistance robots are also predicted to get upgrades soon. They will be quicker and cheaper to produce, and because of the open-source architecture, will not require endless revamps and remakes.


Customers will be able to teach their old dogs new tricks.


It now appears to be only a matter of time till the technology expands beyond the medical field.

[American Patriot]

Here's a financial chart to back you up Mal!


Chart of the Day: Long robots, short humans?

Published: Friday, 17 Jan 2014 | 7:00 AM ET



Man or machine?


As the use of industrial robots rises, human manufacturing jobs will continue to decline, strategists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch wrote in a report this week.


Play Video


Will robots in the workplace replace your job?



The second machine age is all about automating cognitive work, explains Erik Brynjolfsson, MIT professor, discussing how the dawn of the new technological revolution is transforming the world we live in. We are already seeing it in the employment data, Brynjolfsson points out.



Earlier this week President Obama unveiled an initiative to help spur manufacturing job growth. But factory employment remains well below pre-recession levels, and technology may not help matters any.


(Read more: Boosting factory jobs, but millions left behind)




Source: Bank of America Merrill Lynch

[American Patriot]

Bit more about the chart.

Robots Vs. Humans In One Chart

Joe Weisenthal

Jan. 16, 2014, 5:47 AM

Here's a fun chart from BofA/ML (via @Fgoria)
BofA/ML


The chart is a bit unfair, since it's comparing global robots to US manufacturing jobs. Just looking at the number of robots in the US would be better.


But even stripping out the comparison, the rise of the installed base of global robots is worth watching, especially as the next few years are expected to see major growth.

[Malsua]

I'm not entirely sold on the robots. Cyborgs, yes, robots, not so much.

[American Patriot]

I'm not really sold on either, but I think you have a point.

When artificial intelligence has become "self aware" and it can pull from all the knowledge of the human race - there is little to stop it eventually.

I think it will take a few generations but I don't think, once it is started down that path we'll have much choice.

The other day when I said "Your robots won't win" I think in another thread I really was being a bit sarcastic because I think you're probably right. Its like the Yellowstone thing.

It can and WILL happen. Perhaps not in our life time. But it's going to happen.

And the cyborgs are coming as well.

Robots are merely the first of several steps to get us there....