Selling Tomorrows

Robots Make Noodles, then Have Knife Fight

See what happens when you don't develop a social media policy for your robot employees?  Look at what happens at about 2:45...(via Crave blog)

MSNBC's "Robots that Terrify Us" Really about Ancient Fears

On the heels of Terminator 4's release, Winda Benedetti at MSNBC put together a list of 8 robots that foretell the coming "robo-apocalypse. But while the segment is written tongue-in-cheek, what's interesting is how, robot-by-robot, it runs through a list of human fears that exist whether robots do or not:

Being hunted like animals, getting dumped, turning children against us, loss of control, getting attacked by insects of animals that are individually weak, but strong in great numbers, destruction of nature, making war without conscience or being pursued by someone without one, and finally, betrayal. 

Maybe it's not the robots we're frightened of. 

"In a free society, you get what you celebrate" - Dean Kamen

The WSJ has a great piece today on how Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, set out to change America's declining culture of innovation and so its future.  The result?  Robowars courtsey of Kamen's US FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) foundation. Snip:

"Two decades ago, Mr. Kamen was alarmed by American youth culture's obsession with entertainment and athletics. "If their role models come from Hollywood and sports," he told me, "what do you think they're going to work hardest at? In a free society, you get what you celebrate."

Robert Crease, the piece's author and a self-described robo-parent, just wrote a book called "The Great Equations" which explores the top 10 "most beautiful equations" from Pythagoris to Schrodinger.  Snip from Publishers Weekly:

"Crease explains the significance of each of these formulas for science and, in brief interludes between chapters, explores the journeys these scientists took from ignorance to knowledge, and the social lives of their theories—their impact on the larger culture."

Top 10 "tomorrows" for sale in Sleep Dealer

Saw the movie last night and have to say the comparisons to Blade Runner were right on.  Truth is, it's not fair to this film to write a review after just one viewing, but darn it, the flick is too good to hold back on.  Here's my top 10 list of "Tomorrows" that Sleep Dealer serves up.  Mucho spoilers follow.

1. Subjugation. The opening scene shows workers plugged into the network, moving like marionettes, dancing to the tune of global demand for crop pickers and construction workers.  It's a shame-flavored milkshake and the swirl of " cool idea" that makes you feel even guiltier after swallowing it.

2. Dystopia Now. The first part of the movie takes place in a small town in Mexico, far from the tech wonderland.  Water supplies are under lock and key.  Life is hard. There's heartbreaking poverty.  It looks like many third world towns today, and that's the message.  The dystopia is here now.  It's one thing to know academically that visions of tomorrow are often used to point out the flaws of today, but in this director's hands, it's a sucker punch.

3. Social networks as "Big Brother."  There's a "Memory Market" where people can sell their experiences.  We saw this idea in Strange Days, but Sleep Dealer brings a whole new level of creepiness to the issue.  In an era of social media, Sleep Dealer shows how easily "Big Brother" can switch from meaning the government to, well, everyone.   

4. Plugging in means losing yourself. The process of inserting the node plugs into the body (which look a lot like what we saw in the Matrix) is violent, invasive and dehumanizing.  Metaphorically, it speaks to the degradation that people will suffer to support their families or be a part of something larger.  Paraphrasing here a bit, Memo (the main character) says after his surgery, "at last, I'm plugged into the global economy."  At the beginning of the movie, each plug is a symbol for a lost piece of humanity.  By the end, we're reminded that it's now what you're made of, but what you do that makes you human. 

5. “It’s people!  Soylent Green is made of people!”  A white pipeline is shown snaking through the wilderness in several scenes.  At first I thought it was an oil or water pipeline.  Then I realized it’s holding fiber optic cables.  So it’s not so much data coursing through the wire, but the physical work of the sleep dealers as their actions are transmitted to robots across the border. Often times today, human labor is categorized as a natural resource.  Here that metaphor materializes.  Labor is broken down into bits and bytes, normalized, commoditized and extruded into whatever form the market requires.  I'd call it beautiful and ghastly.  Luz (Memo’s girlfriend) would just say I’m “old fashioned.”  

6. Fear that we won't know what we've lost.  On the "old fashioned" thing for a second, this film, like many dystopias, generates a feeling of dread because as bad as things are, it's somehow worse because the future generation on the screen doesn't KNOW how bad it is. They've grown inured.  And that ranks up there with the “unknown” for things so scary we usually don’t think about them consciously.  (See earlier post on why we WANT to call this the Great Depression.)

7. Redefining "Writer" & "Reader." In this vision of the future, the woman sells her memories online, complete with narration.  She calls herself a "writer."  And when she makes contact with the man who purchased her memory, she refers to him as a "reader." It’s an interesting prediction on the future of these terms.  Remember when we referred to phones as "cellular telephones?"

