Robotic Nation Evidence

Robotic Air traffic Control

Computer system 'can land aircraft without air traffic controllers'

From the article:

"British Aerospace scientists have developed a revolutionary airborne computer system that they claim can land aircraft safely without human air traffic controllers. It will enable a pilot to determine an aircraft's landing path simply by pressing a button in the cockpit.

The new technology has been developed by BAE Systems, the British defence and aerospace company, and aims to eliminate human error, save on fuel and increase flight safety. If successful, it will also threaten the jobs of 40,000 air traffic controllers worldwide.

As mentioned in Robots in 2015, pilots and air traffic controllers are likely to be some of the first casualties in the robotic revolution.

Robots that Evolve

The Golem Project

From the site:

To this date, robots - a form of artificial life - are still designed laboriously and constructed by teams of human engineers at great cost. Few robots are available because these costs must be absorbed through mass production that is justified only for toys, weapons, and industrial systems like automatic teller machines.

In the Golem project (Genetically Organized Lifelike Electro Mechanics) we conducted a set of experiments in which simple electro-mechanical systems evolved from scratch to yield physical locomoting machines. Like biological lifeforms whose structure and function exploit the behaviors afforded by their own chemical and mechanical medium, our evolved creatures take advantage of the nature of their own medium - thermoplastic, motors, and artificial neurons. We thus achieve autonomy of design and construction using evolution in a limited universe physical simulation, coupled to off-the-shelf rapid manufacturing technology. This is the first time robots have been robotically designed and robotically fabricated.

"This is the first time robots have been robotically designed and robotically fabricated." You have to start somewhere.

Robots Thinking Like Humans

Sandia team develops cognitive machines

From the article:

• The initial goal of the work was to create a “synthetic human” — software program/computer — that could think like a person. “We had the massive computers that could compute the large amounts of data, but software that could realistically model how people think and make decisions was missing,” Forsythe says.
  
• The robotics researchers immediately saw that the model could be used for intelligent machines, and the whole program emphasis changed. Suddenly the team was working on cognitive machines, not just synthetic humans.
  
• “It’s entirely possible that these cognitive machines could be incorporated into most computer systems produced within 10 years,” Forsythe says.

It does not sound like synthetic human intelligence is very far away...

Robots on the Battlefield

Robotics to play major role in future warfighting

From the article:

A study by USJFCOM's Project Alpha is currently testing the viability of what used to be a fanciful notion but is now bordering on reality -- robotic warfare. By as early as 2005, autonomous robots on the battlefield might not be just a notion, but a norm... Project Alpha, a U.S. Joint Forces Command rapid idea analysis group, is in the midst of a study focusing on the concept of developing and employing robots that would be capable of replacing humans to perform many, if not most combat functions on the battlefield.

The study, appropriately titled, "Unmanned Effects: Taking the Human out of the Loop," suggests that by as early as 2025, the presence of autonomous robots, networked and integrated, on the battlefield might not be the exception, but, in fact, the norm.

According to this article, "The Army has 482,000 active-duty soldiers. With Guard and Reserve forces, there are 1.2 million soldiers in the total Army." It will be great to take take all 1.2 million of them off the battlefield and out of harm's way. But by 2025 they will also all be unemployed.

With robots on the battlefield, there is not really any limit to the size of the army or the army's destructive force. One year you buy half a million robots, the next year you buy another half million, and so on. Nations with robotic armies will have a startling amount of power.

Robots as Human Actors

Virtual Humans

From the article:

After millions of years of natural selection, humans beings have some serious competition for their lofty perch on the evolutionary ladder--and the challenger has only been evolving for less than a decade. Some computer artists contend that anything we can do, "virtual humans" can do better, and they're poised to revolutionize moviemaking with a new species that doesn't require an astronomical salary, works around the clock without complaint, and lives quietly on a hard drive between death-defying stunts. A generation of computer-generated (CG) characters, called "synthespians" or "vactors," are attracting notice in Hollywood. Some insiders envision a future when digital stars compete for roles with the flesh-and-blood variety. While a photoreal digital actor has yet to carry a major motion picture, synthespians have captured supporting roles for some time now, whenever the going gets too tough or too expensive.

See also: When real actors begin to look unreal

Robots Acting Human

Robot Challenge: Putting Artificial Intelligence to Work

From the article:

Reid Simmons says the purpose of the robot challenge is to produce social robots that can interact with people. He predicts robots will play a greater role in tomorrow's workplace, performing such common tasks as office cleaning or home health-care assistance. "The goal is the interaction should be as smooth as with people. Our motto is that we want robots to behave like people so people do not have to behave like robots," he says.

The robot described in this article is able to show up at a normal trade show, register for the show, get to a specific room and deliver a lecture. It's a little slow right now, but it is only 2003. Imagine what a robot like this will be able to do in 2020, when CPUs are 1,000 times faster.

Robots in Medicine

Dr. Robot Tested at Hopkins

From the article:

Vaguely resembling a human torso, in a Star Wars R2D2 sort of way, the robot sports a computer screen for a head, a video camera for eyes and a speaker for a mouth. It walks, in a manner of speaking, on three balls, talks, and most importantly, listens. "That's because the robot is directly linked to a real doctor who uses the robot as it ears, mouth and eyes," says Louis Kavoussi, M.D., Hopkins professor of urology and a pioneer in robotic surgery. "And patients love it. I was very surprised how much our patients enjoy remote video interactions via the robot.

