A few days ago I read an article in the prestigious IEEE Spectrum and after making a free interpretation of the text, I have more questions than answers. In short (which is interesting in the article), I can anticipate that the foundation of the text revolves around the uncertainty in the labor market creates the appearance (increasingly) of robots replacing humans in positions work, until a short time ago, did not conceive otherwise than "made by humans". Not shrink away too much in this introduction and thinking the same phone line that brings Internet today, a generation ago was working to billions of women in charge of communicating with each other destinations around the world. Thousands of millions of jobs lost and if we start the article, we discuss what can be together soon.
The article is a transcript of a conversation between a journalist and a distinguished faculty member at Rice University who also runs the "Ken Kennedy Institute for Information Technology" at the University, where they both address the issue we announced in the header of the article: "humans are being displaced from their jobs by robots." In the article mentioned activities already leaving many (but many) people on the street without a future hopeless labor. Automated boxes with RFID tags in department stores, the machines clean the floors, transportation systems, GPS-guided, robot maids who bring order to the table, the menu is being replaced by tablets (tablets), the plants like Foxconn electronics manufacturing, assembly or automotive parts and a huge list of jobs that are not just statistical numbers. They are people, like your father, as you and with your children in future generations.
Many are excited, in some parts of the world, demonstrating that auto run themselves and are able to park without human intervention, where loaded GPS information with the vacant parking lots and take the car only up there to you do not waste time looking for a place to park. To start the comments: how can we call this if it were a newspaper headline: "Efficient and secure automatic handling system, demonstrates the technological advancement of our industry." Or it could appear stating, "Millions of taxi drivers and truck drivers, around the world lose their jobs after the adoption of the new vehicles with automatic handling systems. Global shock. "Both headlines were talking and informing the very triumph of technology?
The article talks about the advances and replacement of people in work in the field, with planters and harvesters that run unattended, enabling higher yields with fewer people and, as mentioned earlier, the list could be endless. Although it seems to be a maze with no exit, we all know that there are things that machines can never achieve. Can you imagine a TV series made by robots cool all the same? It would be just awful, right? However, that does not mean that at that time, the world population has been decimated as far as work is concerned. It will take a significant and radical cultural change to realize that there will be jobs (job specific) labor market will disappear and will be exclusive of the machines. And workers moving from machines to machines that can give us pleasure, is addressed in a talk time of technological advancement that has taken the automotive industry. Performance and comfort are exceeded every day while competing brands every inch, offering the best but, are not we creating monsters that pollute more, made more difficult to recycle materials? That is, (following controversial comments) got out of the vehicles, abandoned its use and opted for transportation means more "green"? What are we doing? Are we moving towards a technology harmful to ourselves?
The conclusion of the talk focuses on that article expresses a concern about the legacy we are leaving to future generations in terms of moving forward with technology, no matter where the end of this great Tower of Babel. Regardless of how many will be displaced and how big will the gap between those socio-cultural master technology to come and those who can not even access them as consumers. And on this particular topic, in the comments of the article, there is a realistic analysis presents the following suggestion: "If machines will keep the jobs of the people, who will become consumers, how the machines ? If there is a consumer public that you can choose between product A or product B, there is no competition, only a monopoly. The evolution of AI (Artificial Intelligence) between machines will grow to levels capable of meeting data ignore the consumer products, reason why, always buy the same product, bankrupting the other companies. And the destructive spiral will continue until they are ... alone? "
Where do we take the AI and the evolution of the Robots? Is it open further the gap between powerful companies (who have the most efficient machines) and the poor or marginalized by the system? Without reaching the end of the article, surrounded by paranoia that may not exist in 2045, is unhealthy understand today that a machine can do the work of one or more operators, will not work for one or more families. From a sidewalk, a business is not to be missed, while from the other lane, the opposite, is losing the dignity of a job and a future. For one production line that requires only one or two maintenance technicians, why another? A market without consumers, jobless and penniless? Does the man know put an ethical limit to this crossroads ahead? What do you think?
Robots are many. Some are bipedal, with wheels, crawling, they can swim or even some that can display facial expressions. But virtually all of them must be programmed so they can do what they do. But a few, like Baxter, are capable of learning new behaviors from the guidance of his own, without writing a single line of code. Baxter costs about 20,000 euros, and many believe that in the future many robots will learn as he does.
In the last two decades have seen how robots stopped being tools for the assembly line of a manufacturing plant or protagonists of a science fiction novel to become sophisticated learning tools or entertainment. The advance of microelectronics and low price of servomechanisms, coupled with breakthrough occurred in processing power and memory of microcontrollers has enabled even robotics enthusiasts can design and build their own models. However, in almost all cases, regardless of concerned business models or built at home, it is necessary to write programs that tell the robot in question and carry out certain task. If we want our newly built biped robot one step, we have to write a program to turn your servo and respond to stimuli received from its sensors so you can get it right This task, of course, is not accessible to all potential users of these interesting devices.
