Jun 06

Researchers develop a robot that reads your intentions, says you’re ‘thick’

Posted in: RobotApocalypse, Today's Chili

Robots won’t be able to wrest control of the planet from us silly humans until they learn how to collaborate. Sure, they can mow the lawn or mix a drink, but only when you give ’em explicit instructions. Luckily for our future robot overlords, The EU’s JAST project is studying the ways that humans work together, in the hope that it can someday teach robots to anticipate the actions and intentions of a human partner. “In our experiments the robot is not observing to learn a task,” explains Wolfram Erlhagen from the University of Minho. “The JAST robots already know the task, but they observe behavior, map it against the task, and quickly learn to anticipate [partner actions] or spot errors when the partner does not follow the correct or expected procedure.” This bad boy has a neural architecture that mimics what happens when two people interact, and the video below shows the rather melancholy automaton trying to convince his human partner to pick up the right pieces to complete a simple task. Watch it in action after the break.

Continue reading Researchers develop a robot that reads your intentions, says you’re ‘thick’

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Researchers develop a robot that reads your intentions, says you’re ‘thick’ originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 06 Jun 2009 07:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Jun 01

Preyro robot experiment could enable robots to better mimic animals, kill us all

Posted in: research, robot, RobotApocalypse, Robots, science, Today's Chili

It’s kind of strange, really, how we can see just how near the end is, yet these so-called geniuses employed within the realm of academia are totally oblivious to their own evil deeds. Take cognitive science professor John Long, for instance, who is currently conducting a Preyro robot experiment in a Vassar College lab that intends to “allow robots to mimic animals far better than before.” To him, he’s just hoping to study evolutionary patterns in order to better understand how certain tweaks to things like fins and tails affect performance in the place we call reality. Though, there’s a very real possibility that this research could accelerate the impending robot apocalypse by at least a score. Oh, what we’d give to be incognizant of the truth.

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Preyro robot experiment could enable robots to better mimic animals, kill us all originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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May 21

Philosopher ponders the implications of robot warfare, life with a degree in philosophy

Posted in: robot, RobotApocalypse, Robots, Today's Chili

H+, our favorite transhumanist magazine, has just published a chat with Peter Asaro, the author of a paper titled “How Just Could a Robot War Be?” In this interview (co-authored by our old friend R.U. Sirius) the gentleman from Rutgers explores the philosophical implications of things like robot civil war, robots and just war theory, and the possibilities of installing some sort of “moral agency” in the killer machines that our military increasingly relies on. But that ain’t all — the big thinkers also discuss the benefits of programming automatons to disobey (certain) orders, drop science on a certain Immanuel Kant, and more. We know you’ve been dying to explore the categorical imperative as it relates to the robot apocalypse — so hit that read link to get the party started!

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Philosopher ponders the implications of robot warfare, life with a degree in philosophy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 21 May 2009 11:07:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 12

Brown University, DARPA give iRobot’s PackBot autonomy

Posted in: military, RobotApocalypse, Today's Chili

It’s not easy to find research in the field of robotics without military applications (or military funding), and Brown University’s latest is certainly no exception. Starting out with iRobot’s PackBot (and some pocket change from DARPA and the Office of Naval Intelligence) researchers at the school have achieved several advances that will someday produce robots that follow both verbal and nonverbal commands from a human operator, indoors and out, without the need for a controlled environment or special clothing. The goal, according to Chad Jenkins, is to develop a robot that acts “like a partner. You don’t want to puppeteer the robot. You supervise it, ‘Here’s your job. Now, go do it.'” The work is being presented this week at the Human-Robot Interaction conference in San Diego, but if you can’t make it we’ve provided a video of the thing in action just for you (after the break). We for one salute our autonomous robot overlords.

[Via PhysOrg]

Continue reading Brown University, DARPA give iRobot’s PackBot autonomy

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Brown University, DARPA give iRobot’s PackBot autonomy originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Mar 2009 04:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mar 02

Pyuuun palm-sized robot keeps tabs on you, delivers beverages

Posted in: RobotApocalypse, Today's Chili

If Hans Moravec of the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University is right, we only have a good twenty to thirty years left before robots evolve into a new type of artificial species. As we wait for the inevitable robot apocalypse, we’ve already begun to see lots of little robotic guys pop into our lives, whether they’re sweeping the floor, giving us something to hug, or bringing us a cup of tea. In addition to its miniature waitstaff ability, Pyuuun, Robo-Engine’s “LifeLog Robot,” is equipped with eight sensors (including brightness, movement, collision, sound, distance, temperature, slope and infrared) and can be programmed to monitor an area, collecting various data (such as keeping an eye on a temperature-sensitive workspace) and reporting back to you (or your robot overlords) via WiFi. With a 12-volt battery that promises six hours of use on a single charge, the utility of this bad boy is only limited by your imagination — and its ￥300,000 (about $3,090) price tag. Video after the break.

Continue reading Pyuuun palm-sized robot keeps tabs on you, delivers beverages

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Pyuuun palm-sized robot keeps tabs on you, delivers beverages originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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