Robot Round-Up

[Mythopoeika]

I've worked in technology for most of my life, designing electronics and working on and with computers for most of that time, from VAXs to 286's (cia CPC128's) and even today's sealed of visual interfaces, and have travelled large parts of the globe to provide detailed technical support for people who sometimes din't speak any more English than I did their native tongue. Having considered your question with some care my advice is:

Take it out back and smash it with a hammer.

I'd second that!
Excellent advice.
It's a spy in your house.

 

[Nemo]

I wonder if the 3 Laws of Robotics could used against these spies? :tfoil:

 

[Swifty]

The Peperami Sausage Robot

 

[MrRING]

Robot Lilliput - early robot toy

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

Anyone seen the robot swan (well OK swan automaton, but robot swan sounds better) at Bowes Museum? They wind it up just once a day at 2PM. It was made in the early 1770s. It is eerie.

 

[David Plankton]

Anyone seen the robot swan (well OK swan automaton, but robot swan sounds better) at Bowes Museum? They wind it up just once a day at 2PM. It was made in the early 1770s. It is eerie.

Yes, I have. It gathers quite a crowd.

I think it was recently dismantled for maintenance. I go to the Bowes often.

 

[Ghost In The Machine]

We went for the first time last month. We drive past all the time to visit son at uni - if I'd known about the robo-swan, I'd have gone years ago!

 

[AlchoPwn]

And by the way, the Daleks weren't that scary... Now Metal Mickey, that's scary

You go fruitbat!

The day we have andriods that behave just like us is a day I don't want to see. Sometimes it is hard enough for me to try and be human so who only knows what it will be like if my best friend is an andriod trying to be human too. Although what am I saying, I AM NEVER GOING TO BE FRIENDS WITH AN ANDROID, NEVER! lucydru

It's bigoted behavior like that which leads to Terminator style robot uprisings. Robots have algorithms that mimic emotions too you know? Artificial Intelligences need to be raised and programmed with love and care so they become productive virtual members of our society. Like kids, if you love them and raise them well, they won't put you in a nursing home. There is no reason why AI won't help us produce a lovely society like Ian M. Banks' Culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture rather than a disaster scenario like the Terminator series.

I actually have a robot phobia (does anyone know the proper name for it?). This, rather embarrassingly, extends to being frightened of people dressed up as teletubbies in the street.
I could never go shopping in Tokyo without several pairs of clean pants.

Thanks for that beakaboo1. While I admit I chuckled on reading this admission, if you are serious about this being a problem, you may be pleased to hear that Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is super effective at helping people shed phobias such as this. In the meantime, more hot robot chics for me I guess?

You know, there are already University Professors who are warning us about the dangers of AI. Professor Kevin J Warwick of Reading University is the first human cyborg, but he says that "once we turn it on, we will never get a chance to turn it off".

For a cyborg, that guy is one self-hating N word. I never disrespect my robot ladies, so once I turn them on, they're never turned off. Know what I'm sayin' ?

 

[EnolaGaia]

I actually have a robot phobia (does anyone know the proper name for it?). ...

The term 'robophobia' has often been used to refer to a fear of robots, AI, and / or other types of autonomous machines. However, I don't know whether this has become a recognized term in medical / psychological fields.

 

[ramonmercado]

The term 'robophobia' has often been used to refer to a fear of robots, AI, and / or other types of autonomous machines. However, I don't know whether this has become a recognized term in medical / psychological fields.

I think I will now invent a new type of SJW on Twitter & FB, I will accuse people of being Robophobes!

 

[AlchoPwn]

I think I will now invent a new type of SJW on Twitter & FB, I will accuse people of being Robophobes!

I am already outraged at those morally bankrupt robophobes

 

[Swifty]

Boston Dynamics latest robot has good manners

 

[ramonmercado]

Boston Dynamics latest robot has good manners

We're doomed, Black Mirror come to life.

 

[Dr_Baltar]

We're doomed, Black Mirror come to life.

First there was the pig-fucking...it's all coming true!!!

 

[Swifty]

And to think SKODA cars used to be a running joke yet here's their modern robot factory today (actually, they're still are a bit crap anyway) ...

 

[ramonmercado]

THey will go rogue and saw/hammer their owners to death.

A robot wood-working team is making carpentry as easy as falling off a log.

Jeffrey Lipton at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was inspired to make robots that keep hands away from blades because of a colleague. He used to work as a carpenter’s apprentice under a man who had accidentally cut off each of his thumbs with a saw. Twice.

Lipton and his colleagues at MIT have created a system where users can customise their own designs for anything from a table to a shed. A team of robots cuts out all the parts, and the user puts it together from automatically generated instructions. It is flat-pack furniture, but custom-made.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2162180-robots-armed-with-saws-make-custom-flat-pack-furniture/

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Lipton and his colleagues at MIT have created a system where users can customise their own designs for anything from a table to a shed. A team of robots cuts out all the parts, and the user puts it together from automatically generated instructions. It is flat-pack furniture, but custom-made. ...

It's the other end of the supply chain that could really use some AI or robotic support ....

