Harping over Spiritual Robots

Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man

2009-10-28T02:57:00.001-07:00

http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/28/scientists-worry-machines-may-outsmart-man/

100 years of Big Content fearing technology—in its own words

2009-10-19T22:41:00.000-07:00

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/100-years-of-big-content-fearing-technologyin-its-own-words.ars

Excerpt:

In 1906, famous composer John Philip Sousa took to Appleton's Magazine to pen an essay decrying the latest piratical threat to his livelihood, to the entire body politic, and to "musical taste" itself. His concern? The player piano and the gramophone, which stripped the life from real, human, soulful live performances.

"From the days when the mathematical and mechanical were paramount in music, the struggle has been bitter and incessant for the sway of the emotional and the soulful," he wrote. "And now in this the twentieth century come these talking and playing machines and offer again to reduce the expression of music to a mathematical system of megaphones, wheels, cogs, disks, cylinders, and all manner of revolving things which are as like real art as the marble statue of Eve is like her beautiful living breathing daughters."

In fact, things were so bad that amateur music-making was threatened, something that could lead indirectly to the rampant sissification of the entire country. "Under such conditions," Sousa believed, "the tide of amateurism cannot but recede until there will be left only the mechanical device and the professional executant. Singing will no longer be a fine accomplishment; vocal exercises so important a factor in the curriculum of physical culture will be out of vogue. Then what of the national throat? Will it not weaken? What of the national chest? Will it not shrink?"

Barack Obama's amazingly consistent smile

2009-09-26T10:49:00.001-07:00

http://vimeo.com/6747788

Military Researchers Develop Corpse-Eating Robots

2009-09-23T08:16:00.001-07:00

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/07/military-researchers-develop-corpse-eating-robots/

Stalin's half-man, half-ape super-warriors

2009-09-23T04:54:00.000-07:00

http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Stalins-halfman-halfape-superwarriors.2688011.jp

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat."

We're one-tenth human Rest of the body is a swarm of foreign microbes

2009-09-19T20:23:00.000-07:00

Rest of the body is a swarm of foreign microbes

http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/were-one-tenth-human-59601992.html

Two AI Pioneers. Two Bizarre Suicides. What Really Happened?

2009-09-16T22:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-02/ff_aimystery?currentPage=all

Robot attacked Swedish factory worker

2009-07-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.thelocal.se/19120.html

Japanese professor creates baseball-playing robots

2009-07-26T22:38:00.001-07:00

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090724/ap_on_sp_ba_ne/bbo_baseball_robots_1

Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man

2009-07-25T21:31:00.000-07:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/science/26robot.html?_r=1&hp

2009-05-14T08:24:00.001-07:00

Killer Robots : The Coming Reality

Can Military Robots Commit War Crimes?

http://yournewreality.blogspot.com/2009/05/im-killer-robot-but-i-didnt-know-that.html

The Tornadoes (Joe Meek) - Robot - 1963

2009-05-09T07:50:00.001-07:00

Robots are narrowing the gap with humans

2009-04-20T21:43:00.000-07:00

By Robert S. Boyd | McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — Robots are gaining on us humans.

Thanks to exponential increases in computer power — which is roughly doubling every two years — robots are getting smarter, more capable, more like flesh-and-blood people.

Matching human skills and intelligence, however, is an enormously difficult — perhaps impossible — challenge.

Nevertheless, robots guided by their own computer "brains'' now can pick up and peel bananas, land jumbo jets, steer cars through city traffic, search human DNA for cancer genes, play soccer or the violin, find earthquake victims or explore craters on Mars.

At a "Robobusiness" conference in Boston last week, companies demonstrated a robot firefighter, gardener, receptionist, tour guide and security guard.

You name it, a high-tech wizard somewhere is trying to make a robot do it.

A Japanese housekeeping robot can move chairs, sweep the floor, load a tray of dirty dishes in a dishwasher and put dirty clothes in a washing machine.

Intel, the worldwide computer-chip maker, headquartered in Santa Clara, Calif., has developed a self-controlled mobile robot called Herb, the Home Exploring Robotic Butler. Herb can recognize faces and carry out generalized commands such as "please clean this mess," according to Justin Rattner, Intel's chief technology officer.

In a talk last year titled "Crossing the Chasm Between Humans and Machines: the Next 40 Years,'' the widely respected Rattner lent some credibility to the often-ridiculed effort to make machines as smart as people.

