MetaFilter posts tagged with robots

"Shoot, we have enough crap in the garage. We can build a combat robot."

Copronymus — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 12:09:23 -0800

An Oral History of the Birth and Death of BattleBots

Mechanical Paper Robots

klausman — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 16:25:27 -0800

Some cool mechanical paper models.

Building the Paper Biped Robot with close-up of moving parts and Gatling gun attachment
Tricycle Boy
Candy Boy

Flapping-wing bio-inspired micro air vehicle

stbalbach — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:11:44 -0800

^[V]Robo Raven^[V] is a robot bird. So uncanny a hawk attacked it during testing. Other robot birds include the SmartBird, a flying robotic seagull, and AirPenguins. Robobee is a robot bee.

Music has the right to robots

bdz — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 09:54:39 -0800

"Designed in collaboration with interactive designer Jonathan Chomko, the COLORS News Machine turns your tweets into headlines, but only after they’ve been passed through all the media filters and technological platforms that disseminate and distort the news today."

"A megaphone will read your tweet out loud. Its tape recorder listens, converting what it hears into text so that the television can show it onscreen. A camera watching the television converts what it sees into a signal to the radio antenna, which broadcasts the tweet. And the waiting microphone interprets this radio address as text again for printing."

Tweet to here: @ColorsMachine. Live stream here.

Stop the killer robots before it's too late!

Sleeper — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 11:50:58 -0800

Nobel laureate's campaign calls for pre-emptive ban on autonomous weapons. As our technology advances, it becomes more and more feasible to give more and more autonomy to our drones. A new campaign led by 1997 Nobel laureate Jody Williams calls for an international ban on the design of autonomous weaponized drones. The future often arrives from directions you didn't expect. Some sci-fi writers of the past expected Moon colonies and manned missions to Mars by now, but had no inkling that the world would be revolutionized by a global network of devices thousands of times more powerful than the room-sized computers of the day. We've both disappointed and exceeded expectations. Asimov's robots never came to be, but today flying robots that are (in different ways) both less and more ambitious are in the early stages of becoming a part of everyday life, mostly for imaging and surveillance. The FAA currently bans commercial use of drones in the US, but that will soon change:

In five years, experts predict, more than 10,000 drones will be working overhead for American businesses. Some say the number might soar as high as 30,000. That’s a lot of cameras staring down, some with infrared imaging, swiveling to see ever more. Every day advancements are made in the technology. As the machines become more weather-proof, with longer battery life, lighter, smaller, even bug-sized, the list of possible uses — and concerns — grows.

Drones have become an essential part of America's way of war.

an overwhelming reliance on killing terrorism suspects, which began in the administration of George W. Bush, has defined the Obama years. Since Mr. Obama took office, the C.I.A. and military have killed about 3,000 people in counterterrorist strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, mostly using drones. Only a handful have been caught and brought to this country; an unknown number have been imprisoned by other countries with intelligence and other support from the United States.

(A visualization of the drone war in Pakistan, previously linked on the Blue) This is all scary-sounding, but drones have many sensible and peaceful uses. Mesa County, Colorado recently cut the cost of an annual landfill survey from $10,000 to $200 by using a drone instead of a piloted craft. We're not yet at a stage where automated weapons are feasible, but we will be within a couple decades. Should we ban them pre-emptively? Or is that just Luddite thinking?

China robot noodles

stbalbach — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 09:34:16 -0800

"It is the trend that robots will replace men in factories, it is certainly going to happen in sliced-noodle restaurants." "In Japan robots are already being used to make sushi, and a robot in San Francisco can serve up 340 hamburgers an hour. Foxxconn, that builds numerous mobile devices and gaming consoles, is replacing 1 million humans with 1 million robots. As prices for the robots drop, they’ll continue to invade the workplace at increasing an increasing pace. Already China is expected to become the world’s largest robot market next year."

HTBYERRF

Harald74 — Fri, 22 Mar 2013 07:19:09 -0800

A few years ago Charles Guan was a teacher's assistant in MIT's 2.007 introductory design and manufacturing class. To help out his fellow students he made a guide to building robots quickly and efficiently. Now he has expanded the original guide, retitled it How to Build your Everything Really Really Fast (HTBYERRF) and published it on Instructables, available for anyone wishing to progress from the "zip ties and duct tape" stage of building things.

The Robots Are Coming

Diablevert — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 15:43:50 -0800

All of a sudden, we looked up, and they were there. What if the explanation to the past half-decade --- or maybe the past decade and a half --- of the world’s economic malaise can be explained in one word: Robots. Maybe, in other words, the reason that corporate profits are higher than ever and yet jobs aren’t being created is because we have built machines to take those jobs. Paul Krugman thinks it’s possible.