Bigger and Faster

Nanolitho effort harnesses self-assembly

From the article:

Nanoscale patterning of silicon substrates with regular, repeatable, atomically perfect application- specific templates could enable manufacturable nanoscale chips within the decade, according to scientists at the University of Wisconsin's Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (Madison)... "In storage alone, our work could someday result in a computer with 4,000 Gbytes of memory," said Wisconsin-MRSEC director Juan de Pablo.

4 Terabytes of memory by 2020 is not an unreasonable expectation.

PlayStation 3 Chip Nears Completion

From the article:

Collaborating engineers from IBM, Sony, and Toshiba have wrapped up the design for the inner workings of a mysterious new chip called "Cell." The new multimedia processor, touted as a "supercomputer on a chip," is well on its way to completion, IBM says... While the processor's design is still under wraps, the companies say Cell's capabilities will allow it to deliver 1 trillion calculations per second (teraflop) or more of floating-point calculations. It will have the ability to do north of 1 trillion mathematical calculations per second, roughly 100 times more than a single Pentium 4 chip running at 2.5GHz.

Production of the "Cell" chip is expected to begin in 2004. If we have 1 Teraflop processors in 2004, we will have 100 Teraflops or more in 2020, and human-equivilent Petaflop processors by 2030.

Hard-disk drive industry braces for technology changes

From the article:

As opposed to longitudinal recording, where the bits are impressed in a parallel format along the surface of a disc, perpendicular recording stands the bits on end, enabling more data storage per square inch. Perpendicular recording will be required at the point when products reach capacities of about 100- to 200Gbits per sq. in., compared to approximately 50Gbits today, industry observers said. "Once we master perpendicular recording, it will be the foundation for the industry up to the point of approaching 1Tbit per sq. in.," said Seagate's Gentry.

Prototypes using perpendicular recording have been produced. Manufacturers are working right now to improve reliability. The article indicates, "The HDD industry had been increasing recording density at a rate of 100% per year, but because of the increasing difficulty in longitudinal recording, we now have an outlook of more like 60%." At a 60% per year improvement rate, we will be buying 300 Terabyte drives for $300 in 2020. If perpendicular recording (and subsequent technologies) pushes improvement rates back up to 100% per year, we will be buying 10 Petabyte drives in 2020.

See also: Using holograms to store data in memories that are both fast and vast

Humanoid Robots

'Personal robots' get ready to walk on the human side

From the article:

Honda, on the other hand, is seeking to build "general purpose robots, that can act as companions to humans. That is the vision we have," said Masato Hirose, senior chief engineer, who leads Honda's robot research projects. To live a "human" life, a human-shaped robot has merits because "it can go every place where a human goes. It can use the same tools that humans can use," said Hirose.

Robots in Fast Food Restaurants

McDonald's tests high-tech grill

From the article:

High-tech jobs may be moving overseas but one low-tech job Americans could always fall back on was flipping burgers at McDonald’s. THAT COULD CHANGE in the not-too-distant future. Later this year, a Chicago-area McDonald’s restaurant will fry up hamburgers with an automated grill that dispenses patties directly onto the griddle from a separate freezer compartment, reducing labor and promising fresher sandwiches.

A typical McDonald's restaurant has about 50 employees. If the kiosks eliminate 2 employees and the automated grills eliminate 2 employees, that's about 40,000 jobs lost in the U.S.

Robotic Pharmacists

Refills at Robo-pharmacy

From the article:

Imagine going to a pharmacy, turning in a prescription and walking out with medication in less than 15 minutes. It's possible at Doctors Park Pharmacy on Memorial Drive because of a robotic prescription dispensing system that does the work of three pharmacy technicians and reduces errors.

Robotic Help in Surgery

Robots Help Doctors Better Install Heart Pacemakers

From the article:

That's where this amazing robotic contraption called the DaVinci comes to the rescue. This million-dollar robot that helps doctors easily attach the hard to place electrode in exactly the right spot on the left ventricle, without opening the chest.

Robotic Surveilliance

Linux-Powered Robot Swarm Descends On LinuxWorld

From the article:

SRI's Centibots demonstration at LinuxWorld will be a cut-down demonstration of the real thing—up to 100 robots, working together to map a series of rooms and search out designated objects using Linux and Sun's Jini technology.

See also: Robot 'guard dog' protects Wi-Fi setups

Robots Driving Cars

Pentagon offers Vegas jackpot in robot race

From the article:

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research arm for futuristic projects, is taking applications through Oct. 14 for competitors entering newfangled vehicles to race about 270 miles from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. The catch is the vehicles cannot have drivers, animals, or be operated remotely in the long dash into the Mojave Desert, which is scheduled to begin at sunrise March 13 in the Los Angeles area. The robot vehicles will have to be on their own, although aided by sensors, special global positioning devices or other navigation systems to make the trek.

Robots will be driving cars and trucks on the road sooner than we can imagine...