"The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago," Rattner said. It's conceivable, he added, that "machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason in the not-so-distant future.''

Programming a robot to perform household chores without breaking dishes or bumping into walls is hard enough, but creating a truly intelligent machine still remains far beyond human ability.

Artificial intelligence researchers have struggled for half a century to imitate the staggering complexity of the brain, even in creatures as lowly as a cockroach or fruit fly. Although computers can process data at lightning speeds, the trillions of ever-changing connections between animal and human brain cells surpass the capacity of even the largest supercomputers

"One day we will create a human-level artificial intelligence,'' wrote Rodney Brooks, a robot designer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass. "But how and when we will get there — and what will happen after we do — are now the subjects of fierce debate.''

"We're in a slow retreat in the face of the steady advance of our mind's children,'' agreed Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. "Eventually, we're going to reach the point where everybody's going to say, 'Of course machines are smarter than we are.' ''

"The truly interesting question is what happens after if we have truly intelligent robots,'' Saffo said. "If we're very lucky, they'll treat us as pets. If not, they'll treat us as food.''

Some far-out futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil, an inventor and technology evangelist in Wellesley Hills, a Boston suburb, predict that robots will match human intelligence by 2029, only 20 years from now. Other experts think that Kurzweil is wildly over-optimistic.

According to Kurzweil, robots will prove their cleverness by passing the so-called "Turing test.'' In the test, devised by British computing pioneer Alan Turing in 1950, a human judge chats casually with a concealed human and a hidden machine. If the judge can't tell which responses come from the human and which from the machine, the machine is said to show human-level intelligence.

"We can expect computers to pass the Turing test, indicating intelligence indistinguishable from that of biological humans, by the end of the 2020s,'' Kurzweil wrote in his 2005 book, "The Singularity Is Near.''

To Kurzweil, the "singularity'' is when a machine equals or exceeds human intelligence. It won't come in "one great leap,'' he said, "but lots of little steps to get us from here to there.''

Kurzweil has made a movie, also titled "The Singularity Is Near: A True Story About the Future,'' that's due in theaters this summer.

Intel's Rattner is more conservative. He said that it would take at least until 2050 to close the mental gap between people and machines. Others say that it will take centuries, if it ever happens.

Some eminent thinkers, such as Steven Pinker, a Harvard cognitive scientist, Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel, and Mitch Kapor, a leading computer scientist in San Francisco, doubt that a robot can ever successfully impersonate a human being.

It's "extremely difficult even to imagine what it would mean for a computer to perform a successful impersonation,'' Kapor said. "While it is possible to imagine a machine obtaining a perfect score on the SAT or winning 'Jeopardy' — since these rely on retained facts and the ability to recall them — it seems far less possible that a machine can weave things together in new ways or . . . have true imagination in a way that matches everything people can do.''

Nevertheless, roboticists are working to make their mechanical creatures seem more human. The Japanese are particularly fascinated with "humanoid'' robots, with faces, movements and voices resembling their human masters.

A fetching female robot model from the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology lab in Tsukuba, Japan, sashays down a runway, turns and bows when "she'' meets a real girl.

"People become emotionally attached'' to robots, Saffo said. Two-thirds of the people who own Roombas, the humble floor-sweeping robots, give them names, he said. One-third take their Roombas on vacation.

At a technology conference last October in San Jose, Calif., Cynthia Breazeal, an MIT robot developer, demonstrated her attempts to build robots that mimic human and social skills. She showed off "Leonardo,'' a rabbity creature that reacts appropriately when a person smiles or scowls.

"Robot sidekicks are coming,'' Breazeal said. "We already can see the first distant cousins of R2D2," the sociable little robot in the "Star Wars" movies.

Other MIT researchers have developed an autonomous wheelchair that understands and responds to commands to "go to my room'' or "take me to the cafeteria.''

So far, most robots are used primarily in factories, repeatedly performing single tasks. The Robotics Institute of America estimates that more than 186,000 industrial robots are being used in the United States, second only to Japan. It's estimated that more than a million robots are being used worldwide, with China and India rapidly expanding their investments in robotics.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/66530.html

In a fast society slow emotions become extinct. A thinking mind cannot feel.

2009-04-16T11:50:00.001-07:00

http://www.1stpm.org/articles/emotion.html

Who counts as human?

