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The robots are coming

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Sand
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24 Aug 2009, 1:42 am

This video is an indication that humans are rapidly becoming obsolete in industrial processing.

http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/h ... nipulation



Fuzzy
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24 Aug 2009, 2:39 am

I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.


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ruveyn
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24 Aug 2009, 2:43 am

Sand wrote:
This video is an indication that humans are rapidly becoming obsolete in industrial processing.

http://www.hizook.com/blog/2009/08/03/h ... nipulation


Humans decide what is to be produced, in what quantity and humans decide how the produced items are to be marketed. In addition, the things produced by machines are (by and large) invented and designed by humans.

Those industrial robots are the tools of humans.

It is also a good thing that these machines are doing the dull repetitive routine work, rather than humans, who can (and should) be doing stuff that machines cannot do. Also machines are doing stuff that are dangerous and often fatal for humans to do. A good example is the rotary TBM which can drill 30 feet of 20 foot diameter hard rock tunnel a day, which is ten to a hundred times faster (and better) than a crew of humans armed with explosives and pick-axes. That rate of fatality in tunnel projects has been reduced to nearly zero.

Machines do it faster, better and cheaper than humans. That is good for humans and good for the people who own and deploy the machines. Automation is progress.

PS: Consider the term computer. The term computer once meant a human being who did long sequences of nearly mindless calculation. Result: the calculations are done faster, better and more accurately by machine. Kepler spent eight long years getting a decent fit (ellipse) to the ephemeris of Mars potted out by Tycho. If he had a mechanical or electronic computer he could have done it in a week.

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ruveyn
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24 Aug 2009, 2:46 am

Fuzzy wrote:
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.


They are not overlords. They are slaves.

Finally and at last, tireless workers that can be exploited without committing moral outrages. By the way: "Robot" is derived from the Slavic root word meaning worker.

Arise, ye Robots of the world!

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Fuzzy
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24 Aug 2009, 3:05 am

ruveyn wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.


They are not overlords. They are slaves.


Read this to understand the joke.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Brockman#Idiom

Quote:
Arise, ye Robots of the world!


Agreed.


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Sand
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24 Aug 2009, 3:06 am

One of the most rapidly advancing robot technologies is with the military and the term "suicide bomber" may become rapidly obsolete when a robot can undertake that job. The current US drone assassins are a mild foretaste of what the CIA may nab for their nasty purposes. Asimov's laws about robots protecting humans seems to be becoming obsolete even before proper humanoid robots attain reality.



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24 Aug 2009, 3:13 am

Sand wrote:
One of the most rapidly advancing robot technologies is with the military and the term "suicide bomber" may become rapidly obsolete when a robot can undertake that job. The current US drone assassins are a mild foretaste of what the CIA may nab for their nasty purposes. Asimov's laws about robots protecting humans seems to be becoming obsolete even before proper humanoid robots attain reality.


Anyone who sends in a man to do what a machine can do better is either stupid or a criminal.

It just occurred to me to ask, if a Muslim robot assassin gets seventy virgin robots to clank around with when it reaches Paradise.

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Sand
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24 Aug 2009, 3:35 am

ruveyn wrote:
Sand wrote:
One of the most rapidly advancing robot technologies is with the military and the term "suicide bomber" may become rapidly obsolete when a robot can undertake that job. The current US drone assassins are a mild foretaste of what the CIA may nab for their nasty purposes. Asimov's laws about robots protecting humans seems to be becoming obsolete even before proper humanoid robots attain reality.


Anyone who sends in a man to do what a machine can do better is either stupid or a criminal.

It just occurred to me to ask, if a Muslim robot assassin gets seventy virgin robots to clank around with when it reaches Paradise.

ruveyn


The way assassin robots will be going they won't clank. They'll look like pretty little children or seductive blonds or soldiers or dogs or birds.



greenblue
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24 Aug 2009, 3:43 am

ruveyn wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.


They are not overlords. They are slaves.

This doesn't look much like a slave...........
Image


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Sand
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24 Aug 2009, 3:54 am

greenblue wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.


They are not overlords. They are slaves.

This doesn't look much like a slave...........
Image


If that's a war machine it has the teeth of a human so it can't bite very effectively.



ruveyn
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24 Aug 2009, 7:54 am

greenblue wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Fuzzy wrote:
I for one, welcome our new robot overlords.


They are not overlords. They are slaves.

This doesn't look much like a slave...........
Image


That is because that thing is a CGI artifact and never existed in moving working form in the real world. Terminator class androids are purely imaginary. The robot technology is nowhere close to that.

That is not what industrial robots looks like. The overwhelming vast majority of robotic equipment is for industry and process control. The anthropoid robot is primarily a prop used in sci fi motion pictures. To this day, we do not have good walking machines. We also do not have machines that throw and look like people at the same time. Pitching machines are ballistic devices and one cannot mistake a pitching machine for a pitcher.

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24 Aug 2009, 10:34 am

Heh Ruveyn, you might want to check what the Japanese neighbours are doing. They're pretty bent on making humanoid robots since they totally refuse to resort to immigration in order to compensate for the lack of hired hands. =/

This includes and is not limited to : robots that take care of old sick people (such chores as moving them around or disposing of their waste), humanoid robots that can act as dummy in the fashion world (it even "speaks", or rather "advertises" the clothes it's wearing, inviting people to come inside to make a purchase).



ruveyn
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24 Aug 2009, 10:43 am

phil777 wrote:
Heh Ruveyn, you might want to check what the Japanese neighbours are doing. They're pretty bent on making humanoid robots since they totally refuse to resort to immigration in order to compensate for the lack of hired hands. =/

.


Neither here nor there. These robots are only crudely humanoid. For starters they can't think, so they are not very good imitation humans. I have no doubt a mechanical hand with good articulation can be invented. That is no more humanoid than an articulated artificial leg, a prosthetic. Useful, but it is not a terminator class android.

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24 Aug 2009, 10:50 am

Now, i never said it would be a Terminator-class android. Androids will likely come within the next 100 years to come, if we're that lucky.



Sand
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24 Aug 2009, 11:21 am

ruveyn wrote:
phil777 wrote:
Heh Ruveyn, you might want to check what the Japanese neighbours are doing. They're pretty bent on making humanoid robots since they totally refuse to resort to immigration in order to compensate for the lack of hired hands. =/

.


Neither here nor there. These robots are only crudely humanoid. For starters they can't think, so they are not very good imitation humans. I have no doubt a mechanical hand with good articulation can be invented. That is no more humanoid than an articulated artificial leg, a prosthetic. Useful, but it is not a terminator class android.

ruveyn


Come, come, now, ruveyn. Can you look at the state of human civilization today and still claim thinking is a common human characteristic?



ruveyn
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24 Aug 2009, 12:27 pm

Sand wrote:

Come, come, now, ruveyn. Can you look at the state of human civilization today and still claim thinking is a common human characteristic?


Yes. We are all of the same species. The baddest, smartest primates on the planet. We all can talk, we all can think. It is just that not all of us think right and good thoughts.

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