Robotics - General News

http://news.yahoo.com/biodegradable-bodies-more-eco-friendly-robots-165631499.html
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=r0qWVKcJR3w
http://gizmodo.com/researchers-are-teaching-atlas-to-do-household-chores-l-1753179792​
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPNRZi0EPQw&feature=player_embedded
http://gizmodo.com/heres-one-drone-that-could-actually-help-in-a-fire-1754147317​
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=udQ3WoK_Wdk
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/a19068/autonomous-helicopter-deploys-autonomous-tank/​
 
http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/26/pepper-the-robot-staffs-a-whole-phone-store/
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s&feature=player_embedded
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/dutch-police-training-eagles-to-take-down-drones​
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zT1AWwCBatQ&feature=youtu.be

Robot chameleon
 
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2016/02/army-has-made-robot-cockroach/125766/?oref=d-river
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LaXc-jmN89U
http://gizmodo.com/holy-hell-the-us-military-made-the-fast-quadcopter-ive-1758807512​

A bit of hype, but still interesting.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KE8yq51GVxw&feature=player_embedded
https://www.rt.com/news/332587-russian-human-like-robot-spacewalks/​
 
It’s easy to see the destructive side of “creative destruction”. How many iterations are left before people who do manual labor are going to see these things showing up? The creative part of the equation is tougher to figure out. Industries that are created through the use of super cheap manual labor might arise but what are they? I can imagine existing industries that are limited due to cost undergoing massive expansions. For example, if extensive home remodeling could be undertaken for just the cost of materials plus a few thousand dollars it might become typical. A single or perhaps 2 humans would show up accompanied by a half dozen robots. The same might apply for highly ornate landscaping projects. The economic activity would in turn foster support industries and so on. Still, the type of work that would remain for humans would necessarily be things where robots are not proficient or are undesired. 98% of the population used to live on farms and as late as the 1950’s there were significant numbers of “clerks”. It isn’t obvious to me what new types of service jobs will arise which can compensate. Something always does and overall societal affluence increases (whether people appreciate it or not----consider what an "average" person can buy that was once prohibitively expensive). If robots like this bring about the affordable "air car" or even "cheap" space travel then I guess I am nervously in approval.
 
fredymac said:
A single or perhaps 2 humans would show up accompanied by a half dozen robots. The same might apply for highly ornate landscaping projects.
Click to expand...

An obvious use for an evolved version of this sort of robot is "farm laborer." Currently, many political activists will be happy to tell you that the millions of illegal aliens currently in the US are needed in order to do that work; if they are replaced with robots, then that argument goes away.

Granted, these bots are going to be expensive for a long, long time. I'd be shocked if you would be able to buy one for much less than a million bucks anytime soon. But they wouldn't need to drop much below that price point before they'd become competitive. Someone working a minimum wage job - call it $7.25/hour - works a max of 8 hours per day. There are other costs associated with the workers, such as Social Security and whatnot; let's say it costs an employer $10/hour per worker. But workers being human, that 8 hour day results in, oh, let's say 4 hours of actual work, what with breaks and chitchat and slacking off and whatnot. So in a week (168 hours), the employer might see each worker put in 20 hours of work, while costing $400. But if the worker was replaced with a robot, the robot should be able to put in a full 168 hours of work... no breaks needed for eating or sleep or smokes. So the robot would do 8.4 times as much labor per week as the human. 8.4 humans would cost $3,360 per week. If the robot cost $1,000,000 (and magically didn't need maintenance or tech support), it would take 297 weeks to pay for itself... 5.7 years. Which is really not that long.

If you could get a robot like this for $100,000, then minimum wage/no skill jobs would be pretty much a thing of the past. There would be a whole lot of social dislocation. There would *need* to be mass deportations from the richer nations; there will be many millions of unemployed citizens, no need to have millions of unemployed aliens in the system. After that... further social changes would be needed. Perhaps each citizen would be granted a 10% stake in a robot. The robot would work the drudge jobs, the citizens would get paid 10% of what the robot would get paid, if it was getting paid. Lots of people would take their money and slack off, buying beer and Xbox and smokes. Smarter ones would take the money and buy further robo-stakes.
 
2:08 made me think of this:

3:36
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4kfqmv2PoQ
 
Orionblamblam said:
fredymac said:
A single or perhaps 2 humans would show up accompanied by a half dozen robots. The same might apply for highly ornate landscaping projects.
Click to expand...