2009-04-01T17:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/apr/01/deconstructing-human-rights-equality

Pentagon exploring robot killers that can fire on their own

2009-03-30T01:42:00.001-07:00

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/64779.html

The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine

2009-03-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.sciam.com/article.c fm?id=merging-of-mind-and-machine

The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine

The accelerating pace of technological progress means that our intelligent creations will soon eclipse us--and that their creations will eventually eclipse them

Computers can now do your praying for you

2009-03-26T16:16:00.000-07:00

http://www.livescience.com/technology/090325-computer-prayer.html

Regulate armed robots before it's too late

2009-03-12T09:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126986.300-regulate-armed-robots-before-its-too-late.html

Why computer voices still don't sound human.

2009-03-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2212800/pagenum/all/#p2

Did You Know?

2009-02-22T14:55:00.001-08:00

Experts Warn of 'Terminator'-Style Military-Robot Rebellion

2009-02-20T19:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,496309,00.html

The Pentagon’s dream of a techno army is doomed to fail.

2009-02-17T08:45:00.000-08:00

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/02/16-8

Merciless robots will fight future wars: researcher

2009-02-09T22:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.physorg.com/news153049974.html

Peter Singer, who has authored books on the military, warned that while using robots for battle saves lives of military personnel, the move has the potential to exacerbate warfare by having heartless machines do the dirty work.

"We are at a point of revolution in war, like the invention of the atomic bomb," Singer said.

"What does it mean to go to war with US soldiers whose hardware is made in China and whose software is made in India?"

Singer predicts that US military units will be half machine, half human by 2015.

The US Army already recruits soldiers using a custom war videogame, and some real-world weapon controls copy designs of controllers for popular videogame consoles.

Attack drones and bomb-handling robots are already common in battle zones.

Robots not only have no compassion or mercy, they insulate living soldiers from horrors that humans might be moved to avoid.

"The United States is ahead in military robots, but in technology there is no such thing as a permanent advantage," Singer said. "You have Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran working on military robots."

There is a "disturbing" cross between robotics and terrorism, according to Singer, who told of a website that lets visitors detonate improvised explosive devices from home computers.

"You don't have to convince robots they are going to get 72 virgins when they die to get them to blow themselves up," Singer said.

Robots also record everything they see with built-in cameras, generating digital video that routinely gets posted online at YouTube in graphic clips that soldiers refer to as "war porn," according to Singer.

"It turns war into entertainment, sometimes set to music," Singer said. "The ability to watch more but experience less."

Robotics designer David Hanson offered hope when it comes to making robots a little more human.

Hanson builds robots that have synthetic flesh faces and read people's expressions in order to copy expressions.

"The goal here is not just to achieve sentience, but empathy," Hanson said.

"As machines are more capable of killing, implanting empathy could be the seeds of hope for our future."

Hanson demonstrated a lifelike robotic bust of late genius Albert Einstein that makes eye contact and mimics people's expressions.

"I smiled at that thing and jumped out of my skin when it smiled back," TED curator Chris Anderson quipped. "It's freaky."

Google and Nasa back new school for futurists

2009-02-02T23:02:00.000-08:00

Google and Nasa are throwing their weight behind a new school for futurists in Silicon Valley to prepare scientists for an era when machines become cleverer than people.

The new institution, known as “Singularity University”, is to be headed by Ray Kurzweil, whose predictions about the exponential pace of technological change have made him a controversial figure in technology circles.

Google and Nasa’s backing demonstrates the growing mainstream acceptance of Mr Kurzweil’s views, which include a claim that before the middle of this century artificial intelligence will outstrip human beings, ushering in a new era of civilisation.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8b162dfc-f168-11dd-8790-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1

Knowledge, technology can lead to 'Burning'

2009-01-10T05:15:00.000-08:00

http://www.magicvalley.com/articles/2009/01/09/opinion/letters/152461_16.txt

Coming to the Battlefield: Stone-Cold Robot Killers

2009-01-04T04:10:00.001-08:00

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/02/AR2009010202191.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

Creating a nation of zombies

2008-12-31T07:27:00.001-08:00

2008-12-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

Pentagon hires British scientist to help build robot soldiers that 'won't commit war crimes'

The American military is planning to build robot soldiers that will not be able to commit war crimes like their human comrades in arms.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/3536943/Pentagon-hires-British-scientist-to-help-build-robot-soldiers-that-wont-commit-war-crimes.html

Ran Prieur had some interesting thoughts about this in his January 24, 2005 post:

January 24. "Some thoughts on these new robot soldiers. For the moment, they're just remote extentions of human operators. Now, if the human operator sees another human attacking the robot, will he fire on that human? Of course!

