/ News
Yamaha’s motorbike-riding robot wants to be world champion
Yamaha’s new humanoid robot, Motobot, just learned to ride a motorbike and already it’s talking trash. At the recent Tokyo Motor Show where Motobot was unveiled, it announced that the reason it was created was to simply “surpass you.” Presumably, that means piloting a 1000cc Yamaha R1M around a racetrack at over 200kmph, and beating MotoGP champion Valentino Rossi.
Blathering on in a voice font crafted to ambiguous perfection, Motobot further inquires of us: “There has to be something only I am capable of?” Indeed there is one, and perhaps only one edge that Motobot now has on the track — it can’t die. While that advantage is a power that should never be underestimated in human-robot interaction, it’s going to take a lot more than courage to best a real rider around the track.
Without an impressive flagship robot, many Japanese companies might be devoid of vision. For nearly a decade, engineers everywhere have been inspired to greatness by the dance moves sported by Honda’s Asimo robot. Toyota’s equally impressive violin-playing robot delicately displays just how good predictive servo loops fed by 1,000+ encoder ticks-per-rev can be. However, actual sport usually entails a bit more than just cuing up a pre-programmed sequence or rant.
Although in theory you could program in the perfect track run as easily as you would plot a course in Pac-Man, the realty is that in any interesting endeavor, there will always remain enough unpredictability to wreak havoc. In other words, as the “undisputed truth” himself (boxer Mike Tyson) was often fond of saying — “every robot has a plan till it gets punched in the mouth.’ Yamaha’s approach of using a humanoid robot to autonomously pilot a largely unmodified motorbike probably isn’t the easiest way to do it, but there are certainly many merits to that conception.
Yamaha isn’t the only one working on robobikes; Google and even private DIYers have all put forth different designs. No doubt in time a winning combination will be hit upon. And yet, the potential market for a self-driving motorcycle might appear rather grim. Nonetheless, the appeal of having all the brains for an autonomous control in a human footprint is hard to ignore. Not only could the same form factor potentially drive any number of different vehicles with only slight adjustments to its program, but the vehicles themselves would be dual-use ready right out of the box. The line between ‘light single engine craft’ and ‘drone’ instantly becomes blurred. By the same token, there is need to buy an expensive aftermarket retrofit for hands-free trawling on your Boston Whaler — just bring along your universal Motoboat buddy.
We’re being a bit hard on self-driving technology here, but there are several indications that the field is due for a dose of tough love. Much of the recent hype over how to imbue autonomous vehicles with ethics contains within itself many fallacies. For example, it sounds straightforward enough to ask whether a self-driving vehicle, whether car or bike, should imperil its single occupant to avoid 10 looming pedestrians. However, if your autonomous vehicle suddenly finds itself on an “unavoidable” collision course with such a crowd, it should and will be more than just the car that is surprised. The main falsehood herein is that a self-driving vehicle could ever properly determine the “greater good” — the problem simply dwarfs the problem of self-driving.
There is no foreseeable computational solution to a moral problem in infinite time, let alone the 150ms that Google says is how long their vehicles need to respond. The larger fiction inherent in this latency issue is that doing what we do 99% of the time using perhaps 1% of our ‘computational’ power means that autonomous vehicles, when called upon, can also do what we routinely must only by using all our power
Source: http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/217202-yamahas-motorbike-riding-robot-wants-to-be-world-champion
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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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