An obvious use for an evolved version of this sort of robot is "farm laborer." Currently, many political activists will be happy to tell you that the millions of illegal aliens currently in the US are needed in order to do that work; if they are replaced with robots, then that argument goes away.

Granted, these bots are going to be expensive for a long, long time. I'd be shocked if you would be able to buy one for much less than a million bucks anytime soon. But they wouldn't need to drop much below that price point before they'd become competitive. Someone working a minimum wage job - call it $7.25/hour - works a max of 8 hours per day. There are other costs associated with the workers, such as Social Security and whatnot; let's say it costs an employer $10/hour per worker. But workers being human, that 8 hour day results in, oh, let's say 4 hours of actual work, what with breaks and chitchat and slacking off and whatnot. So in a week (168 hours), the employer might see each worker put in 20 hours of work, while costing $400. But if the worker was replaced with a robot, the robot should be able to put in a full 168 hours of work... no breaks needed for eating or sleep or smokes. So the robot would do 8.4 times as much labor per week as the human. 8.4 humans would cost $3,360 per week. If the robot cost $1,000,000 (and magically didn't need maintenance or tech support), it would take 297 weeks to pay for itself... 5.7 years. Which is really not that long.

If you could get a robot like this for $100,000, then minimum wage/no skill jobs would be pretty much a thing of the past. There would be a whole lot of social dislocation. There would *need* to be mass deportations from the richer nations; there will be many millions of unemployed citizens, no need to have millions of unemployed aliens in the system. After that... further social changes would be needed. Perhaps each citizen would be granted a 10% stake in a robot. The robot would work the drudge jobs, the citizens would get paid 10% of what the robot would get paid, if it was getting paid. Lots of people would take their money and slack off, buying beer and Xbox and smokes. Smarter ones would take the money and buy further robo-stakes.
Click to expand...
At that stage you'd probably have a policy of guaranteed minimum income once proposed by none other than Milton Friedman
 
bobbymike said:
Orionblamblam said:
fredymac said:
A single or perhaps 2 humans would show up accompanied by a half dozen robots. The same might apply for highly ornate landscaping projects.
Click to expand...

An obvious use for an evolved version of this sort of robot is "farm laborer." Currently, many political activists will be happy to tell you that the millions of illegal aliens currently in the US are needed in order to do that work; if they are replaced with robots, then that argument goes away.

Granted, these bots are going to be expensive for a long, long time. I'd be shocked if you would be able to buy one for much less than a million bucks anytime soon. But they wouldn't need to drop much below that price point before they'd become competitive. Someone working a minimum wage job - call it $7.25/hour - works a max of 8 hours per day. There are other costs associated with the workers, such as Social Security and whatnot; let's say it costs an employer $10/hour per worker. But workers being human, that 8 hour day results in, oh, let's say 4 hours of actual work, what with breaks and chitchat and slacking off and whatnot. So in a week (168 hours), the employer might see each worker put in 20 hours of work, while costing $400. But if the worker was replaced with a robot, the robot should be able to put in a full 168 hours of work... no breaks needed for eating or sleep or smokes. So the robot would do 8.4 times as much labor per week as the human. 8.4 humans would cost $3,360 per week. If the robot cost $1,000,000 (and magically didn't need maintenance or tech support), it would take 297 weeks to pay for itself... 5.7 years. Which is really not that long.

If you could get a robot like this for $100,000, then minimum wage/no skill jobs would be pretty much a thing of the past. There would be a whole lot of social dislocation. There would *need* to be mass deportations from the richer nations; there will be many millions of unemployed citizens, no need to have millions of unemployed aliens in the system. After that... further social changes would be needed. Perhaps each citizen would be granted a 10% stake in a robot. The robot would work the drudge jobs, the citizens would get paid 10% of what the robot would get paid, if it was getting paid. Lots of people would take their money and slack off, buying beer and Xbox and smokes. Smarter ones would take the money and buy further robo-stakes.
Click to expand...
At that stage you'd probably have a policy of guaranteed minimum income once proposed by none other than Milton Friedman
Click to expand...

And it would all be Monopoly money. That's the problem with idiocies like "living wages" rather than paying what a job's worth- eventually EVERYBODY has trainloads of money and it's not worth anything.
 
sferrin said:
bobbymike said:
At that stage you'd probably have a policy of guaranteed minimum income once proposed by none other than Milton Friedman
Click to expand...

