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Once Again, Without Emotion:

jason — Tue, 19 May 2009 18:14:19 +0000

Contributing colleague David U. Schrubbe sends in a link today to a story posted by MSNBC about the work being done on “a package of software and hardware” (read: SkyNet) that will serve as an “ethical governor” for robotic war machines in the field. The assumption here is that with adequate programming, we will be able to relinquish human control and LET THE ROBOTS DECIDE FOR THEMSELVES WHOM TO KILL. For once, I am NOT exaggerating on this point.

The arrogance is staggering, to assume that we will still ultimately be able to control machines to which we grant greater and greater autonomy and logic-processing.

Meanwhile, enjoy this musical interlude, certain to become the Robot Nation’s anthem:

Greatest Hits

jason — Sun, 03 May 2009 01:22:08 +0000

Nothing in and of itself particularly bloggable today, but I did run across a few interesting tidbits on the tubes today that you might find interesting in case you missed ‘em:

I was drawn in by the spectre of New Scientist’s title, “Could the Net Become Self-Aware?” but you should also stay tuned for the rest of their 8-part series. Interesting stuff…
Brett’s gonna come back again. Oh, yes he will. But I do think he proved last year that 2007 will gone down as his last great season.
Tons of kids staying home from school next week in the metro-Milwaukee area, what with the bacon disease. Hey, remember when we were kids, and there would be a chicken pox outbreak, and if you hadn’t had it yet, your mom would make sure you went to school, with instructions to lick all doorknobs trade pencils all your itchy friends? Yeah, I remember that, too.
Don’t know if they’ve changed much in Amarok 2 since I was last using it a couple months ago, but I will say this: the album shuffle seems to be doing a better job. I wonder if there’s anything else I can do to optimize the tags on my tunes..?

OK, well, I’m gonna eat some dinner and get ready for a party that Michelle and I are headed to in a couple hours. Yes, I know it’s already 8:30. The party goes until 3 AM. Seriously.

The Scope of Computers, circa 1967

jason — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 21:07:30 +0000

A somewhat interesting read that I had today on the Modern Mechanix blog– the article was originally published in Playboy in October 1967.

Later on this evening, Michelle and I are headed to Riptide for dinner. Lent may be over, but that doesn’t mean we can’t love a seafood Friday…

Hope your weekend is swell.

Quick-Moving Saturday

jason — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 04:54:09 +0000

This day just flew by me before I really realized what had happened. Ended up being out a little late on Friday after all the baseball excitement, so I got a late start. Lots to be done around the house, and I also watched a movie that Brian lent to me. Eagle Eye was OK, but it could have been quite a bit better. Another interesting take on a Skynet-type problem that wouldn’t actually ever happen. But like I said, it wasn’t awful.

Did some laundry while I was watching this evening’s Brewers game. MediaPortal is totally worth the trouble on my TV box if for no other reason than the DVR features– being able to pause the live game while I was running up and down the stairs changing loads was nice. If there were:

a browser extension, in order to use hulu and netflix within MP, and
a decent music library included

… it would pretty much rock. I might try Boxee for Windows to see how that works out. The thing I would like best is to do all the video watching that I need to on computer, WITH the remote. Having to plug in a keyboard or mouse is a pain. Ah well, minor thing.

I would like to sneak in my blog-o-riffic birthday salutations to my mom, right under the wire here ON her birthday, 4/11. Love you, Mom– hope it was a good day…

If I miss all of ya on Sunday, have a happy Easter.

Growth Will Be Exponential

jason — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 14:09:16 +0000

Astute colleague David G. Schrubbe sent over a link about the first robot to make an autonomous scientific discovery. A little blurb from the piece on labspaces.net:

Using artificial intelligence, Adam hypothesised that certain genes in baker’s yeast code for specific enzymes which catalyse biochemical reactions in yeast. The robot then devised experiments to test these predictions, ran the experiments using laboratory robotics, interpreted the results and repeated the cycle.

Just to reiterate, the robot did this WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION.

Non-News Reporting

jason — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:39:40 +0000

A harrowing but obvious headline streaked across my New Scientist feed today:

Robotic computer watches your every move

Well, duh. Not exactly something that I would consider “breaking news.”

Speaking of non-breaking news, looks like we’ll have a group of 3-6 bodies for a Watchmen matinee on Saturday. Looking forward to it…

Newspaper Delivery by COMPUTER???!?!?!?

jason — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 15:47:20 +0000

Kyle stumbled onto this fantastic (and ancient) piece of TV news from KRON in San Francisco, circa 1981. It talks about those days in the distant “future” when newspapers will be delivered to “home computers” by the magic of the telephone! I think my favorite tag in the story is when they are interviewing user “Richard Halloran: Owns Home Computer”

Here is a link to the post from whence it came.

2008: A Year In Our Path to Destruction

jason — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 16:19:27 +0000

New Scientist had an interesting (and horrific) post the other day with 5 videos summarizing key robotic innovations in 2008. While none of these technologies are ready for everyday public consumption, the implications (particularly of the cybernetic research) are fairly clear. And scary.

Six Futile Methods For Delaying the Inevitable?

jason — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:48:45 +0000

I read a post on New Scientist today that offered up six suggestions for developing robots that would be adequately submissive, docile, or otherwise non-threatening to humans. While they are all reasonable possibilities, it should be noted that:

they admit that it’s “too late” to execute two of them
a third (Asimov-like laws) is dismissed as good for fiction, but not practical for real life
the remaining possibilities are not technologically feasible at this point

Of course, we all know that regardless of what we do to control the manner in which robotic intelligence develops, the robots themselves will probably have greater ideas down the road.

Within My Lifetime

jason — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:37:40 +0000

I know there are a lot of you that think I’m off the deep end with the fear of a machine revolution (whether it takes the form of sentient computers killing everyone or a new race of human/machine hybrids Borg-ifying the planet), but please watch this report from 60 Minutes and try to stay relaxed. Holy crap.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Oh, #*@&!%.

jason — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:33:36 +0000

Maybe the scary AI researchers all took a vacation over the summer, or I just missed the best headlines. But check this mother out: Computer circuit built from brain cells. You have to wait for the scariest excerpt of all:

Brain implants can allow the paralysed to control robot arms or learn to talk again, but suffer a drop-off in performance when scar tissue coats their electrodes. “An intermediate layer of in vitro neurons interfacing between man and machine could be advantageous,” he says.

Yes, who can say what sort of advantages a neural interface with your computer could provide? I can only think of about a MILLION.

Hiding in Plain Sight to Gain Our Affections

jason — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:55:37 +0000

New Scientist has a post today about a robotic rabbit with actual fur:

Yohanan’s new robot, dubbed the Haptic Creature, is designed to recreate that touch-based communication between pet and owner to inject an element of emotion into human-robot interactions.

Remember those stories from the Civil War about families fighting on both sides? How much harder will it be to unplug your robot pets when they turn on you?