Search Results for: overlord

I woke up this morning, which – given the alternative – is always a pleasant revelation, and discovered that my cats had pulled all of the power sockets out of the wall in my living room. Why they had done this is beyond my ken, but it did give me pause to note that half my apartment was without power. It isn’t like the electric company shuts you off one room at a time. And certainly not in the middle of the night. Nope, when they come by they shut you off like ripping off a band aid. One second it’s there, the next it’s not and you’re left with a painful stinging sensation. None of this is relevant to today’s post, I just felt like sharing.

Another thing that’s not relevant to today’s blog, but is funny as heck, is the story of a 64 year old Florida woman (where else?) who led police on a merry chase but took time to out to hit the drive-thru at McDonald’s. The fact that she was able to do this and elude police in the drive-thru lane tells you all you need to know about the competency of the police in Florida. They did finally catch her when they combined the forces of several counties.

Reading the above makes me think that maybe humans have become superfluous. Clearly, if she’s an example of the pinnacle of evolution, then maybe a do over is in the works.

Ben Muessig reports that an Australian had a similar idea. Unlike most ideas that die in a bar, he actually went and did something about it. He’s teaching robots to box.

Science fiction writers have long imagined the day when robots will rise up and attack humans. It’s safe to say that none of them pictured it looking anything like this.

An Australian draftsman has constructed a robotic boxing buddy, called Punching Pro, that uses two arms powered by 12-volt windshield-wiper motors to throw blows at its human sparring partners.

“This is an automated sparring apparatus that is heaps of fun; it looks and feels like you’re challenging a real fighter,” Punching Pro inventor Kris Tressider wrote on his website.

Even though the robot is made from parts that include steel and golf cart wheels, Tressider says its arms closely replicate human punching mechanics. That means it offers boxers a great opportunity to practice their combinations — and their bobbing and weaving — without having to face another fighter in the ring.

“You can experiment with offensive strategies, defensive positions and counter punching moves, whilst being physically trained to stay agile and keep your guard,” he wrote. “You get an extreme upper body workout that will improve your technique.”

Tressider got interested in boxing as a means of keeping fit, but he got bored with slugging the punching bag he had hung outside his home, according to Australian TV show “The New Inventors.”

So he decided to build a punching bag that punches back.

The result is a fighting robot that is highly customizable. Depending on a boxer’s height and weight class, fighters can make the android taller or shorter before sparring.

Users can also adjust the Punching Pro’s strength, speed and agility — and with an additional motor they can train the bot to throw different kinds of punches, such as hooks and jabs.

Punching Pro can take a pounding, thanks to its cushioned torso and spring-loaded neck.

“I have made recent modifications to the drive system to make the arms a lot more flexible and able to take a lot more punishment,” Tressider told Gizmag. “The next step is to start working on the software side of things so that it can change modes automatically.”

Tressider is seeking investors interested in helping him transform his robot from a contender into a champ. He hopes to sell the finished product for less than $1,000.

It was bad enough when robots learned how to play air hockey, thus giving them the basic skills required to fly planes, drive cars and so on. Now that they can punch our lights out they’re one step closer to realizing Frank Herbert’s dystopian machine ruled universe.

In other words, what could possibly go wrong?

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG AM 1280, every Thursday morning around 9:10!

As dedicated readers of this blog know (a quick shout out to both of you), The World News Center has correspondents all over the globe. Last night I was online with our affiliate in Montenegro discussing a variety of story options and a couple of cookie recipes. This morning I awoke to messages from our Singapore office wondering when I was going to come in and retrieve my bathing suit that once appeared in Columbia and now seems to be part of the furniture. It also seems there’s a pair of socks there that look suspiciously large. However, as interesting as those topics may be in the hands of skilled pundit such as myself, they pale in comparison to the story uncovered by our Tokyo Gazetteer, Rob Pongi. Just like in all those Sci-Fi movies, with bad actors and horrible special effects, it seems that the human population is declining (being sterilized?!?!?) and children are going to be replaced with robots.

As any fan of the movie A.I. can tell you, that’s not a recipe for success.

Norri Kageki from automaton + botjunkie reports there are those foolish few who think this is a great idea.

Hisashi Ishihara, Yuichiro Yoshikawa, and Prof. Minoru Asada of Osaka University in Japan have developed a new child robot platform called Affetto. Affetto can make realistic facial expressions so that humans can interact with it in a more natural way.

