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Our Robot Overlords Brought Beer!

December 22, 2010 by

We are not taking over the world. Trust us and just keep drinking.
We are not taking over the world. Trust us and just keep drinking.

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!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

One Step Closer to Having Robot Overlords

November 18, 2010 by

Your brain may not need you.
Humans not required.
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

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Caveant scriptores!

April 22, 2022 by Bill McCormick

First and foremost, now seems to be a good time to point out that the Big Wakeup Call has a new internet home. No longer satisfied with being the king of Aurora radio, it has moved on to be an international podcast. This makes it easier for our global fans to listen in as well as for curious newcomers to get sucked into Ryan’s wonderful web of wackiness. For today’s madcap episode, feel free to listen first and then come back, we decided to take a look at the progress artificial intelligence (AI) has made in the world of literature. Back in 2017 a programmer named Zak Thoutt programmed an AI (that’s what programmers do) to write Game of Thrones. This is why programmers never get invited to parties. Well, that, and no one really cares about how to manipulate Boolean strings. Not even the pretty girl who forgot her bra and desperately needs a drink can be coerced into caring.
[Read more…] about Caveant scriptores!

Filed Under: News Tagged With: AI, artificial intelligence, big wakeup call, game of thrones, literature, robot, robot overlords, writing

From Here to Eternity

November 21, 2019 by Bill McCormick

It just keeps on going on.

There are numerous long lived people in the Bible. There are others enumerated in the pantheon of religions that preceded the books of the children of Abraham. Eastern religions have their own immortals. In all cases immortality is the gift of the sacred. Even the evil possessors of this gift are considered above mere mortals. But that may be changing. Last year I noted that scientists had discovered how to work with the gene that causes aging, possibly even stopping it completely. There has been a spate of other developments as well. All the way back in the good old days of 2016 I wrote about how scientists were overcoming the limitations that prevented humans uploading their minds into cybernetic beings. [Read more…] about From Here to Eternity

Filed Under: News Tagged With: cybernetic, eternal, immortal, medicine, orbiter, overlords, slaves

The Joys of Extinction

August 9, 2019 by Bill McCormick

Goat is a delicacy all over the world.

Back on January 10, 2013, I wrote a whimsical missive about how Floridians may be the stupidest, and most dangerous, morons on Earth. Not much has changed since then. Back then they authorized regular citizens to wander the Everglades and hunt pythons with handguns. For those who don’t party with giant constrictors, pythons can get to twenty feet long, a couple hundred pounds, and can kill and eat a four or five year old child without effort. Hunting them with handguns is akin to hunting rogue elephants with a slingshot. It can be done, but your aim better be amazing since you won’t get a second shot. Long time fan of the Friday edition of The Big Wake Up Call, the weekly radio companion to this blog, Roger (last name withheld by request) over at Smithsonian Magazine, sent me THIS LINK to update me on how well things have gone since then. [Read more…] about The Joys of Extinction

Filed Under: News Tagged With: cockroaches, extinction, Florida, guns, python

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