Robot Does Backflips

Link to video

"Hackers could program sex robots to kill"

Via Instapundit:  A cybersecurity scientist has issued a bizarre warning that sex robots could one day rise up and kill their owners if hackers can get inside their heads.

Last month, tech billionaire Elon Musk claimed that artificial intelligence could take over the planet, and he’s not the only one concerned about the dangers of killer tech.

With sex robots becoming increasingly popular and sophisticated, cybersecurity lecturer Dr. Nick Patterson revealed that the lifelike dolls could end up going all “Terminator” on us.

However, in the case of sex robots, the danger isn’t that the love dolls will end up developing minds of their own, “Westworld”-style.

Instead, the risk is that hackers could breach the realistic robots’ inner defenses and catch their owners with their pants down.

(Link to more)

"pizza-making robots can have a hot pie at your door in 4 minutes"

Via Drudge:  While other pizzas — especially the bake-at-home kind you buy at the grocery store — are also made by machine, Zume is noteworthy because it makes fresh, customizable delivery pizza with high-quality ingredients, which it considers to be artisanal even though it is not made by hand. Zume co-founder Julia Collins already has Pepe and Giorgio, two robots, squirting pizza sauce onto the dough, and Marta, another robot, spreading the sauce. Bruno, a robotic arm, lifts the pizza into the oven. The dough is still made by humans. But now that Zume has the doughbot, as they’re calling it, it means that the only part of the pizza assembly process that requires a human touch is the toppings.

“Human beings are great at that step,” Collins said. “When we think of the end-of-arm tools that we would need to pick up a cherry tomato and then a nugget of sausage, it’s hard to find tools that manage that much variety. We don’t have any intention of limiting variety to serve the robots.”

With this technological upgrade, the company can now make and deliver 372 pizzas an hour. That efficiency comes from dramatically reimagining the way pizza can be delivered. Zume is the first company to reduce “dwell time” — a.k.a the 20 minutes your piping-hot pizza spends sliding around in the back of a Honda Accord. They have custom delivery trucks that can bake en route, so pizza will arrive fresh out of the oven. Through analyzing their customer data and using artificial intelligence, they’re also able to predict which pizzas will be popular in certain neighborhoods during certain times, so the truck can be preloaded and ready to serve.

“We’ve already guessed that you’ve wanted asparagus and ricotta pizza at 12:30,” Collins said.

There ought to be a law.......doncha think?

Amazon introduces next major job killer to face Americans 

 New York Post By James Covert, Linda Massarella & Bruce Golding Dec 5, 2016

Amazon on Monday unveiled the latest plan to automate American workers out of existence — a futuristic grocery store without any cashiers.

High-tech sensors and artificial intelligence are allowing shoppers at the Seattle food market to swipe an app when they enter, then roam the aisles and grab staples like bread and milk, artisanal cheeses and chocolates and ready-made meals.

Customers can watch as the items they pluck off the shelves get added to a virtual cart on the app — and subtracted if they put them back — with receipts emailed to them once they leave, according to the company.

"Hungry startup uses robots to grab slice of pizza"

"We're going to eliminate boring, repetitive, dangerous jobs, and we're going to free up people to do things that are higher value," said co-founder Alex Garden, a former Microsoft manager and president of mobile game maker Zynga Studios.

"We automate those repetitive tasks, so that we can spend more money on higher quality ingredients," said Julia Collins, Zume's CEO and cofounder. "There will always be a model here at Zume where robots and humans work together to create delicious food."

Charity Suzuki regularly uses the Zume mobile app to order pizza. She isn't bothered by the robot cooks.

"It's delicious. It's always hot and fresh when it comes," Suzuki said. "I can't tell the difference that it's made by a robot versus a human."

milestone

We've reached an important milestone that goes by nearly unnoticed overtaken by drama around it that continues across several cities. And as soon as the word milestone is put down I realize how unapt an idiom because milestones are put there by people who already went where you are now driving and made the road that you're on and marked miles on it. But nobody's been here before.

We've had civilian deaths by civilian drones.
We've had death by self-driven car.
Now we've had our first civilian death by state owned robot.

It hasn't been discussed publicly as policy, it just quietly happened, an available tool used when needed and few if any will question the practicality or ramifications, to use a a machine to deliver a bomb to take out an active shooter.

Dallas used bomb disposal robot to kill a Dallas shooting suspect.

Popular Mechanics.

A sort of milestone. No. An historic marker on our new road we are paving .Something that hasn't happened before. Ever in history. Although, I recall some previous story recently of a suspect being arrested and not killed, but somehow due to who the perp is and due to the issue there was an element of irony to being stopped by machine. Search [arrest, robot, ironic] produces interesting results but not helpful pulling the case I'm vaguely recalling.

It seems to me that ethically this more than opening a can of worms, sending a robot and killing who you are certain is causing your immediate problem is more akin to  bulk freighter merchant ship of worms. There is a lot of due process skipped for immediacy and while the Dallas shooter situation will be reasonable to everyone who looks at it, the next situations in line might not be so clearcut. And this Dallas situation is the thin edge of the wedge. The judgement to limit risk being key to the decision, the thick edge of the wedge as robots are developed is all police situations involving risk handled by robot.

It seems probable Glenn Reynolds will have his heart's desire while still alive and we'll all see headlines "First death by flying car" soon enough.

Aren't you glad to be alive for all these wonders to behold?

Introducing SpotMini

Link to source

"Europe's robots to become 'electronic persons' under draft plan"

Germany (Reuters) - Europe's growing army of robot workers could be classed as "electronic persons" and their owners liable to paying social security for them if the European Union adopts a draft plan to address the realities of a new industrial revolution.