8. The Campfire: The happiest points in the movie come when Memo sits around a fire with a couple old codgers in a shantytown.  They talk of ageless issues—relationships—and it’s the only point at which life in this world feels real, legitimate, worth it.  This image’s ancient roots are no accident. 

9. Superior technology doesn't equal moral superiority: Recalling that Germany was technologically ahead of most countries in the 1930s, the movie reminds us that as much as technology can instantly connect us to other people or reduce the physical pain of work, it can't make us more moral.  This is a critical point.  Most techno utopias are built on the premise that "if only we could talk with each other" or "if only we didn't have to labor so hard" then crime and wars would go away.  Hundreds of years ago when canals and hot air balloons promised to connect Europe, the intellectuals of the day believed that connection and communication would eliminate the causes of war.  Sleep Dealer reminds us that this STILL won't be true in the future.  

10. "A future with a past if I connect and fight:" At the end of the movie, Memo utters this phrase.  It captures Tom Friedman's argument that only by holding onto our olive trees will we be satisfied with our Lexus.  That being engaged is critical for peace.  And finally, fights for the moral good must be undertaken. 

Pleo gently wades into Chapter 7 pool of tar

Ugobe, the company that makes the Pleo, filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy this week. According to Gearlog, "delays and the lack of further development beyond the initial rollout of the robotic dinosaur may have hampered the business."

Its legacy lives on in many ways.  The first being, if you're going to create a robot, give it shell that makes people say "awe" rather than "ahh!"  The dino-robot combination with the personality of a puppy probably did as much to reduce fears of killer robots as the T-X.

The only one not shedding a tear is this cat.

News roundup: Robotic prosthetics & extending biological clocks

It has been a dizzying 24 hours for the human condition.  On 60 Minutes last night, a robotic prosthetic arm with a fully functioning hand was taken through its paces.  And in today's Washington Post, surprising news that women's biological clocks may be extended indefinitely thanks to new genetic research. 

Robot "Adam" makes first scientific discovery by non-human

Reuters reports that a team of researchers in Wales have created "robo-scientists" that can "reason, formulate theories and discover scientific knowledge on their own."  As first reported in Science, the machines have made the world's first scientific discovery independent of humans, and the hope is that they can be put to work on research in under-funded areas like malaria.  The first robot's name?  Adam.  The next one will be called -- what else?  Eve. In another article in the journal, a team from Cornell reports the invention of a machine that figured out Newton's laws of motion simply by observing a pendulum.  That's one tasty apple.

Exciting! Safe! It's an Atomic Energy Lab for Kids!

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I love the 1950's vision of atomic energy.  So hopeful, so devoid of the 3-Mile Island/Chernobyl memories that the public walks around with today. 

Here's the snip from the incomparable BoingBoing: "This was the most elaborate Atomic Energy educational set ever produced, but it was only only available from 1951 to 1952. Its relatively high price for the time ($50.00) and its sophistication were the explanation Gilbert gave for the set's short lifespan. Today, it is so highly prized by collectors that a complete set can go for more than 100 times the original price." Permalink

And a link to the Oak Ridge Associated Universities' online museum of "Atomic toys."

One of its exhibits is this "Atomic Robot Man" who looks like the granddaddy of the beautiful Azimuth Mr. Roboto watch.

Event: Teaching Robots to See - 3/26

From the NY Academy of Sciences site: "In partnership with NYU's School of Continuing & Professional Studies, and the Office of the Dean of Sciences at NYU, Science & the City hosts a lecture by NYU machine learning expert Yann LeCun, who explains the science behind teaching robots to adapt to unknown environments."  March 26, 7-9pm at the Woolworth Building in NYC.  Tickets required.

Should robots be programmed with the Geneva Conventions?

Continuing today's robot theme, Candace Lombardi at CNET did a fascinating interview with P.W. Singer, author of "Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century." I haven't picked up the book yet, but check out the snip from the piece below.  Personally, I don't think Johnny 5 could hurt a fly.

"How will robot warfare change our international laws of war? If an autonomous robot mistakenly takes out 20 little girls playing soccer in the street and people are outraged, is the programmer going to get the blame? The manufacturer? The commander who sent in the robot fleet?
Singer: That's the essence of the problem of trying to apply a set of laws that are so old they qualify for Medicare to these kind of 21st-century dilemmas that come with this 21st-century technology. It's also the kind of question that you might have once only asked at Comic-Con and now it's a very real live question at the Pentagon.

I went around trying to get the answer to this sort of question meeting with people not only in the military but also in the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch. We're at a loss as to how to answer that question right now. The robotics companies are only thinking in terms of product liability...and international law is simply overwhelmed or basically ignorant of this technology."