If this is the wave of the future, it makes nonsense of just about all the conventional wisdom on reducing inequality. Better education won’t do much to reduce inequality if the big rewards simply go to those with the most assets....I think our eyes have been averted from the capital/labor dimension of inequality, for several reasons...But I think we’d better start paying attention to those implications.

So does Kevin Drum:

Here's what I mean. It's quite possible that, say, 50 years from now the production of nearly all goods and services will be automated. And this might usher in a golden age...But what happens while we're busy getting there? Answer: the owners of capital will automate more and more, putting more and more people out of work...The rest of us will have no jobs, and even with all this lovely automation, our government-supplied welfare checks will be meager enough that our lives will be miserable.

And 60 minutes. And so does the Financial Time’s Izabella Kaminska, who’s been writing a series of posts on the influential FT Alphaville blog for more than nine months on the influence of robots on the economy and whether or not an economy can handle no scarcity. FT Alphaville requires registration, but fortunately Kaminska has collected links from across the world of economics and journalism as people attempt to hammer out this problem. Why is she so obsessed? In Kaminska' words,

“One of the criticisms I face all the time, meanwhile, is that all this tech innovation has been going on for centuries. Why should there be a crisis of capital now? What makes this time any different? And what makes my sudden focus on tech relevant? For starters, what I feel is new is the idea that the financial crisis was born out of the tech crash. If not for the dotcom bubble, we would not have had the conditions to create the subprime crisis. The China outsourcing phenomenon and imbalance situation may also have been born out of a need to replace mechanised labour — which compromised capital — with human labour, which still ensured profit and the preservation of capital. It was in a sense, an artificial scarcity response… designed to spread spending power to secure return on capital, rather than extinguish it. [If] West not outsourced labour as extensively back in the 1990s…. the West may have been Japan-ified much earlier on. But what really makes this time different, I would argue, is that a lot of the competition is now coming from a) the voluntary and crowd sourcing/open source arena and b) it’s only artificial scarcities (patents, monopoly interests) which are preventing complete democratisation of technologically-fueled abundance across the world. It is thus because monopoly power is slipping, challenged as it is by free alternatives rather than cheaper ones… that the crisis is beginning to manifest.”

Some think the revolution is already in progress. Forbes thinks China may be one of the first victims. And Wired, of course, has the optimist’s spin:

This is not a race against the machines. If we race against them, we lose. This is a race with the machines. You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots. Ninety percent of your coworkers will be unseen machines. Most of what you do will not be possible without them. And there will be a blurry line between what you do and what they do. You might no longer think of it as a job, at least at first, because anything that seems like drudgery will be done by robots.

Can a band be any more Metal than this?

fings — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 14:00:01 -0800

The Robot band Compressorhead plays Motörhead's Ace of Spades.

Debtmageddon vs the robot utopia.

zoo — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 08:10:04 -0800

Debtmageddon vs the robot utopia.

"Today we are cancelling the Apocalypse!"

Kitteh — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:03:58 -0800

The long awaited robots vs. monsters epic from Guillermo del Toro sees the release of its first trailer: Pacific Rim. And yes, that is the voice of GLADos you hear in it. Guillermo del Toro previously, more previously on the Blue.

Terminator: the Documentary

wolfdreams01 — Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:39:41 -0800

A report was recently released suggesting a pre-emptive ban on fully autonomous weapons - robots that can pick and choose whom to fire on. If this sounds vaguely alarming to you, don't worry - the Department of Defense issued a directive indicating that fully automous robots may only decide to tase you.

The end of the world is nigh. We need to publish papers on it.

Wordshore — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 17:22:36 -0800

At Cambridge University, the Project for Existential Risk is considering threats to humankind caused by developing technologies. It will be developing a prospectus for the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, to be launched by the Astronomer Royal, a co-founder of Skype and the Bertrand Russell professor of philosophy. More detail from the university, while the news excites some journalists. Additional reporting by the Huffington Post and TG Daily. Wikipedia presents a wider array of risks to humankind, as does Nick Bostrom (one of the external advisors).

Our Robot/Meatbag Space Future

Artw — Tue, 13 Nov 2012 13:36:13 -0800

Almost Being There: Why the Future of Space Exploration Is Not What You Think

The Marvellous Mechanical House Organ

dng — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 09:45:59 -0800

MR-808 is a replica of the famous 1980s electronic drum machine TR-808 – with robots playing the drum sounds.

The Library of Babel in 140 characters (or fewer)

0bvious — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 08:15:36 -0800

The universe (which others call The Twitter) is composed of every word in the English language; Shakespeare's folios, line-by-line-by-line; the Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, exploded; Constantine XI, in 140 character chunks; Sun Tzu's Art of War, in its entirety; the chapter headings of JG Ballard, in abundance; and definitive discographies of Every. Artist. Ever... All this, I repeat, is true, but one hundred forty characters of inalterable wwwtext cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be. [previously]

Bipedal robot walks a tightrope

stbalbach — Mon, 22 Oct 2012 00:10:50 -0800

Bipedal robot walks a tightrope. Dr. Guero's website (English). Kondo KHR-3HV kit. Previously. via.

