Robotic Nation Evidence

The article describes a hat that detects brain signals from scalp sensors (rather than implanted electrodes). Those signals are then used to control devices:

Thinking hat for directing movements in robot

From the article: "The technology detects brain waves by using electrodes placed at strategic points on the scalp. They are positioned over brain areas, known to be involved in moving specific body parts. The computer can then distinguish between signals corresponding to different types of movement.

Previously, accurate detection of local brain activity has required electrodes to be implanted in the brain. This technique has allowed recipients to control robots and even send e-mails."

Robotic patients help train doctors: "Faced with a growing number of medical students and few training hospitals, a Mexican university is turning to robotic patients to better train future doctors. Mexico City's UNAM University has opened the world's largest 'robotic hospital' -- where medical students practice on everything from delivering a baby from a robotic dummy to injecting the arm of a plastic toddler."

Presenting American Robot Servants: "GeckoSystems, Inc., a leading developer of mobile service robots (MSRs), has announced completion of a revolutionary servant class personal robot designed for eldercare, childcare, and home security. This news isn't coming from Japan or Korea. GeckoSystems is based in Conyers, Georgia."

There are 2 really nice graphics in this article explaining the equipment.

Robot car takes the high-tech road: "In a warehouse in Irvine, a team of volunteer computer experts has been hard at work for more than a year building a robotic car for a Department of Defense-sponsored competition that could win the team a purse of $2 million. "

'The time of robotics has arrived'

From the article:

Rumbling along a dusty road in the Iraq desert, two dozen trucks are loaded with food and water for soldiers stationed in a remote town.

An explosion erupts from a bomb hidden on the road and disintegrates the first truck. The convoy pauses for a few seconds, then calmly drives around the wreckage to complete the mission.

No chaos erupts, because nobody has been hurt or killed. The convoy is all unmanned ground vehicles.

ROBOT DISCOVERS GOLD ON CHILE’S ROBINSON CRUSOE ISLAND: "The team used new robot technology that is able to scan the atomic composition of materials such as water, metals and petroleum buried up to 50 meters underground. Because the robot uses sonar to scan the ground, no digging has actually been done yet, but if the team is right, the discovery would be the largest buried treasure ever found anywhere."

The whole situation with Kate Moss last week makes you wonder how long human models will last:

Fallen woman: Shaming of a supermodel

From the article:

This story is not just about Kate Moss and drugs, it's about an industry that doesn't want that publicity at any cost.'

Especially for static magazine photographs, it would seem like we are rapidly approaching the point where we can use synthetic models instead of human models. And there is a very good chance that humans would find the synthetic models more attractive. See, for example:

Virtual attractiveness

The article states: "Taking everything together it can be said that the most attractive face does not exist in reality - they are computed according to certain principles by machines. Having these results in mind it is also not surprising that a model agency from Munich chose 88% artificial faces (14 out of 16 selected faces) for potentially being interesting as a model for the category “beauty”."

Not only will the robots be smarter/stronger/faster, but the robots will be far more attractive than humans as well.

Dvorak Uncensored - Gambling With High Tech

From the article:

"I went to G2E this week and one of the oddest things I saw was - aside from the plastic surgery pseudo youthfulized, artifically tan faces of two members of Kiss having their pictures taken in one booth with a conveyor belt of people - was a completely computerized blackjack table. No cards. Touch screens imbedded in the felt in front of each player showing your cards. Large plasma screen behind the semicircle with a curvey, cgi dealer. Your bets and wins are recorded on a credit card-like player's card. No dealer to chat with. Or to cheat the house. Or tip. Or be paid. There were also similar roulette wheels except without the dealer. Place your bet and the wheel spins."

Another job category goes to the robots... See also Robots taking jobs.

Brit programmer wins chat-bot prize

From the article:

A British artificial intelligence expert has won the Loebner Prize, held each year to determine which computer chat program is capable of responses most like that of a human being...

The program has learned its conversation skills from over 2.5 million interactions with human visitors to the Jabberwacky website.

This one is a little intimidating. A couple of "normal guys" have built a robotic gun and camera system intended to target and kill people. Lots of photos of the construction process.

Sentry Gun: "The idea of this project was to create a fully-automated sentry gun, capable of picking out a human target and accurately tracking and shooting him or her in the heart. Really, the idea was to find a cool robotics project for the summer while I was working at an advertising agency, and I'd only ever seen sentry guns in movies (like Congo) and video games (Half-Life 1, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress Classic)."