Watch:

Prof. Asada is the leader of the JST ERATO Asada Project and his team has been working on “cognitive developmental robotics,” which aims to understand the development of human intelligence through the use of robots. (Learn more about the research that led to Affetto in this interview with Prof. Asada.)

Affetto is modeled after a one- to two-year-old child and will be used to study the early stages of human social development. There have been earlier attempts to study the interaction between child robots and people and how that relates to social development, but the lack of realistic child appearance and facial expressions has hindered human-robot interaction, with caregivers not attending to the robot in a natural way.

The researchers presented a paper describing the development of Affetto’s head at the 28th Annual Conference of the Robotics Society of Japan last year.

Does anyone but me see the irony in having a professor named after a procedure for treating meat (a/k/a carne asada) in charge of eliminating the meat sacks who currently are the dominant species?

Or maybe our robot overlords are keeping us around just because we’re tasty when marinated and grilled. With a lime on the side.

Whatever the case, I firmly believe that anyone who finds that robo-head cute is clearly deranged.

How disturbing is this story? Well, yesterday, I had written off Robert Broadus as a raving lunatic. Today I’m not so sure. As Alan Boyle of MSNBC reports, Broadus is the leading anti-robosexuality advocate.

In a case of life imitating “Futurama,” Maryland’s gay-marriage debate has somehow morphed into worries about robot-human marriages.

The rant against robosexuals came during Robert Broadus’ testimony against the gay-marriage legislation currently before Maryland legislature. “If you pass this bill, you will set the groundwork, that one day when artificial intelligence is that advanced, we will be considering whether or not people can marry their androids. … If you say that any two people who love each other can get married, then you set that precedent,” said Broadus, who heads Protect Marriage Maryland.

To make his case, Broadus referred to Lieutenant Commander Data’s ability to feel emotion and shed a tear in “Star Trek: Generations,” a science-fiction movie. “You laugh, but it’s true,” Broadus said.

People who have seen the new Battlestar Galactica series know that some of those Cylon robots can be sexy as hell, but they still are bent on only one thing; the total subjugation of humanity!

MU HU HA HA HA!

And, of course, everyone knows that Lt. Cmdr. Data boinked Lt. Tasha Yar long before he got his emotions chip.

So, there’s no need to shed a tear for him.

Anyway, as we totter forward into the impending robo-geddon, we may as well sing along.

What a glorious day here in Hippo-Land (still the most undeveloped amusement park in the world). You have no idea the amount of joy I feel when I wake up and find my two favorite topics – the subjugation of humanity by sentient mechanoids and beer – neatly tied together in one fun article.

“Now you just wait a minute there Mr. Bill,” you cry, “what about sex? We’re pretty sure you like sex.”

Well, sure, I’m getting older, not deader. I still appreciate the fine turn of a woman’s calf, the way her gluteous maximus undulates slowly when empowered by a pair of high heels, the gentle teasing of her curvaceous cleavage as it attempts to break free from ….. HEY! You’re getting me off topic here.

Stop that!

Bad Hippo!

Anyway, as noted in the title of the article our robot overlords, at least the Chinese ones, have brought beer. And maybe some really good dim sum as well. Ken Teh from Associated Press has all the news on this startling development.

Service with a smile also comes with an electronic voice at the Dalu Robot restaurant, where the hotpot meals are not as famous yet as the staff who never lose their patience and never take tips.

The restaurant, which opened this month in Jinan in northern Shandong province, is touted as China’s first robot hotpot eatery where robots resembling Star Wars droids circle the room carrying trays of food in a conveyor belt-like system.

More than a dozen robots operate in the restaurant as entertainers, servers, greeters and receptionists. Each robot has a motion sensor that tells it to stop when someone is in its path so customers can reach for dishes they want.

The service industry in China has not always kept up with the country’s rapid economic growth, and can be quite basic in some restaurants, leading customers in the Dalu restaurant to praise the robots.

“They have a better service attitude than humans,” said Li Xiaomei, 35, who was visiting the restaurant for the first time.

“Humans can be temperamental or impatient, but they don’t feel tired, they just keep working and moving round and round the restaurant all night,” Li said.