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[Mythopoeika]

View attachment 8657​

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Taking the Micke, I see!

 

[Nils Meijer]

I was looking for some posts on the 'avatar-course', browsing the web for about anything related to harry palmer, when I found this one! man, what a crappy cult, really stressed-out members trying to pay their way to enlightenment, I thought this would be a huge chance to find some 'suicidal' former members that had escaped just in time or some other dark secrets, but no luck yet..

 

[ramonmercado]

Monks give final bow (wow) in funeral ceremony for dogs. Vid and more images at link.

Japanese monks hosted a 'funeral' for old robot dogs

Funerals are often reserved for the living but in Japan, some 114 of Sony's old generation AIBO robot dogs — the world's first machine pet capable of developing its own personality — were sent off to dog nirvana.

https://twitter.com/i/moments/991477973546024962

 

[Mythopoeika]

Monks give final bow (wow) in funeral ceremony for dogs. Vid and more images at link.

Japanese monks hosted a 'funeral' for old robot dogs

Funerals are often reserved for the living but in Japan, some 114 of Sony's old generation AIBO robot dogs — the world's first machine pet capable of developing its own personality — were sent off to dog nirvana.

https://twitter.com/i/moments/991477973546024962

Another 'spot the difference' from Ramon.

 

[ramonmercado]

Another 'spot the difference' from Ramon.

I don't know why the images are double posting.

 

[hunck]

The latest Boston Dynamics robot jogging in the park

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[Waymarker]

Women get the hardware!
Up until now, it looked like women would be missing out on the exciting opportunity to make love to the cold, lifeless bodies of machines.
But don’t despair, ladies – RealDoll (maker of those alarming plastic sexbots for men) is making one for women too.

Just to digress, Data in Star Trek once said that he and Tasha Yar were "intimate", and if that means what I think it means it raises all sorts of interesting questions such as did he wear a condom?..

 

[Mythopoeika]

Just to digress, Data in Star Trek once said that he and Tasha Yar were "intimate", and if that means what I think it means it raises all sorts of interesting questions such as did he wear a condom?..

Data is "fully functional and is programmed in many techniques". So I reckon they could get a condom out of a replicator machine.

 

[Waymarker]

Another thing- Could FT members ever willingly take orders from a robot?
I have in mind the Star Trek episode where Data is captain of the Enterprise in Picard's absence, and Worf grumbles about it, so Data takes him aside and quietly tells him not to undermine his authority by questioning his orders in future.
Worf then goes into grovelling apology mode and says "I hope we can still be friends."
Oh Worf, where's your backbone? In your place I'd have told Data straight out that I could never regard a tin man as my captain, and that as soon as Picard gets back I'm going to request a transfer to another ship that hopefully doesn't have any tin men aboard..

 

[Waymarker]

Data is "fully functional and is programmed in many techniques". So I reckon they could get a condom out of a replicator machine.

Yeah and personally if I wanted a woman I'd create a "Dr Quinn Medicine Woman" holodeck programme where I stagger into her surgery with a rattler bite to my calf and she has to suck out the venom, then sit up with me all night as I toss and turn in delirium, dabbing my brow with a damp cloth til the fever breaks while whispering in my ear "Hang in there baby, don't you dare go dying on me, we'll ride this out together".
Oops sorry was I rambling?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Another thing- Could FT members ever willingly take orders from a robot?
I have in mind the Star Trek episode where Data is captain of the Enterprise in Picard's absence, and Worf grumbles about it, so Data takes him aside and quietly tells him not to undermine his authority by questioning his orders in future.
Worf then goes into grovelling apology mode and says "I hope we can still be friends."
Oh Worf, where's your backbone? In your place I'd have told Data straight out that I could never regard a tin man as my captain, and that as soon as Picard gets back I'm going to request a transfer to another ship that hopefully doesn't have any tin men aboard..

In the future, when real AI comes into being, this may become a moral question of the day. Will humans acknowledge AIs as lifeforms?

 

[Waymarker]

In the future, when real AI comes into being, this may become a moral question of the day. Will humans acknowledge AIs as lifeforms?

Yes there was a storyline about it in another ST episode where thousands of microscopic "nanobots" inadvertently infect the ships computer and systems, so a visiting scientist starts zapping them with rays to save the ship, but Picard goes into "wimp" mode and stops him by saying something like "We don't have the right to kill them if they're a race of living sentient beings".
Personally I'd have told the guy to keep zapping away til all the little buggers are dead.
PS- Picard's "solution" was to communicate with the things to point out the error of their ways which luckily made them see sense and saved the day.

 

[Anome]

Just to digress, Data in Star Trek once said that he and Tasha Yar were "intimate", and if that means what I think it means it raises all sorts of interesting questions such as did he wear a condom?..

I seem to recall a scene that ended with her climbing on top of him as the door closed. It was pretty clear what was going on.

And then there's the deleted scene from Generations where he "negotiates" with the Klingon sisters (nothing explicit, but it's pointed out how violent Klingon sex is known to be, and afterwards his arm falls off). I believe it was cut due to the comedic nature not really fitting with the rest of the film.