Do you see the problem? A human is being killed for attacking a machine. When cops kill people, they always use the excuse that they fear their lives, human lives, are in danger. Now they're trying to slip this one by us, and get us to accept that a machine can kill in "self"-defense, or that a human can be murdered on the spot for attacking a lifeless object. It's as if you take a baseball bat to a port-a-john, and a gun sticks out and shoots you dead, and it's legal. Eventually, the family of a human killed by a robot will take it to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court will have to say, yes, a machine has a right to kill a human, because if they say no, the system will collapse."

2008-11-25T04:47:00.000-08:00

U.S. agency sees robots replacing humans in service jobs by 2025

Robot workers could 'disrupt unskilled labor markets,' federal report says

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9121385&intsrc=hm_list

2008-09-18T05:10:00.000-07:00

Computers figuring out what words mean

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080918073717.xvg33wf1&show_article=1

George Carlin - Modern Man

2008-09-10T18:32:00.001-07:00

2008-08-17T20:55:00.000-07:00

Uncle Sam Wants Your Brain

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/08/uncle-sam-wants.html

I Sing The Body Electric (1/3)

2008-08-15T21:41:00.001-07:00

2008-08-12T21:50:00.001-07:00

Changing the nature of human beings

Single page

This outspoken professor advocates cloning, genetic screening and drugs in sport, writes Jacqueline Maley.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/this-man-advocates-cloning-anddrugs-in-sport/2008/08/09/1218139179842.html

2008-08-12T18:01:00.000-07:00

Virtual creatures and robots take on 'a life of their own'

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/08/11/scirobot111.xml

Remote-controlled humans enhance immersive games

2008-07-25T20:19:00.001-07:00

http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2005/08aug/remotecontroledhuman.html

Conference Examines Man and Machine Merging, How Tech Will Make Human Brain Obsolete

2008-07-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

http://www.dailytech.com/Conference+Examines+Man+and+Machine+Merging+How+Tech+Will+Make+Human+Brain+Obsolete/article12384.htm

Wrassling with Transhumanism

2008-07-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

Transhumanism for me is like a relationship with an obsessive and very neurotic lover. Knowing it is deeply flawed, I have tried several times to break off my engagement, but each time it manages to creep in through the back door of my mind. In How We Became Posthuman,¹I identified an undergirding assumption that makes possible such predictions as Hans Moravec’s transhumanist fantasy that we will soon be able to upload our consciousness into computers and leave our bodies behind. I argued that this scenario depends on a decontextualized and disembodied construction of information. The disembodied information Claude Shannon formalized as a probability function, useful for specific purposes, has been expanded far beyond its original context and inappropriately applied to such phenomena as consciousness.²With this argument, I naively thought that I had dismissed transhumanism once and for all, exposing its misapprehensions to my satisfaction and delivering a decisive blow to its aspirations. But I was wrong. Transhumanism has exponentially more adherents today than it did a decade ago when I made this argument, and its influence is clearly growing rather than diminishing, as this workshop itself testifies:

http://metanexus.net/magazine/tabid/68/id/10543/Default.aspx

The Lonely (1/3)

2008-06-29T19:57:00.001-07:00

In 2050, your lover may be a ... robot

2008-06-16T21:49:00.000-07:00

http://www.physorg.com/news132727834.html

WALL•E Greets Newseum Visitors

2008-06-11T06:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.newseum.org/news/newseum_videos/video.aspx?item=nv_WALL080602&style=f

America's Medicated Army

2008-06-07T20:42:00.000-07:00

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0%2C8599%2C1811858%2C00.html?redux

From Time Magazine:

"Seven months after Sergeant Christopher LeJeune started scouting Baghdad's dangerous roads — acting as bait to lure insurgents into the open so his Army unit could kill them — he found himself growing increasingly despondent. "We'd been doing some heavy missions, and things were starting to bother me," LeJeune says. His unit had been protecting Iraqi police stations targeted by rocket-propelled grenades, hunting down mortars hidden in dark Baghdad basements and cleaning up its own messes. He recalls the order his unit got after a nighttime firefight to roll back out and collect the enemy dead. When LeJeune and his buddies arrived, they discovered that some of the bodies were still alive. "You don't always know who the bad guys are," he says. "When you search someone's house, you have it built up in your mind that these guys are terrorists, but when you go in, there's little bitty tiny shoes and toys on the floor — things like that started affecting me a lot more than I thought they would." "

