"Humanoid Robots Have to “Earn” their Place in Society&

[PsychoKirby]

I can't focus well enough to give this a thorough reading at the moment, but I have noticed two things about the essay.

1. It argues how most senior citizens polled disapprove of elderly-care robots doing their chores because it's one of their main activities. This makes sense for senior citizens who are still healthy enough to walk around, but this isn't always the case. I remember growing up with my great-grandmother back when I was a kid. She couldn't walk, or even get out of bed. She was completely dependent on her daughter (my grandmother) for everything, and even she could just barely manage to walk on her own. I'm sure both of them would've benefitted from an elderly-care robot and wouldn't have minded having one at all.

2. They argue about society being dehumanized as we're forced to interact with machines more and more often than people. Of course, that's because ATMs, answering machines, elevators, etc. are designed just to perform their job, not to act human. Artificial intelligence is still in a crude stage, but I'm sure once it advances enough machines will be able to be more pleasant (more "human" if you will) to interact with. Especially if the machines are designed for a task where humanlike behavior is a requirement, like companionship.

[Deep Blue]

No one can stop the technology growth.

[dale coba]

No one can stop the technology growth.

"No one", but

• #1 - Peak Oil
  #2 - The Rising Sea
  #3 - Crop Failures of our Changing Climate
  #4 - Worldwide Economic Depression

could slow or delay that tech growth.

- Dale Coba

[PsychoKirby]

There's also the factor of lack of interest. As sad as it is, most consumers don't see a use for human-level artificial intelligence (though we see a use ), and most programmers don't see a reason to create one as a consequence. Sometimes I suspect the main reason artificial intelligence advances so slowly isn't because it's difficult (though that's obviously a factor), but because most people aren't trying.

Incidentally, it seems recent robotics advancements in the Western world have been almost exclusively military, which saddens me.

[Keizo]

Here's the problem with actual science as opposed to junk science. Actual science can be tedious and boring and relies on scientific method. Junk science can be packaged with sensationalism and paid experts to create visually effective arguments. I would like to submit just 3 (there are more) arguments that science will progress because humans will always be curious and now so are machines:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/ ... scientist/

http://www.research.ibm.com/deepqa/

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/newtonai/

Sorry, folks. These A.I. appear to have been given male names but the significance of these articles should not be overlooked or dismissed.

[gmiceo]

I think that we also miss out on the garage type scientists. These people continue to create systems, software, and devices because of love of the idea. A lot of the large scale walking robots are done with corporate entities, but so many more are being done every day across the globe. We have seen posts on Fembot Central of ideas and maybe this is the birthplace of that outstanding AI. Sometimes corporate think tanks need to be shaken up by the young Bill Gates of the world.

[PsychoKirby]

You raise a good point, gmiceo. There are so many brilliant minds that could do so much with proper funding (which, unfortunately, they usually don't receive).

Remember Aiko? She's quite impressive, especially when you consider that Le Trung made her entirely by himself with his own money. Can you imagine if a robotics company offered him a job, giving him an enormous amount of funds and a team of professional roboticists to work with? We could all be having companionship robots right now.