Low-power chips to get more focus at Intel: "Intel plans to announce today that it has created a new manufacturing process for making semiconductor chips that run on low power, a major departure from its long-term focus on making ever-faster chips.

The world's largest chip maker has created a process to reduce power consumption for some of its chips up to 1,000 times. Such low-power chips are more suitable for smaller, portable electronics such as handheld computers and cell phones."

S. Korea says will develop combat robots: "South Korea announced it was developing highly sophisticated combat robots that could complement the roles of human soldiers on battlefields. "

Bot Builders Scramble for Cash: "Bekey said that robotics research funding has been dropping in the United States for at least the last decade, with NSF's funding now at less than $10 million per year.

In contrast, he said Japan's government will spend nearly $100 million in 2005. And over the next three years, Europe plans to spend nearly $100 million on a new program called Advanced Robotics. South Korea, meanwhile, spends $80 million on robotics research annually. "

Robotic vehicles set for desert adventure

From the article:

Forty-three robotic vehicles will compete head-to-head in the semifinal round of this year's competition, which is scheduled for the California Speedway in Fontana in late September and early October. Only 20 vehicles will earn a spot on the starting line for the October 8 final.

The vehicles are supposed to be built to manoeuvre without human help through a series of man-made obstacle courses. They must rely on global positioning satellites and various sensors, lasers, radar and cameras to detect and avoid barriers.

The race is part of the Pentagon's efforts to have one-third of all military ground vehicles unmanned by 2015.

Today approximately zero of the ground vehicles are unmanned. In 10 years, one-third of them will be unmanned. Presumably by 2025, almost all ground vehicles will be unmanned. That is the kind of pace we will see for robotic deployment throughout the economy. It will be rapid.

NASA launches contest in search for dirt-digging moon robot

From the article:

Here's your big chance to play with a shovel in the sandbox -- and win a $250,000 U.S. prize.

As 200 scientists gathered to launch the weeklong International Lunar Conference in Toronto yesterday, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced a contest to develop a robot that can dig lunar dirt.

'They bring in their rovers and each get 30 minutes in the sandbox,' NASA spokesman Brant Sponberg explained. 'The machine that autonomously excavates and delivers the most lunar soil simulant to a collection point in 30 minutes wins the purse.'

When I speak publicly about robots, one question that I get asked all the time is, "What makes you think that people would fly on airplanes or trains where the is no human in the cockpit?" I think people will actually be happy to get into robotic airplanes because they will be safer. Here is an example.

NTSB: Derailed train was going too fast: "A commuter train was going almost 60 mph faster than the speed limit just before it derailed, killing two people and injuring dozens, the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday.

Mark Rosenker said the Metra train was traveling at 69 mph and should not have been going faster than 10 mph when it switched tracks at a crossover just before jumping the tracks Saturday.

'Sixty-nine miles an hour is very, very fast when you're dealing with a 10-mile-an-hour restriction,' Rosenker said.

The speed information came from a preliminary reading of one of the train's three electronic data recorders, popularly known as 'black boxes,' Rosenker said.
Part of the investigation included an interview Sunday with the train's engineer. The 41-year-old man had been on the job for 45 days after completing Metra's six-month training program, which included at least some training along the route where the derailment occurred. He also had worked for more than five years as a CSX Corp. freight train engineer."

Realtors are being replaced by robots. In this case, the robots take the form of software and databases on the Internet. This article discusses the trend:

The 6 Percent Solution: Skip Real Estate Agents

From the article:

Homeowners across the United States are figuring out that they do not need to pay what agents demand and they may not need an agent at all. At the same time, technology is giving consumers tools to nearly circumvent the agent. If enough people try it, agents are at risk of losing a good portion of their commissions - $100 billion last year.

$100 billion is a huge number. With approximately 100 million households in America, it means that every household paid about $1,000 to realtors last year. (!) As we eliminate realtors, each household will save $1,000 per year on average. And that is very good.

The question is this. There are about 1 million realtors in the U.S. Not all of them are "active", but let's say half are. If we eliminate 500,000 good, high-paying jobs, what are those people going to end up doing? See Robots taking jobs and Robotic Nation.

Robot weeds fields: "Weeding is a major problem for ecological growers since it is both expensive and time-consuming... In ecological cultivation, weeding is performed manually... For an ecological grower of beets, weeding can cost about SEK 10,000 per hectare. With robot technology we estimate that these costs can be cut in half. In the long term this technology would also mean major environmental benefits by ultimately replacing chemical herbicides in traditional cultivation."

Eliminating chemical herbicides would be a major benefit.