U.S. Military Gets Newest Kill-Bot

2008-06-05T04:32:00.000-07:00

From Wired Magazine:

The U.S. military's small, but growing, arsenal of armed robots has a new addition. Bot-maker Foster-Miller has shipped the first of its new killer machines to the Defense Department's Combatting Terrorism Technology Support Office.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/06/us-military-get.html#more

Pupils 'will soon be able to download lessons directly into their brains'

2008-06-03T03:41:00.001-07:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1023153/Pupils-soon-able-download-lessons-directly-brains.html

Children will learn by downloading information directly into their brains within 30 years, the head of Britain's top private schools organisation predicted today.

Chris Parry, the new chief executive of the Independent Schools Council, said "Matrix-style" technology would render traditional lessons obsolete.

He told the Times Educational Supplement: "It's a very short route from wireless technology to actually getting the electrical connections in your brain to absorb that knowledge."

2008-05-26T16:57:00.000-07:00

Who’s afraid of a synthetic human?

If we can enhance our species - make it live longer and resist disease - we should do it

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3949986.ece

Could robots take over the world?

2008-05-23T03:14:00.000-07:00

In many ways they already have...

http://thephoenix.com/article_ektid61912.aspx

We All Root for Amputees—Until They Win Medals

2008-05-21T16:57:00.000-07:00

Leg Up

The emerging supremacy of artificial limbs.

http://www.slate.com/id/2191801/

Robot 'conducts' orchestra for first time

2008-05-15T17:18:00.001-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1954704/Robot-%27conducts%27-orchestra-for-first-time.html

Is Technology Ruining Children?

2008-05-12T03:56:00.000-07:00

http://www.rense.com/general81/techh.htm

Technology is moulding a generation of children unable
to think for themselves or empathise with others,
says the leading brain scientist Susan Greenfield.
Is it time to switch off?

By John Cornwell
The Sunday Times - UK
4-30-8

Honda ASIMO Serves coffee DEMO

2008-05-08T06:42:00.001-07:00

New wi-fi devices warn doctors of heart attacks

2008-05-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article3883082.ece

"The Bluetooth wireless technology that allows people to use a hands-free earpiece while making a mobile telephone call could soon alert the emergency services when someone has a heart attack, Ofcom predicts.

The communications regulator said that sensors could be implanted into people at risk of heart attack or diabetic collapse that would allow doctors to monitor them remotely.

If the “in-body network” recorded that the person had suddenly collapsed, it would send an alert, via a nearby base station at their home, to a surgery or hospital.

However, Ofcom also gave warning in its report, Tomorrow’s Wireless World, that the impact of such technology on personal privacy would require more debate."

Dawn of the superhumans?

2008-05-06T06:20:00.000-07:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article3861076.ece

Ethical concerns

extract from Times Online article:

"There are many ethical concerns about enhancement. Most are about fairness, particularly in relation to competitive sport or exams. But there are darker worries. If a brain implant was shown to control mood, could you force a violent criminal to have one? If many had mood-enhancing implants, could someone override their individual controls and thus control them all? And there are always two sides to the many coins in the enhancement debate. For instance, chemicals called ampakines can enhance memory, but some would rather take drugs that prevent rather than enhance memory formation, such as those who work in stressful situations or those who have been subjected to trauma. What if soldiers were forced to take such drugs? "

Real-Life iron man - a robot suit that magnifies human strength

2008-05-04T15:30:00.000-07:00

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=real-life-iron-man-exoskeleton

I, Human

2008-03-30T03:42:00.000-07:00

The Antigonish Review

Antigonish Review # 129

Esther Cameron

I, HUMAN

A Review of Ray Kurzweil's book,
The Age of Spiritual Machines

http://www.antigonishreview.com/bi-129/129-review_article_esther_cameron.html

School Questionare - Creating The Compliant Robot Society

2008-03-30T03:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.rense.com/general81/ques.htm

From Ken Adachi
Editor - Educate-Yourself.org
3-30-8

Man, 81, kills himself with shot from 'suicide robot'

2008-03-20T15:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article3591734.ece

An elderly man has killed himself by programming a robot to shoot him in the head after building the machine from plans downloaded from the internet.