Baxter, a new robot designed and built by Rethink Robotics, is based on a concept that, while not entirely new, has been implemented well enough to work perfectly and perhaps mark a trend in the market robotics. Instead of using traditional programming to learn new tricks, simply manipulate their own limbs showing him what to do. Suppose we want the robot takes an object that is on the right and moved 40 centimeters to the left. Instead of writing a program in a complex programming language, indicate when and how to move each of their engines, just put it in "program mode", move your right arm to the object, open the "hand", placing on property, close, move the arm 40 inches to the left, open hand again to drop the object, and keep all those movements in a. Thus, Baxter has "learned" that sequence of movements without writing a single line of code.
As mentioned, this form of teaching a robot is not new. However, it is the first time we see one, for the market (ie, outside a laboratory) with a lower price to 20,000 euros and that works as well. Baxter complements their learning skills with a "face" based on an LCD equipped with very expressive eyes, which helps a lot when it comes to understand that's what we're trying to communicate device or what it is "seeing" with their cameras. It is designed to help small assembly lines, parts handling light tasks or assist in packing / unpacking, but if the system works as well as it looks, certainly appear similar to Baxter models but cheaper and for the home. 'd Point you to one?
All we ever see an earthworm. These beings are dragged along the ground alternately compressing and relaxing the muscles that have over their bodies, moving slowly with each wave of contractions. Well, this strange but efficient propulsion system has been imitated by a team of researchers from MIT, Harvard University and Seoul National University, who have built a robot called Meshworm that not only moves like a worm, but is able to "survive" with a hammer or footprints. Part of the project funding comes from the ubiquitous agency DARPA.
The researchers in robotics often tend to "brainstorm" in (or blatantly copied) nature. We've seen robots with legs fast as a cheetah, flying and even some can swim like a fish. However, there is still room for surprise. In the last hours, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT for its acronym in English) has issued a press release in which you can see a job that its engineers have made together scientists from Harvard University and the University Seoul National. This is the robot called Meshworm whose main feature is to mimic the way it moves and shifts an earthworm.
Earthworms crawl along the ground through a mechanism that basically boils down to alternately compress and stretch muscles that have over their bodies, moving slowly with each sequence of contractions. The snails and sea cucumbers also used to move a similar mechanism, called peristalsis, and the food moves through the inside of our body like ripples through our gastrointestinal tract. The robot Meshworm, composed almost entirely of soft materials, it is also very strong. As you can see in the video, is capable of withstanding a person will pass over or blows with a hammer.
Sangbae Kim, Esther and Harold E. Edgerton, project managers, say a robot "soft and flexible as it can be useful for traversing rough terrain or made by small cracks." The "muscles" of the robot is constructed with a wire of an alloy of nickel and titanium that has a certain shape memory, able to expand or contract when their temperature varies. Winding a wire around a tube these plain, form "muscle rings" like those with live worms because when they get a small stream segments wire mesh tube pressure, they deform and drive robot forward. The results of this work were presented at society through an article published in the journal IEEE / ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, explaining that it could be the first of a new generation of robots, soft and lightweight, ideal for exploring hard to reach spaces.
Kim explains that earthworms possess two main muscle groups: circular muscle fibers surrounding the tube-shaped body of the worm, and other longitudinal muscle fibers that run along it. The two groups of muscles work together so that the worm can move slowly. The research team set out to design a similar system, using "body" built a long tube with a heat seal polymer mesh. It is placed on the "muscles" nickel-titanium, thanks to the current provided by a computerized system, were able to move the robot. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the Pentagon agency that is always behind any project that could have a military application, provided some of the funds used to create the Meshworm.
The company Festo, responsible for some of the most interesting robots we've seen in recent years, has just launched a video where you can see his latest creation in action. This is the SmartInversion, a sort of flying geometric band able to "rely" on the air propelled by turns of its own structure. The video is priceless, and the concept shown by Festo surely serve as an inspiration to more than a builder of robots.
Robotics is not just about design and construction of large and heavy industrial machines semiautomatic. Many companies, as well as thousands of fans, working on smaller models, and often more interesting. Festo, a company specializing in the field of robotics has always impressed with their designs, and new flying robot is no exception. SmartInversion called, looks like a folded paper strip that is capable of flying without wings or propellers.
You can’t buy love, but can you engineer it? A project at the National University of Singapore with all kinds of somewhat unsettling implications is trying to create the means for human-robot love by giving robots all the emotional and biological tools that human have.
That means artificial hormones--dopamine, seratonin, oxytocin, endorphin--that ebb and flow based on how the robot is “feeling.” It also means psychology, in this case using MRI brain scans to recreate artificial intelligence that creates affection--or a lack therof--towards a human counterpart.
ust as in human relationships, this human-robot love is based on interactions. The robot can become bored, jealous, angry, affectionate, or flat-out happy, all based on how the human object of its desire interacts with it. Most of this interaction takes place through touching--another analog to affectionate human interaction. The robot isn’t so cuddly, but give it some puppy love and it will love you back.
But spurn its advances at your own peril. If the chilling conclusion of episode one below is any indication, perhaps this isn’t such a great idea. It might just turn out that hell hath no fury like a lovebot scorned.