Photographs of Robots

tykky — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 13:53:26 -0800

Robots at Work and Play (a photo gallery from the Atlantic).

Man Machine Music

Artw — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 15:12:11 -0800

A brief history of cyborgs, superhumans and robots in pop music

Mark Pauline: terrorism as art

homunculus — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:54:58 -0800

Terrorism as art: Mark Pauline's dangerous machines. Robots, rebellion, and the post-apocalyptic performance art of Survival Research Labs.

Take Those Damned Goggles Off

The Whelk — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:37:39 -0800

Television Without Pity re-capper Jacob Clifton has written a short steampunk story for Tor.com. “There’s a level on which the story is an indictment of using steampunk as a fashion or trend. It came about because I wanted to see what would happen if you substituted Jane Austen for Jules Verne in the steampunk equation...” The Commonplace Book

things you didn't know you needed

madamjujujive — Mon, 17 Sep 2012 21:54:40 -0800

The Popinator - a voice activated popcorn launching machine. Kinda cool, but my money's still on the robotic tweet powered popper. (via @peeweeherman and keepoutofreach)

"Distribution is the core of the problem we face."

kliuless — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:20:53 -0800

Trade-offs between inequality, productivity, and employment - "The poor do not employ one another, because the necessities they require are produced and sold so cheaply by the rich. The rich are glad to sell to the poor, as long as the poor can come up with property or debt claims or other forms of insurance to offer as payment..."

...in a zero-sum contest for relative advantage among producers, abundance becomes a threat when it can no longer be sold for high quality claims. Any alternative basis of distribution would undermine the relationship between previously amassed financial claims and useful wealth, and thereby threaten the pecking order over which wealthier people devote their lives to stressing and striving. From the perspective of those near the top of the pecking order, it is better and it is fairer that potential abundance be withheld than that old claims be destroyed or devalued... As polities, we have to trade-off extra consumption by the poor against a loss of insurance for the rich. There are costs and benefits, winners and losers. We face trade-offs between unequal distribution and full employment. If we want to maximize total output, we have to compress the wealth distribution. If inequality continues to grow (and we don't reinvent some means of fudging unpayable claims), both real output and employment will continue to fall as the poor can serve one another only inefficiently, and the rich won't deploy their capital to efficiently produce for nothing. Distribution is the core of the problem we face. I'm tired of arguments about tools. Both monetary and fiscal policy can be used in ways that magnify or diminish existing dispersions of wealth. On the fiscal side, income tax rate reductions tend to magnify wealth and income dispersion while transfers or broadly targeted expenditures diminish it. On the monetary side, inflationary monetary policy diminishes dispersion by transferring wealth from creditors to debtors, while disinflationary policy has the opposite effect. Interventions that diminish wealth and income dispersion are the ones that contribute most directly to employment and total output. But they impose risks on current winners in the race for insurance.

Four Futures: "There are therefore four logical combinations of the two oppositions, resource abundance vs. scarcity and egalitarianism vs. hierarchy." more on 'fiscal' policy -A Conservative Defense of a Jobs Guarantee Program [1,2] -An Electronic National Market for Efficient and Variable Publicly Directed Spending

In this essay I propose that the central bank be freed from its role of using interest rate policy to support aggregate demand. Instead, a truly variable public spending program is suggested to regulate aggregate demand. The program should be running constantly in order to minimize the time delay of fiscal responses. The amount of spending is variable and can be automatically computed from the realized nominal GDP so as to target a fixed growth rate for the nominal GDP. In order to gain popular support and avoid the pitfalls of traditional Keynesian stimulus programs, I propose that an electronic national market be set up to give voters direct control over where such stimulus spending is applied.

more on 'monetary' policy -Bernanke on the defensive -How about quantitative easing for the people?

One such radical measure is too controversial for any policymaker to mention publicly, although some have discussed it in private: Instead of giving newly created money to bond traders, central banks could distribute it directly to the public. Technically such cash handouts could be described as tax rebates or citizens' dividends, and they would contribute to government deficits in national accounting. But these accounting deficits would not increase national debt burdens, since they would be financed by issuing new money, at zero cost to government or to future generations, instead of selling interest-bearing government bonds. Giving away free money may sound too good to be true or wildly irresponsible, but it is exactly what the Fed and the BoE have been doing for bond traders and bankers since 2009... Suppose the new money created since 2009, instead of propping up bond prices, had simply been added to the bank accounts of all U.S. and British households. In the U.S., $2 trillion of QE could have financed a cash windfall of $6,500 for every man, woman and child, or $26,000 for a family of four. Britain's QE of £375 billion is worth £6,000 per head or £24,000 per family. Even if only half the new money created were distributed in this way, these sums would be easily large enough to transform economic conditions, whether the people receiving these windfalls decided to spend them on extra consumption or save them and reduce debts.