BigDog - BostonDynamics (2008)

2008-03-18T04:33:00.001-07:00

Swarms of Transformer-style robots to be built

2008-03-13T18:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/03/13/scirobot113.xml

Orc Holocaust

2008-03-12T05:37:00.000-07:00

The reprehensible moral universe of Gary Gygax's Dungeons & Dragons.

http://www.slate.com/id/2186203/pagenum/all/#page_start

From Slate.com:

"Here's the narrative arithmetic that Gygax came up with: You come across a family of sleeping orcs, huddled around their overflowing chest of gold coins and magical weapons. Why do orcs and other monsters horde gold when they can't buy anything from the local "shoppes," or share a jug of mead in the tavern, or do anything but gnash their teeth in the darkness and wait for someone to show up and fight them? Who knows, but there they are, and you now have a choice. You can let sleeping orcs lie and get on with the task at hand—saving a damsel, recovering some ancient scepter, whatever. Or you can start slitting throats—after all, mercy doesn't have an experience point value in D&D. It's the kind of atrocity that commits itself."

Wilson!

2008-03-09T21:05:00.000-07:00

http://fallbackbelmont.blogspot.com/2007/05/wilson.html

The most effective way to find and destroy a land mine is to step on it.
This has bad results, of course, if you're a human. But not so much if you're a robot and have as many legs as a centipede sticking out from your body. That's why Mark Tilden, a robotics physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, built something like that. At the Yuma Test Grounds in Arizona, the autonomous robot, 5 feet long and modeled on a stick-insect, strutted out for a live-fire test and worked beautifully, he says. Every time it found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.
Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.
The human in command of the exercise, however -- an Army colonel -- blew a fuse.
The colonel ordered the test stopped.
Why? asked Tilden. What's wrong?
The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine drag itself forward on its last leg.
This test, he charged, was inhumane.

Japanese robots enter daily life

2008-03-02T04:32:00.000-08:00

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/robotics/2008-03-01-robots_N.htm

Japanese are also more accepting of robots because the native Shinto religion often blurs boundaries between the animate and inanimate, experts say. To the Japanese psyche, the idea of a humanoid robot with feelings doesn't feel as creepy — or as threatening — as it might do in other cultures.

Iron Man-Black Sabbath-Lyrics Included

2008-02-29T21:51:00.001-08:00

The Terminal Man

2008-02-25T03:10:00.001-08:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Terminal_Man

Plot summary:

To give perspective, the author gives a timeline of developments in behavior modification. He informs the reader that such active research in behavior modification isn't merely a potential threat in the distant future, he cites examples of how it is occurring now, specifically in regard to trying to curtail psychomotor epilepsy.

Harry Benson, an unimpressive man in his 30s, is a sufferer of psychomotor epilepsy and the character around which the novel centers and derives its name. He often has seizures, periods of blackout, and he then wakes up hours later to unfamiliar surroundings with no knowledge of what he's done. He has severely beaten two people. The book begins with Benson in the third stage of the disorder, and he is a prime candidate for an operation to implant electrodes and minicomputer in his brain to control the seizures. Surgeons Ellis and Morris are to perform the surgery, which is unprecedented for the time.

The ramifications of the procedure are questioned from the beginning, naturally, by psychiatrist Janet Ross, and they are ominously echoed by an emeritus professor named Manon at the lecture about the surgery. Manon raises concerns that Benson is psychotic (pointing to Benson's adamant belief that there is no difference between man and machine) and the crimes he commits during the blackouts won't be curtailed because the operation is anything but a cure for psychomotor epilepsy. Ellis admits that what they are doing isn't a cure but just a way to stimulate the brain when the computer senses a seizure coming on. It would prevent a seizure but not cure his personality disorder. However, it will stop the harm Benson inflicts upon others, so they decide to go through with the operation.

