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How To Survive a Robot Uprising
There’s an utterly fantastic article on New Scientist called The robots are coming! Actually, it seems to be an excerpt from Carnegie Mellon robotics professor Daniel Wilson’s book: How To Survive a Robot Uprising : Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion. If the book is anywhere near as good as the excerpt, then hot damn!
The excerpt features sections on escaping a humanoid robot, beating a thermal sensor, deactiving a servant robot turned rebel, and spotting a robot mimicking a human. Reading these is kind of a creepy experience. Cause on the one hand you’re like, “Oh, this is so silly!” But on the other, in 5 or 10 years time, this all may seem deadly serious as we try to outwit the robotic arms of the police state. Guess we’ll have to wait and see.
And while we’re on the topic, also check out this article about a recently developed self-aware robot. One way or another, we’re in for some big changes in the coming years.
December 26th, 2005 at 8:07 pm
Santa brought me a robopet this Christmas. Let me just say for as rudimentary its little AI is, he provides a wealth of near future extrapolation. My family and I became convinced that in 5 to 10 Christmas’ time the robots we have will be opening presents right along with the rest of us. These little guys are only a taste of what is coming.
Interestingly, my cat is far less interested in it than any of the humans who have met it. I suppose this is because the novelty of such an automated little being is probably 90% anthropocentrism on our part. Nevertheless, the night I started him up I decided to take him outside to see how he got around on the pavement. I walked a good disance away and observed the robopet from afar. All I can say it was a poignant sensation to see and think about. I could vividly imagine cruising along somewhere, like in a forest or something and coming upon a bunch of tiny robots doing their thing. Half chilling and half exciting.
December 26th, 2005 at 8:39 pm
any technology far enough advanced will be indistinguishable from magic……..or something long those lines. arthur c. clarke?
are we not indistinguishable from magic ourselves in that our neural functions are so fast that they are inscrutable?
i am reminded in my work of the similarities between a.i. functioning and the source code functions of human behaviour. my teachers remind me of the if/then operations of the human mind that are indistinguishable from the logic functions of computers. the only difference being the processing speed of our brain. as a.i. gets faster, and moore`s law suggests that we are right on schedule, it will emulate human thought within the next few years. ray kurzwiel has some pretty interesting and, i suppose alarming, things to say regarding this “quickening”. are we ready to meet the new boss?
December 26th, 2005 at 8:42 pm
here`s a link to info on ray kurzweil;
http://www.kurzweiltech.com/raybio.html
December 26th, 2005 at 9:13 pm
I take that back about my cat. She’s been following the robopet all around the house since I wrote that, calmly observing its stupidity.
December 27th, 2005 at 2:23 am
The author was interviewed on Changesurfer radio a little bit ago. He seemed a little nervous, but it was enough to convince me that the book would be worth checking out. The show’s archived over here.
December 27th, 2005 at 12:15 pm
heh, jk, i also received a robot for christmas. it’s the robosapien, which i believe is in the same category as the robopet. not only does it move around and pick things up, it also has pre-programmed “karate” moves and can burp and fart. if this is the future of robotity, i’m not too concerned about the uprising . . . .
p.s. it’s all kinds of cool.
December 29th, 2005 at 4:17 am
http://divedi.blogspot.com/2005/11/video-of-day-dancing-robots.html