Monetary Policy, Fiscal Policy and Inflation: "the absence of inflation is not just a matter of the market trusting the US government to take care of its long-term structural deficit problems – uncertainty and the 'safe asset' status of the USD greatly diminish the efficacy of the expectations channel" [1,2] more on (hyper)inflation -Great hyperinflation episodes in history — and what they tell us about the Fed -Hyperinflation and War -Why you won't find hyperinflation in democracies: "hyperinflation is caused by many things, such as losing a war, or regime collapse, or a massive drop in domestic production. But one thing is clear: it's not caused by technocrats going mad or bad" China, dollars, gold, and a theory of relativity

Imagine that the number of dollar liabilities circulating through the system is actually akin to a dollar rationing system. At any particular time, there are either enough dollar rations to match the number of goods, services and assets that can be consumed with those dollars in the system exactly, or too many rations, or too few. When there is a shortage of dollar "rations" (or dollar stores of value), there is a relative abundance of goods, services and assets. This creates a deflationary effect. When there is an abundance of dollar "rations", there is on the contrary a shortage of goods, services and assets, creating an inflationary impact instead. The same logic also applied to gold, when it represented the basis of the rationing system that the world used. While the rationing system can work very effectively when there is an intelligently matched amount of rations to goods and services, it starts to fail when rations misrepresent the goods and services truly available (because someone has over-issued or under-issued rations relative to goods and services). It's like having butter, bread and sugar rations over-issued relative to the amount of actual butter, bread and sugar that is out there. In this scenario, the rations lose value as people realise that owning rations doesn't necessarily guarantee access goods. Conversely, when rations are under issued relative to the amount of butter, bread and sugar — the rations themselves gain value and also become much more poorly distributed across society. Since it's only by owning a ration that you can guarantee access to goods (even if the goods are abundantly available), this scenario translates to a have or have-not society.

more on inequality -It's Inequality, Stupid -Majority of New Jobs Pay Low Wages, Study Finds -Big Income Losses for Those Near Retirement -Study: Middle class poorer, earned less in 2000s - "For the first time since at least World War II, middle-class families finished the first decade of the 21st century poorer and with lower incomes than they had 10 years earlier." more on productivity -Manufacturing Productivity -Time to resurrect the 'missing variable'? -3D Printing: Rise of the machines -Will the Unemployed Really Find Jobs Making Robots? [1,2] also btw, more robots... -Cheap Four-fingered Robot Hand Edges Closer To Human Dexterity -New Wave of Adept Robots Is Changing Global Industry -Here's the Robot that Foxconn Will Use to Build Their Million-strong "Robot Kingdom" -Industrial Automation: "China has hit its 'Lewis Turning Point,' in that the supply of rural surplus labor is diminishing rapidly. This, combined with demographic shifts and government efforts to push up wages, will drive elevated levels of automation investment." more on employment -Occupations with the highest job gains and losses -Corporations are saving more and paying less -What's keeping unemployment up? It's the demand, stupid -How the Great Recession Proved, Beyond a Doubt, the Value of a College Degree -What's the Single Best Explanation for Middle-Class Decline? "As economics went global, job creation went local." The Globalization Paradox: Democracy and the Future of the World Economy: "Rodrik presenting his ideas on global political economy to a popular audience. Basically, he argues, there is a trilemma, where we have to drop at least one of 'deep' globalization, democracy, and national sovereignty. This is convincing; and he is further persuasive that the obstacles to serious global governance, let alone democratic global governance, are still too big to overcome. This leaves trying to tame globalization, and keep it 'superficial' enough to let different countries preserve their own policies and institutional arrangements. Faltering Innovation: "future growth in consumption per capita for the bottom 99 percent of the income distribution could fall below 0.5 percent per year for an extended period of decades" [1,2] The Theory of Everything: "Basically the question is what will low skill/intelligence folks do for income? Throughout history there have been manual labor jobs available, of course there has been a fairly big change from agriculture to manufacturing. It does seem to me that continued automation can be highly deflationary, but are there other possibilities for the economy to distribute the gains? Capital and government seem to be obvious channels."

A mixture of awe and disappointment.

Potomac Avenue — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 09:46:17 -0800

"What does it mean to feel empathy for a twitter feed?" Many were asking themselves that yesterday as popular account @SelfAwareROOMBA went on a journey of Self-Discovery. [Start Here] Roomba emotions previously.

Invade All of The Humans!

cashman — Mon, 02 Jul 2012 17:32:32 -0800

The Giant Robot Invasion has begun! You were warned this was coming and given tips to survive. But one tip you didn't get - don't go near the bench!