They place a plutonium power pack in his shoulder to power the computer, forty electrodes, and a mini-computer. They give him a dog tag to wear that says to call the University Hospital if he were to be injured, as his atomic power pack might emit radiation. Later, while he's recovering, a woman named Angela Black gives Morris (one of the surgeons who operated on him)a wig for Benson, whose head was shaved prior to the operation. Morris then goes back to his normal work, where he talks to a man who volunteers to have electrodes put into his mind to stimulate pleasure. Morris refuses him, but realizes that people like Benson could potentially become addicts. He recalls a Norweigian man, who was allowed to stimulate himself as much as he wanted, and did so much that it actually gave him brain damage.

McPherson, head of the Neuropsychiatric department, interviews Benson, who is still convinced machines are taking over the world. McPherson realizes Manon and Ross were right and orders nurses to administer thorazine to Benson.

Gerhard, a computer technician, begins testing two computers. The two computers had been programmed with primitive emotions, and a dislike of certain objects, like bananas and cucumbers. They begin to interact with one another and the one that is programmed to be loving is repeatedly asked "Have a cucumber" by the annoying, angry one. After politely declining several times, the nicer one, St.George, replies "GO TO HELL!" which was not programmed at all. Gerhard doesn't think he's malfunctioning, he thinks the computer is actually learning to be angry.

After resting for a day, Benson goes through "interfacing". The forty electrodes in his brain are activated by Gerhard, one by one, to see which ones would stop a seizure. Each produces different results. Only two work, so they are programmed into the mini-computer. One of which, electrode seven, stimulates a sexual pleasure. Ross asks Gerhard to monitor him.

Gerhard shows his findings to Ross, who realizes that the seizures are getting more frequent. She explains that Benson is learning to initiate seizures involuntarily because the result of these seizures is a shock of pleasure, which he likes. This could worsen his condition as it did to the Norwegian, giving him frequent seizures. Ross goes to check on Benson, and upon looking at his record, realizes that nobody had given him thorazine as McPherson ordered. The nurses were told to obey only commands from Morris or Ellis, and when they read the name as "McPhee" instead of McPherson, they thought it was a mistake(as a McPhee did work at the University Hospital, but not in neuropychology). So they didn't give Benson thorazine, which means he is still psychotic and thinks machines will take over the world.

Ross finds out that Benson has escaped from the hospital. She goes to his house, but finds two girls instead who say he has a gun and blueprints for the basement of University Hospital (where the computer mainframe is). Ellis searches at a strip club where Benson, who is fascinated with all things sexual, spends a lot of time. He doesn't find him. Morris goes to his job, and meets Benson's boss who said that Benson feared the University Hospital because of its ultra-modern computer system. The number to the University Hospital is called by Anders, a policeman who found Benson's dogtag. Benson is the suspect of the murder of Angela Black. Ross goes down there, answers some questions, and goes home. Benson arrives at her house, and has a seizure, pinning her to the kitchen counter, strangling her. She reaches out her arm and turns on her microwave, which disrupts the atomic pacemaker in his shoulder. He runs away. Ross goes back to the hospital and goes to sleep.

When Angela Black is brought back to the hospital for autopsy, pathologists find a book of matches that have the name of an airport. Morris goes to this airport, and a bartender says he saw Benson an hour ago leaving with Joe, who took him to the hangar. Morris goes to this hangar and finds Joe severely beaten (Joe later dies). He is in turn beaten by Benson, who flees. Morris will survive but has his mouth wired shut when the ambulance takes him back to the hospital.

Ross, back at the hospital, is awakened by Gerhard. She has a call from Benson. When Anders traces the call he realizes that Benson is inside the hospital. Gerhard's computers begin to malfunction, as if somebody was messing with the mainframe. Anders, a policeman, and Ross go down into the labyrinth-like basement with scores of hallways and rooms that are hard to navigate through. Anders locates Benson and has a brief firefight, injuring and disarming Benson before becoming lost in the maze of corridors. Benson, with blueprints, goes back to the computer room to finish shutting down the computer mainframe and finds Ross. Ross picks up his gun, and after an intense internal struggle finally shoots and kills Benson.

Neurostimulation

2008-02-25T03:00:00.000-08:00

Is it a good idea to drill holes in people's heads to treat them for depression?

http://www.slate.com/id/2184699/nav/tap3/

Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?

2008-02-17T17:09:00.000-08:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/books/14dumb.html?em&ex=1203397200&en=38525b1af4915364&ei=5087%0A

Darpa Offers No Food for Thought

2008-02-12T06:13:00.000-08:00

From Wired Magazine:

"Soldiers' moms will no doubt be horrified. But the Pentagon is looking into ways for GIs to fight for up to five days -- without eating a single meal.