Inspired by space exploration, robot technology and global innovation, the restaurant’s owner, Zhang Yongpei, said he hopes his restaurant will show the world China is a serious competitor in developing technology.

“I hope this new concept shows that China is forward-thinking and innovative,” Zhang said.

As customers enter the dimly lit restaurant lined with blinking neon lights to simulate a futuristic environment, a female robot decorated with batting eyelashes greets people with an electronic “welcome.”

During the meal, crowds of up to 100 customers, are entertained by a dancing and talking robot that looks more like a mannequin with a dress, flapping its arms around in a stiff motion.

Zhang said he hopes to roll out 30 robots — which cost $6,000 each — in the coming months and eventually develop robots with human-like qualities that serve customers at their table and can walk up and down the stairs.

There’s no word on whether you can order without MSG. Since it’s a pleasure and taste enhancer, I would guess not.

After all, our robot overlords want you sluggish and happy when the final assault comes.

Nevertheless, despite the dire warnings from Isaac Asimov, none of these robots are being constructed with the 3 laws.

“What three laws,” you ask?

These;

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Even more insidious are the customer reactions noted above. Pleased that the robots are personable, within their programming, and able to work ceaselessly, they seem happy to be served by their new electronic slave laborers. I wonder how they’ll feel when they face the robotic Ragnarok?

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Oh, and before I forget, Happy Holidays!

Frank Herbert envisioned a future wherein mankind was overthrown by the machines he’d created and was only able to regain his freedom after all humans on Earth had been killed and the galactic remnants engaged in, what he called, The Butlerian Jihad. James Cameron envisioned a future where time travelling robot assassins came to the present to destroy any hopes for mankind’s salvation.

All the way back to Karel Čapek’s dystopian vision of the future, R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which was released in 1921, humans have cast a wary eye in the direction of mechanical beings. One might successfully argue that the even more ancient Jewish myths of the Golem and the fiction of Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein serve as historical reminders of what can happen when man attempts to play God.

And yet man marches merrily forward in continued attempts to do just that. From I.B.M.’s Deep Blue computer (which beat a Grand Master in chess) forward, man continues to tread in the Fields of the Lord. And they are not the Elysian Fields of yore.

Contrariwise, robots are now treading in the domain of man and besting him at his own, time honored, games. Never has the clarion call of impending doom been sounded more clearly than when David Moye of AOL News announced that robots now routinely best people at air hockey.

A Japanese scientist has made the next big innovation in robot air hockey by putting the paddle to the metal.

Kunikatsu Takase, a professor at the Japanese University of Electronic Communication, has just created a robot that can play air hockey against humans and win its games 70 percent of the time.

According to Dailymotion, the key is an artificial eye that is mounted in the ceiling and analyzes the direction of the puck as it moves across the field of vision.

“Speed is important,” Takase said. “The robot cannot be too strong. The difficultly of development was in making the robot so it can amuse people.”

Robot air hockey players have been around since 2006, but previous models were more vertical, presumably so humans could have more of a connection with them.

No word on when Takase’s air hockey robot will show up at your local Dave & Buster’s, but if he builds on the advancements made in this field by others such as the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, the robot will either play humans on its own or be controlled by others via a handheld device such as an Xbox 360 controller.

Building a robot that can play air hockey may seem like child’s play to some, but not to robotics experts such as Carnegie Mellon professor Manuela Veloso, president-elect of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence and also leads the school’s robot soccer team.

“Games like air hockey and soccer are an excuse to study the problem of getting robots to act autonomously,” she told AOL News. “That requires three steps: perception — how the robot assesses the puck; decision-making — what the robot should do in a limited time; and actuate — sending the control to the motors.”

Ominously enough, those same three skills are what are required to fire a gun, fly a plane, drive a car or, eventually, take over the world.

Sure, there are those who will argue that all robots can be programmed with a version of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, but even Asimov had his doubts about how well that would work. His I-Robot series showed what could happen when mankind attempted to work around them. And, like any child with a new toy and a prohibition against playing with it in certain ways, we all know that mankind will do exactly that.

In the meantime, if you wish to be useful to our Robot Overlords, you can always learn to speak binary.

01110000 01101100 01100101 01100001 01110011 01100101 00100000 01100110 01101111 01110010 01100111 01101001 01110110 01100101 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01110000 01100101 01100011 01101001 01100101 01110011