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Disruptions: Dining With Robots in Silicon Valley
Millions of people watched a robot descend last week on Mars, about 154 million miles away, while it shared video, photos and status updates from its own Twitter account.
I had my own encounter with a robot last week. I had dinner with one — right here in Silicon Valley.
The dinner was at Willow Garage, a robotics company in Menlo Park, and was intended to introduce some reporters to the robots the company is building.
The main attraction was the PR2, which can pick things up, fold laundry, open doors and bring cups, plates and other small objects to people. The PR2 is pretty stunning to see in action. Its price, $400,000 for the fully functional version, is pretty stunning, too. And although it is impressive to watch, it is still easily baffled by the mundane.
At the dinner, one of the PR2s dropped a soda can on the floor and just stood there, befuddled. It couldn’t figure out what had happened to the can. It was as if it had just performed a wonderful magic trick on itself.
It is hard to know how many robots are in use today because roboticists disagree on what a robot is. Must it have arms, or artificial intelligence, or facial recognition? The earliest definition of the word, which comes from the Czech word robota, means “forced labor,” or “slave.”
Robotics companies give various estimates for the numbers of robots in use. Whatever the numbers, people like Steve Cousins, Willow Garage’s president and chief executive, think robots will become a lot more mainstream in the not-too-distant future.
They point to the Roomba and other robots made by iRobot, which the company says are already cleaning floors, pools and gutters in more than eight million homes and offices. The United States Army has robots todisarm bombs on the battlefield. And an intimidating robot, Big Dog, made by Boston Dynamics, is being built to replace some soldiers in battle.
Roboticists say the price of these machines will begin to drop sharply, which, in turn, will make the use of robots in homes and offices more widespread.
Mr. Cousins said he believed the next wave of robots to enter — or invade — the home and work force would be telepresence robots. These machines have a built-in screen and camera and are essentially mobile video-chatting terminals that can be controlled from thousands of miles away.
Soon, Mr. Cousins said, these gadgets will be given more functional bodies, including arms, so they can interact in a physical space.
“Today’s telepresence robots let you be somewhere,” he said. “When you add arms to these things, they will let you act somewhere, too.”
He added, “I think these robots are going to be huge as they let people warp space and time, letting them be somewhere that they’re not, without the cost and time of a flight.”
Robert S. Bauer, an executive director at Willow Garage, pointed out that computers were once seen as exotic machines. In the early 1970s, he said,Xerox Parc developed a series of sophisticated computers that cost several hundred thousand dollars. But these innovative machines paved the way for today’s personal computers.
“Now, 40 years later, everyone has a PC and smartphone in their home and office,” Dr. Bauer said. “The same is happening now with robots.”
He predicted that the first wave of robots would most likely become “the body for people with physical disabilities.” Wounded warriors, quadriplegics and people with Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative nerve disability, will be able to interact with the physical world by controlling a robot, he said.
At the dinner, the group discussed other possible applications for robots in the near future. Some examples included robots that prepared food;swarms of fly-size robots that could patrol a home or office like guards; robots that cleaned the house, did laundry and took out the trash; and robots that could drive cars, maybe even doing a better job than humans do.
Still, robots cannot solve every problem. I asked Mr. Cousins if there would be a robot that could walk my dog, Pixel.
“We actually did that with one of the PR2 robots,” he replied. “The robot was fine with it, but the dog didn’t seem to like it too much and came back with its tail between its legs.”
Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/robotics-companies-look-to-near-future-disruptions/
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Founded by Russian entrepreneur Dmitry Itskov in February 2011 with the participation of leading Russian specialists in the field of neural interfaces, robotics, artificial organs and systems.
The main goals of the 2045 Initiative: the creation and realization of a new strategy for the development of humanity which meets global civilization challenges; the creation of optimale conditions promoting the spiritual enlightenment of humanity; and the realization of a new futuristic reality based on 5 principles: high spirituality, high culture, high ethics, high science and high technologies.
The main science mega-project of the 2045 Initiative aims to create technologies enabling the transfer of a individual’s personality to a more advanced non-biological carrier, and extending life, including to the point of immortality. We devote particular attention to enabling the fullest possible dialogue between the world’s major spiritual traditions, science and society.
A large-scale transformation of humanity, comparable to some of the major spiritual and sci-tech revolutions in history, will require a new strategy. We believe this to be necessary to overcome existing crises, which threaten our planetary habitat and the continued existence of humanity as a species. With the 2045 Initiative, we hope to realize a new strategy for humanity's development, and in so doing, create a more productive, fulfilling, and satisfying future.
The "2045" team is working towards creating an international research center where leading scientists will be engaged in research and development in the fields of anthropomorphic robotics, living systems modeling and brain and consciousness modeling with the goal of transferring one’s individual consciousness to an artificial carrier and achieving cybernetic immortality.
An annual congress "The Global Future 2045" is organized by the Initiative to give platform for discussing mankind's evolutionary strategy based on technologies of cybernetic immortality as well as the possible impact of such technologies on global society, politics and economies of the future.
Future prospects of "2045" Initiative for society
2015-2020
The emergence and widespread use of affordable android "avatars" controlled by a "brain-computer" interface. Coupled with related technologies “avatars’ will give people a number of new features: ability to work in dangerous environments, perform rescue operations, travel in extreme situations etc.
Avatar components will be used in medicine for the rehabilitation of fully or partially disabled patients giving them prosthetic limbs or recover lost senses.
2020-2025
Creation of an autonomous life-support system for the human brain linked to a robot, ‘avatar’, will save people whose body is completely worn out or irreversibly damaged. Any patient with an intact brain will be able to return to a fully functioning bodily life. Such technologies will greatly enlarge the possibility of hybrid bio-electronic devices, thus creating a new IT revolution and will make all kinds of superimpositions of electronic and biological systems possible.
2030-2035
Creation of a computer model of the brain and human consciousness with the subsequent development of means to transfer individual consciousness onto an artificial carrier. This development will profoundly change the world, it will not only give everyone the possibility of cybernetic immortality but will also create a friendly artificial intelligence, expand human capabilities and provide opportunities for ordinary people to restore or modify their own brain multiple times. The final result at this stage can be a real revolution in the understanding of human nature that will completely change the human and technical prospects for humanity.
2045
This is the time when substance-independent minds will receive new bodies with capacities far exceeding those of ordinary humans. A new era for humanity will arrive! Changes will occur in all spheres of human activity – energy generation, transportation, politics, medicine, psychology, sciences, and so on.
Today it is hard to imagine a future when bodies consisting of nanorobots will become affordable and capable of taking any form. It is also hard to imagine body holograms featuring controlled matter. One thing is clear however: humanity, for the first time in its history, will make a fully managed evolutionary transition and eventually become a new species. Moreover, prerequisites for a large-scale expansion into outer space will be created as well.
Key elements of the project in the future
• International social movement
• social network immortal.me
• charitable foundation "Global Future 2045" (Foundation 2045)
• scientific research centre "Immortality"
• business incubator
• University of "Immortality"
• annual award for contribution to the realization of the project of "Immortality”.
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