Robots are being deployed in ever-greater numbers in factories and also taking on tasks such as personal care or surgery, raising fears over unemployment, wealth inequality and alienation.

Their growing intelligence, pervasiveness and autonomy requires rethinking everything from taxation to legal liability, a draft European Parliament motion, dated May 31, suggests.

Some robots are even taking on a human form. (skipping down)

The motion faces an uphill battle to win backing from the various political blocks in European Parliament. Even if it did get enough support to pass, it would be a non-binding resolution as the Parliament lacks the authority to propose legislation. (Link to story)

"Robot escapes testing grounds, disturbs traffic in Russia"

RT News:  A robot escaped from a testing area in Perm, a city not far from the Urals, and made it on to a busy junction, baffling passersby, but also disturbing traffic.
   

“The robot was learning automatic movement algorithms on the testing ground, these functions will feature in the latest version of the Promobot.” The co-founder of the robot’s maker, Oleg Kivokurtsev, told ura.ru news agency. 

“Our engineer drove onto the testing ground and forgot to close the gates. So the robot escaped and went on his little adventure.” Kivokurtsev explained.

Video at the link

They are getting better

The imaginary economics of Henry Ford

Kevin D. Williamson National Review.
Recommended.


As George Washington said to the slaves he held at his plantation on Mt. Sinai, "You cannot teach a zebra new tricks and leopards never change their opinions" so you can just forget about those two radio guys, Andrew Leonard, the Los Angeles Times, and others, ceasing their repeating the falsehood that Ford raised workers' wages in order to sell them more cars.

And if you ever hear that nonsense again then you can repeat this somewhat extended explanation why that isn't true, a takedown so thorough that listeners get lost in its presentation and reject it halfway to comprehension. It amounts to, "He did no such thing."

"Robot vacuum cleaner 'attacks' South Korea housewife's hair"

"The incident, which took place on January 3, highlighted the potential risk of this type of accident in South Korea, where sitting and sleeping on the floor is common practice."

 

She was still unable to free herself from the vacuum and made a "desperate rescue request" call to 119, South Korea's emergency telephone number.

Robotic vacuum cleaners are equipped with sensors allowing them to clean surfaces by detecting dirt while avoiding obstacles such as stairs, people and cables - but not, seemingly, human hair that is still attached.

Extreme Tech: "By 2025, ‘sexbots will be commonplace’ "

"According to a new report that looks at how continuing improvements to artificial intelligence and robotics will impact society, “robotic sex partners will become commonplace” by 2025. A large portion of the report also focuses on how AI (Artificial Intelligence) and robotics will impact both blue- and white-collar workers, with about 50% of the polled experts stating that robots will displace more human jobs than they create by 2025."

The report, called “AI, Robotics, and the Future of Jobs” and published by Pew Research, is a 66-page monster [PDF].

h/t David Burge ‏@iowahawkblog

It's Lurking In The Warehouse, Waiting For The Minimum Wage To Be Increased

It sits there quietly, waiting, a soft hum coming from its brain, a dull glow from its LEDs.  Waiting, waiting, patiently waiting.  It knows that before much more time passes it will be called upon to Save The Investments.

It waits for cloying and facile politicians to propose, plead for, nay demand a $10 per hour minimum wage for all base jobs in America.  "Living wage!!" they will scream full throated before cameras and microphones and publishers and editors and cable talkie hosts who never studied economics.

Voters will respond.  Voters will vote.  Unions will fund ad campaigns.  Laws will be made or Executive Orders signed, and a $10 per hour minimum wage will be The Law Of The Land.

Telephone calls will be made, permits and contractors aligned, and fast food stores remodeled.  All so you can get this.....

 

 

.....without human intervention.  A credit/debit card, a tap on a few buttons and this is delivered to you.  One hundred percent fresh, perfect, and made by a robot.

 

Not just any robot, but  the Momentum Machines gourmet hamburger making robot.  Coming very soon to a fast food restaurant near you.  "What do it do?" you ask.

 

Well friends, we got burgers.  We got burgers right here.  Burgers with a capital B right here in River City.  Burgers with a capital B that rhymes with E and that stands for fewer employees.

 

*Chorus in the background chants "burgers, burgers, burgers, burgers, burgers, burgers, burgers"*

 

Let me tell you, neighbors:

Our alpha machine frees up all of the hamburger line cooks in a restaurant.
It does everything employees can do except better:

• It slices toppings like tomatoes and pickles immediately before it places the slice onto your burger, giving you the freshest burger possible.
• The next revision will offer custom meat grinds for every single customer. Want a patty with 1/3 pork and 2/3 bison ground to order? No problem.
• Also, our next revision will use gourmet cooking techniques never before used in a fast food restaurant, giving the patty the perfect char but keeping in all the juices.
• It’s more consistent, more sanitary, and can produce ~360 hamburgers per hour.

The labor savings allow a restaurant to spend approximately twice as much on high quality ingredients and the gourmet cooking techniques make the ingredients taste that much better.



It slices fresh tomatoes and pickles for every burger.

It grills meat and buns to order, then adds the condiments and toppings to order.

 

 

It shows up on time.  It makes the correct change, every time.  It's never hung over.  It's never high.  It never has baby daddy or baby mommy issues.  It never asks for a raise.  It never has its friends hanging out in the dining area.  It has no face tattoos.  It never argues.  It never steals.

 

It's the Momentum Machines Hamburger Robot.

 

It costs $135,000, and it's inventors claim it will pay for itself in two years by saving labor cost, real estate cost, construction cost, and by offering a gourmet burger at fast food prices.

 

People who want an increase in the minimum wage simply do not understand this, or willfully deny that it can happen.   But it will, just like this happened in the auto industry when wages became too high.

 

 

It won't need to wait much longer.