Robot lifeguard wins 15th International BraunPrize: "The BraunPrize for 2005 has been awarded to Jens Andersson from Sweden for his design "Rescue Buoy" - a swimming robot in the form of a lifebuoy. "

Nice photo with the article.

A fascinating article that predicts that AI software can do quite a bit of the work done by lawyers today:

Robo-justice - The Boston Globe

From the article:

"We're just at the beginning of something that's going to disrupt the comfortable legal profession," he says. He points to online companies like Legal Zoom that offer basic interactive contracts for everything from patent filings to prenuptial agreements. They're the precursor, he says, for a whole new sort of lawyerless law firms, ''organizations out there saying, 'Hey, you don't need a lawyer, come to us and we'll take care of it."' As legal software gets more sophisticated, he believes, it will eat more and more into the work of lawyers.

Of course it is quite easy to imagine AI software taking over the entire judicial system eventually and doing a better job than humans because the software would be unemotional.

There are about 700,000 lawyers in the U.S., and like doctors and pilots they are highly paid. There is a lot of economic pressure to eliminate them. If software can take over half of these jobs, it would save the economy billions of dollars. See also Robots taking jobs.

Robot revolution ramps up

Fascinating article on the state of the art in industrial robots. For example:

"Before the robots' installation, workers had manually sorted and picked the pretzels, inserted salt packets and coupons and packaged the product. Now the number of people needed per shift has been almost halved."

The soft pretzels leave the freezer on a continuous conveyor, where brushes ensure they travel in a single layer. A second, faster belt ensures an even spread, after which they are rolled beneath a high speed camera. The image is sent to a computer where the PickMaster software scans for pretzel quality and position on the belt and, in "fractions of a second", gives the robots detailed instructions about handling each pretzel.

The robot's gripper fingers pick and sort the randomly located pretzels as they come down the belt. The IRB 340 can pick up and toss out defective pretzels or place them in a consistent orientation on the parallel, lugged conveyor. Together, J&J's two vision cells and five robots can pick and place 250 pretzels/min.

Humanoid robot for risky work unveiled : "The HRP-3P robot demonstrated its functions at Kawada's plant in the town of Haga in Tochigi Prefecture, walking on an icy surface as well as walking under simulated heavy rainfall. The battery-powered robot, which is 160 centimeters tall and weighs 65 kilograms, carries out remote-controlled and preprogrammed work."

New Solar Underwater Robot Technology

Truly Robotic Killer Droid Finds and Destroys Targets

From the article:

On August 10th, two American X-45A UCAVs (Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles) were sent out into a test range that had a 'hostile' anti-aircraft system on it. The X-45As successfully detected the potential attack, took evasive action, then planned and carried out their own attack, destroying the enemy anti-aircraft system. While a human pilot on the ground monitored all of this, and could have interrupted the operation at any time, the X-45As were allowed to operate on their own. This included talking off, returning and landing.

Flight control software has been a mature technology for over a decade. It just keeps getting better (more reliable, flexible and cheaper). Adding combat oriented AI (artificial intelligence) is obviously not a problem, although combat AI is a less mature area. But the main purpose of the X-45A is to test and perfect the flight control and combat AI systems for the larger, X-45C UCAV, which will enter service with the U.S. Navy and Air Force in five years or so.

Let's call this the official beginning of the end of human pilots in the cockpit.

Machines Better Programmers than Humans

From the article:

It sounds like a plot for a science fiction movie, but it's not. Computers now create programs that solve complex problems better than programs designed by people. University of Texas at Austin researchers Uli Grasemann and Risto Miikkulainen, for example, recently reported that a computer-generated algorithm can digitally improve images of fingerprints better than the FBI's human-designed program currently can.

Consider the very interesting point you reach where you can say, "Robot programmer, I would like you to write a program that is better at writing programs". See also:

• Robots programming computers
• Robotic Nation coming true before our very eyes...
  
• The flat economy

BritainSaved by a computer lifeguard: "A young girl has been saved from drowning by an extraordinary computer system that keeps an eye on everybody in a swimming pool.

The girl was pulled unconscious from 12ft of water at the deep end of a public pool in Bangor, North Wales, when underwater cameras spotted that she was not moving and alerted a lifeguard. The lifeguard could not see the girl in the crowded pool but was able to respond to the alert within seconds.

It is the first time in Britain that the Poseidon surveillance system, manufactured by a French company, has helped lifeguards to save a swimmer from drowning. The campaign group Swimsafekids said last night that the rescue proved that the system could save many more lives if they were installed compulsorily."

