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Robot Round-Up

This super-realistic robotic head is capable of exhibiting a wide range of human emotions.
The latest creation of British robotics company Engineered Arts, this unnerving facsimile of a human male achieves what is often referred to as 'uncanny valley' given that it looks eerily close to being a real human but it is possible to tell that something isn't quite right about it.

Named Adrian and described as a 'mesmer robot head', this fascinating contraption is shown 'waking up' in a new video before pulling a range of facial expressions.

Its realism is helped along by incredibly life-like skin which even features stubble and eyebrows.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.c...robotic-head-is-like-ash-from-the-movie-alien

 
From what we've been hearing this week, the "useful things" governments think robots can do are basically blowing things up and killing people. Do you need a face to do that?
 
A Georgia Tech project is interweaving robotics, music, and dance to create joint human / robot performances and learn how more fluid interactions might promote greater human trust in robots.
Want to Get Humans to Trust Robots? Let Them Dance

A dancer shrouded in shades of blue rises to her feet and steps forward on stage. Under a spotlight, she gazes at her partner: a tall, sleek robotic arm. As they dance together, the machine’s fluid movements make it seem less stereotypically robotic—and, researchers hope, more trustworthy.

“When a human moves one joint, it isn’t the only thing that moves. The rest of our body follows along,” says Amit Rogel, a music technology graduate researcher at Georgia Institute of Technology. “There’s this slight continuity that almost all animals have, and this is really what makes us feel human in our movements.” Rogel programmed this subtle follow-through into robotic arms to help create FOREST, a performance collaboration between researchers at Georgia Tech, dancers at Kennesaw State University and a group of robots. The project premiered last month, and was performed in concert last week.

The goal is not only to create a memorable performance, but to put into practice what the researchers have learned about building trust between humans and robots. ...
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FULL STORY (With Video): https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/want-to-get-humans-to-trust-robots-let-them-dance/
 
INT21 said:
The thing to remember about the Luddites, is that they were correct.

The job losses they predicted came to pass.

And we see it every day.
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Putting the Luddites on context.

From 1811-1816, a secret society styling themselves “the Luddites” smashed textile machinery in the mills of England. Today, we use “Luddite” as a pejorative referring to backwards, anti-technology reactionaries.

This proves that history really is written by the winners.

In truth, the Luddites’ cause wasn’t the destruction of technology – no more than the Boston Tea Party’s cause was the elimination of tea, or Al Qaeda’s cause was the end of civilian aviation. Smashing looms and stocking frames was the Luddites’ tactic, not their goal.

In truth, their goal was something closely related to science fiction: to challenge not the technology itself, but rather the social relations that governed its use.

The critique of Luddism as anti-technology is as shallow a reading of the Luddites as the critique of science fiction as nothing more than speculation about the design of gadgets of varying degrees of plausibility.

In truth, Luddism and science fiction concern themselves with the same questions: not merely what the technology does, but who it does it for and who it does it to.

The Luddites were textile workers – skilled tradespeople who enjoyed comfortable lifestyles because they commanded a hefty portion of the money generated by the product of their labor. What’s more, it took a lot of labor to weave fabric, and as a result, cloth was incredibly expensive, as were clothes, naturally.

The advent of textile automation upended everything. It didn’t just reduce the amount of labor that went into a yard of cloth – it also created unprecedented demand for wool (leading to the mass eviction of the tenant farmers to make way for sheep) and cotton (supercharging global slavery).

https://locusmag.com/2022/01/cory-doctorow-science-fiction-is-a-luddite-literature/
 
A longer piece about Ameca.
Very good.
Also a bit 'uncanny valley'.
 
Clearly, a great deal of hard work, brainpower, and expense has gone into Ameca. If I may be allowed to ask, "What is the point?"

If the goal is to create a humanoid robot that is indistinguishable from a human being, why? To what constructive purpose would such a thing be put? Seriously, I would like for someone to tell me what you could do with the thing, for other than nefarious ends.

It makes my hackles rise . . .
 
Frasier Buddolph said:
Clearly, a great deal of hard work, brainpower, and expense has gone into Ameca. If I may be allowed to ask, "What is the point?"

If the goal is to create a humanoid robot that is indistinguishable from a human being, why? To what constructive purpose would such a thing be put? Seriously, I would like for someone to tell me what you could do with the thing, for other than nefarious ends.

It makes my hackles rise . . .
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Replacement of the masses, servants of the powerful elite.
 