And it would all be Monopoly money. That's the problem with idiocies like "living wages" rather than paying what a job's worth- eventually EVERYBODY has trainloads of money and it's not worth anything.
Click to expand...

By the point humanoid robots are well and truly replacing a large fraction of the working public, something akin to this sort of socialism would probably be inevitable. the alternative would be to ban the bots, which would only benefit those nations that *don't*.

So long as the Free Money comes with Free Norplant, I would be ok with this. For pretty much all of human history, an increase in population was associated with progress. But with free robolabor, we'd be better off with a *decreasing* population (at least of humans). We would actually have a "surplus population," vast numbers of people who actually have nothing to do. "Star Trek: TNG" liked to blab about how technology had finally freed mankind to go and better themselves; but let's face it, most people *wouldn't.* And while I would be opposed to the government telling people how to live their lives (excepting criminality, of course), I would also be opposed to a government that gives out free money but doesn't put some sort of limitations or restrictions on it. Such as... if you live on the robodole, you need to get a baby license to reproduce. The alternative would be to head out to the frontier and live how you want.
 
fppyyjzutseqc610gdhl.gif
 
Lest those of us who do analytical work think we are safe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P18EdAKuC1U
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/the-robots-are-coming-for-wall-street.html
 
fppyyjzutseqc610gdhl.gif

I wonder wen the robot one day, start to take the stick way, hit with it the guy...
 
Grey Havoc said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s&feature=player_embedded
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/dutch-police-training-eagles-to-take-down-drones​
Click to expand...

So how bad did the props slice up the bird? Not cool.
 
sferrin said:
Grey Havoc said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HifO-ebmE1s&feature=player_embedded
http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/aerial-robots/dutch-police-training-eagles-to-take-down-drones​
Click to expand...

So how bad did the props slice up the bird? Not cool.
Click to expand...

I think various police forces are getting a bit desperate regarding drones, especially those with constrained resources and/or constrictive ROE.
 
Michel Van said:
fppyyjzutseqc610gdhl.gif

I wonder wen the robot one day, start to take the stick way, hit with it the guy...
Click to expand...

Just the evil white master trying to keep a robot down. ;D
 
Back to more dog tricks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7nhygaGOmo&feature=youtu.be
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2gehrAhflQ&feature=youtu.be
 
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/03/07/marines-adapting-live-fire-training-using-robots/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
 
https://defensesystems.com/articles/2016/03/09/robots-autonomous-vehciles-front-lines.aspx
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bAhLW1eq8eM

http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/this-robot-flies-lands-and-crawls-up-walls-like-a-bug/​
 
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/google-puts-boston-dynamics-up-for-sale/?utm_content=buffer0d220&utm_medium=socialm&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=DT-FB
 
bobbymike said:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/google-puts-boston-dynamics-up-for-sale/?utm_content=buffer0d220&utm_medium=socialm&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=DT-FB
Click to expand...

There is a lot not said in that article. What was Google’s plan when they bought the company in the first place? Did Google actually believe they weren’t buying an R&D project that would not have viable sales for at least 5 to 10 years? Did Google not know that Boston Dynamics was funded predominantly through military R&D and that they were going to have to replace that source of income?
If I had to guess, they bought it for the “cool” factor but had no concrete business plan on what to do with it. Now that they are on the hook to pay the staff salaries and with no sales prospects without years of additional R&D they decide it isn’t something they really want. It makes you appreciate the dedication Honda has shown over decades with their Asimo. Of course Google could let Boston Dynamics pursue more military R&D funding but that would probably not sit well with their political culture.

I also wonder about the technology and software that enables Boston Dynamic robots to move so quickly. I would have to guess Google wanted to grab that no matter what. Even if they are legally restricted from applying it directly, just studying it would give them a lot of insight. I can imagine that would motivate a lot of potential buyers who might now step in.
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3XQOO6kvHFY
http://www.engadget.com/2016/03/18/amber-lab-bipedal-robot-runs-human/​
 
TED on newest drones tech
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCXGpEmFbOw
 
http://breakingdefense.com/2016/03/depsecdef-on-boosted-humans-robot-weapons/
 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/03/30/the-killer-robot-threat-pentagon-examining-how-enemy-nations-could-empower-machines/
 

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