This brings up a question that has been asked repeatedly here. What jobs will be left for humans to do in 20 or 30 years? See Robots taking jobs for details.

Toyota Computer Makes You Watch the Road

From the article:

Japanese automaker Toyota has developed a safety technology that it says will keep the driver's eyes on the road.

An image-processing computer system developed by Toyota Motor Corp. (TM) and a Toyota affiliate uses a camera near the steering wheel to detect when the driver stops looking straight ahead.

If you are going to that much trouble, you might as well have the robot drive the car.

Humanoid robot can recognize 10,000 words: "A 3-foot-tall humanoid robot that can recognize about 10,000 words and work as a house sitter will go on sale in Japan in September, its manufacturer said Monday.

The 'Wakamaru' robot can recognize the faces of up to 10 people and talk to them. When linked to cell phones, it can also monitor situations at home, such as a burglary or someone falling ill, according to Mitsubishi-Heavy Industries Ltd.

It said it would be the first time a robot with communication ability for home use has been sold. "

Robotic space penguin to hop across the Moon: "The first lunar colonists may not be a humans but compact robots capable of jumping more than a kilometre in a single bound.

Engineers at US defence contractor Raytheon, in Massachusetts, have developed a robot, dubbed the Lunar Penguin, that could one day bounce across perilous craters and imposing mountains on the Moon's craggy surface using a set of compact rocket boosters."

On the Internet, Nobody Knows You're a Bot: "CptPokr is a robot. Unlike the other icons at the table, there is no human placing his bets and playing his cards. He is controlled by WinHoldEm, the first commercially available autoplaying poker software. Seat him at the table and he will apply strategy gleaned from decades of research. While carbon-based players munch Ding Dongs, yawn, guzzle beer, reply to email, take phone calls, and chat on IM, CptPokr (a pseudonym) is running the numbers so it will know, statistically, when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em.

Smart, skilled players are rewarded in the long run, especially online, where there are plenty of beginners who would never have the nerve to sit down at a real table. But WinHoldEm isn't just smart, it's a machine. Set it to run on autopilot and it wins real money while you sleep. Flick on Team mode and you can collude with other humans running WinHoldEm at the table."

Nintendogs Teach Us New Tricks: "Me, I think the appeal is much subtler -- and weirder. If we love Nintendogs, it's not merely because they're so adorable. It's that they're so needy.

The puppies are -- like many virtual life forms, from Tamigotchis to The Sims -- a rather helpless breed. You have to carefully monitor their hunger and thirst; when you're out for a walk, you have to shoo them away from street garbage so they won't eat it. Leave your puppy unattended for long enough and it'll become so filthy and distressed that it'll run away.

As it turns out, we're suckers for babysitting. Sherry Turkle -- the digital-age pundit and author of Life on the Screen -- has been researching the relationship between robots and people. She's discovered that the most popular robots are, unexpectedly, the ones that demand we take care of them. They trigger our nurturing impulses, the same ones we deploy toward infants, the elderly or any other vulnerable creature."

Case Study: 99 Cents Only Stores' Efficient IT Infrastructure

From the article:

Avis Walton is used to being told where to go and what to do once he gets there. As a "picker" for 99 Cents Only Stores, Walton spends his 5 a.m.-to-3:30 p.m. shift cruising around a 750,000-square-foot distribution center in Katy, Texas, in an electric cart responding to a stream of spoken instructions. "Go to row 12, section 8, bin 31," an authoritative woman's voice in his ear commands, and Walton zips to row 12. Blip-blip. He scans the bin tag with a wireless handheld computer to confirm he's arrived at the right place. "Pick two cases plus four items," the voice continues. Beginning to break a sweat, 24-year-old Walton lifts two cases of vinyl tablecloths onto a pallet, rips open a third box and removes four more tablecloths. "Confirm pick," he says into his microphone, thus prompting the voice to send him zipping off on another assignment. Doesn't her bossiness get annoying? "Nah, she's cool," Walton says. "She tells me what to do and I tell her when I do it."

Perhaps if this voice were that of a human, Walton might take offense. But the "she" that he and his 15 fellow pickers interact with throughout their shifts is actually the computer-generated voice of the distribution center's warehouse-management software. Like a digital flight controller, the as-yet-unnamed voice sends squads of pickers scurrying to gather the items needed by individual stores, all the while quietly calculating the most efficient routes that will also prevent them crashing into one another.

This is straight out of the book Manna, so perhaps that would be a good name for the "as-yet-unnamed voice".