Frasier Buddolph said:
Clearly, a great deal of hard work, brainpower, and expense has gone into Ameca. If I may be allowed to ask, "What is the point?"

If the goal is to create a humanoid robot that is indistinguishable from a human being, why? To what constructive purpose would such a thing be put? Seriously, I would like for someone to tell me what you could do with the thing, for other than nefarious ends. ...
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The only current and prospective justification would be animatronic entertainment for the affluent.

The incorporation of mechanisms and capabilities to mimic subtleties of human appearance and behavior can only be done at the expense of omitting mechanisms and capabilities to accomplish other things (e.g., walk; perform useful tasks).
 
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Mythopoeika said:
Replacement of the masses, servants of the powerful elite.
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On the nose, Myth. (heh, see what I did there?) I think that's the direction that this trend points. While I am anything but a believer in the nobility and divinity of humanity, I see this as eventually devaluing human beings to the status of machine parts. The days of Western liberalism are numbered, folks.
 
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OK as long as it doesn't start walking like a competitive hiker.

In 2020, researchers at ETH Zürich introduced the world to a four-legged robot named ANYmal that could traverse a variety of environments without slipping. The machine relied solely on proprioception—awareness of its body position—to navigate these complex terrains. ANYmal couldn’t actually see its surroundings, however, which limited how fast it could move.

This year, the same researchers gave ANYmal “eyes”—depth sensors that allow it to take in its surroundings. The robot could create a height map of its environment to plan and adapt to its terrain. But the sensors were not always accurate: Soft, unstable surfaces, such as vegetation or snow, appeared as solid obstacles the robot could not walk over.

To overcome this problem, the researchers trained ANYmal to rely solely on its proprioceptive perception when it was at odds with its height map. After integrating these senses, this iteration of the robot could move twice as fast as its predecessor, and about as fast as an average human’s walking speed, researchers report today in Science Robotics. Watch the video above to see ANYmal in action—from the mountains of Switzerland to an underground tunnel.

https://www.science.org/content/article/robot-can-hike-fast-human
 
The robots are becoming self-aware!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-60084347

Robot vacuum cleaner escapes from Cambridge Travelodge

A robot vacuum cleaner made a break for freedom after giving staff the slip at a Travelodge hotel.

The automated cleaner failed to stop at the front door of the hotel in Orchard Park in Cambridge on Thursday, and was still on the loose the following day.

Staff said it just kept going and "could be anywhere" while well-wishers on social media hoped the vacuum enjoyed its travels, as "it has no natural predators" in the wild.

It was found under a hedge on Friday.
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Robot dog barks COVID safety instructions in China ​


A robot dog carrying a loudspeaker broadcasted pandemic safety measures in a residential community in eastern China.

robot-dog-china-1.jpg



Video filmed in Shanghai City on March 29 shows the robot dog carrying a loudspeaker broadcasting messages on how to keep safe during the pandemic.


The robodog was heard telling residents to “wear a mask, wash hands frequently, check temperature” and more safety instructions.

A resident sunbathing nearby said he thought it was a drone but later realized it was a robot dog. He felt it was very fancy as he has never seen it before.

https://nypost.com/2022/03/30/robot-dog-with-loudspeaker-barks-covid-instructions-in-china/

maximus otter
 
Now they have to persuade a volunteer to swallow a thing that looks like a poo.
 
Would it be effective at tasting/detecting poison though?

A robot has been trained to "taste" food at different stages of the chewing process to check if it is salty enough, in a way similar to humans.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge said it could help in automated food preparation. The robot had already been trained to make omelettes and tasted scrambled eggs and tomatoes.The paper's co-author Dr Arsen Abdulali, said it could make the robots "better cooks".

According to the research, the robot tasted nine different variations of scrambled eggs and tomatoes at three different stages of the chewing process. In order to imitate the change in texture caused by chewing, the team put the egg mixture in a blender and had the robot test the dish.

To imitate tasting in their robot chef, researchers attached a probe - which acts like a saltiness sensor - to a robot arm. Using the probe, the robot "tasted" the dishes in a grid-like fashion, returning a reading in just a few seconds. It then produced taste maps of the different dishes.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-61313767
 
Mythopoeika said:
Now they have to persuade a volunteer to swallow a thing that looks like a poo.
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Nah, endoscopes can already remove polyps/grab tissue samples from inside the body, deploy needles for tattooing* or injecting, and spritz water to clear minor obstructions/debris, so maybe this can be added to their repertoire.

*I have observed this process being performed on my own innards!
 
Am I missing something, but what is the point of internal tattoos????
 
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