During a mission, soldiers in the field typically don't have the time, or the inclination, to chow down. That lack of food can affect their battlefield performance. So Darpa, the U.S. military's far-out research arm, wants scientists to figure out if soldiers can operate at top levels -- without lunch breaks.

"The question is: 'Are there temporary biochemical approaches we can use to squeeze the last ounce of performance out of soldiers when they're already worked to exhaustion?'" said a Darpa life sciences consultant, who asked not to be named.

The agency has a couple of ideas on how this might be done: A cocktail of nutrients or so-called "nutraceuticals" could help build endurance. Lowering soldiers' core body temperature might keep them from overheating. Or, perhaps, the change could be made at the microscopic level, by turbo-charging mitochondria -- the cell's energy suppliers."

article continues...

http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2004/02/62297

Plastic Fantastic Lover Lyrics

2008-02-08T16:44:00.000-08:00

Her neon mouth with the blinkers-off smile
Nothing but an electric sign
You could say she has an individual style
She's part of a colourful time

Secrecy of lady-chrome-covered clothes
You wear cause you have no other
But I suppose no one knows
You're my plastic fantastic lover

Her rattlin' cough never shuts off
Is nothin' but a used machine
Her aluminium finish, slightly diminished
Is the best I ever have seen

Cosmetic baby plugged into me
I'd never ever find another
I realize no one's wise
To my plastic fantastic lover

The electrical dust is starting to rust
Her trapezoid thermometer taste
All the red tape is mechanical rape
Of the TV program waste

Data control and IBM
Science is mankind's brother
But all I see is dranin' me
On my plastic fantastic lover

Jefferson Airplane - Plastic Fantastic Lover

2008-02-08T16:42:00.001-08:00

Shape-shifting robot forms from magnetic swarm

2008-02-06T06:56:00.001-08:00

Microchip Implants, Mind Control, and Cybernetics

2008-01-26T10:16:00.000-08:00

http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/microchip_implants_mind_control.htm

- by Rauni-Leena Luukanen-Kilde, MD Former Chief Medical Officer of Finland December 6, 2000

In 1948 Norbert Weiner published a book, Cybernetics, defined as a neurological communication and control theory already in use in small circles at that time. Yoneji Masuda, "Father of the Information Society," stated his concern in 1980 that our liberty is threatened Orwellian-style by cybernetic technology totally unknown to most people. This technology links the brains of people via implanted microchips to satellites controlled by ground-based supercomputers.

The Unburdened Mind

2008-01-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=936#more-936

Dead Souls: The Pentagon Plan to Create Remorseless "Warfighters"

2008-01-20T09:29:00.000-08:00

http://www.chris-floyd.com/Articles/Articles/Dead_Souls:_The_Pentagon_Plan_to_Create_Remorseless_%22Warfighters%22/

Written by Chris Floyd
Friday, 11 January 2008
Penny Coleman at Alternet.com gives us a look at a new program designed to dull the moral sensibilities of American soldiers in combat on the imperial frontiers: Pentagon, Big Pharma: Drug Troops to Numb Them to Horrors of War. But as we'll see below, this attempt to peddle magic pills to chase away the horrors of war is just one front in a long-term, wide-ranging "warfighter enhancement program" -- including the neurological and genetic re-engineering of soldiers' minds and bodies to create what the Pentagon calls "iron bodied and iron willed personnel": tireless, relentless, remorseless, unstoppable.

Life-Long Loving with a Sexbot

2008-01-16T21:04:00.000-08:00

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0%2C1518%2C522919%2C00.html

"Sexbots have been around forever, but they are getting smarter all the time. David Levy, an artificial intelligence expert, sees a future when people will prefer robots to humans. They will offer, he says, better sex and better relationships.

Andy, whose measurements are 101-56-86 centimeters (40-22-34 inches), has what many men want in a woman: "unlimited patience." At least that's what the manufacturer, a company called First Androids based in Neumarkt near the southern German city of Nürnberg, promises. Andy also comes with options, including a "blowjob system, with adjustable levels," a "tangible pulse," "rotating hip motion" and a "heating system with adjustable controls" to raise the body temperature."

With friends like these ...

2008-01-15T04:59:00.001-08:00

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook

Facebook has 59 million users - and 2 million new ones join each week. But you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site