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Robots Without a Cause
WG55 writes "Have you noticed that more and more technology is more ingenious than useful? Stuart Jeffries of The Guardian writes in his article Robots without a cause that much technology produced today will change our lives little, if at all. He writes, 'Our response to being bored and rich is not to discard our possessions and live more simply, but to buy more stuff to reduce the space in which we might contemplate our shame.'"
From the article: The Audi A8's sensor, though, is more than a security device. After fingerprint identification, the car's computer tunes the radio to your favourite stations, the mirrors swivel according to your established preferences, and the driver's seat sculpts itself to your bottom.
Hmmmm, sculpted to my ass... Do they make a computer chair and/or couch potatoe model?
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
. . . write articles complaining about how it is being done.
The author cites a bunch of consumer-oriented gadgets as contemporary 'inventions' but seems to be intentionally ignoring the fact that _somebody_ has to pay for the development of these things. I may not want to buy a 3G phone, but I want a wind-up radio even less. If it isn't likely to sell, who will pay for development?
It is becoming more and more difficult to produce a new techology in your garage without serious funding. Many amateur (read: non-corporate funded) inventors start out to 'scratch an itch' because a product to do what they want isn't available. I'm spoiled enough that I don't spend much time contemplating how to grow food more effectively (or how to more efficiently meet my other basic needs), so I'm not likely to produce the next big invention that will make Mr. Jeffries happy.
'I ain't a liar, baby, and I ain't proud I just want what I'm not allowed.' -- Violent Femmes, 36-24-36
If you told someone in the 60's that the government was working on a giant computer network, would many have cared? Probably not. Heck, computers didn't seem to have much purpose to most people, then, either. They were something for the military, big business and sci-fi. But now, it's an essential part of many people's homes. It just takes time.
It's sad, really. Putting engineering into application is evil, I say!
Thanks to the newest wonders of technology we can get robots to do our vacuuming, transmit pictures on our mobile phones and unlock our cars (and adjust their seats) merely by touching them. In the face of this wizardry, Stuart Jeffries has only one question: why?
Because we can.
Forget GDP per capita, I think weâ(TM)ve found a new measure for quality of living! In all seriousness, I think the references to rich western culture bring up an interesting point: thereâ(TM)s no measure of a countryâ(TM)s wealth and the contentedness of its people in their lives like the amount of money they spend on amusements and distractions. The consumer crap index, made up of useless innovations, movie and sport industry revenues, and profits of haute-fashion shops for pre-teens.
By reading only the technophilic-sounding articles which are handwritten and hand delivered to me (that limits me to what, the Unabomber?), and ignoring anything which complains about the free exploration of technology but which was produced with a word processor and uses a global electronic network for distribution.
It's hard to predict what technology will change peoples' lives until after the fact.
Just because the author seems to believe all robots fall under the classification of useless gadgets doesn't mean the rest of us see them that way. This articles strikes of the typical attitude that non-technically-inclined people get when they see us geeks fiddling with robots.
The truth is, with the generation of people in their late teens and twenties, robots will be not only commonplace, but expected. We've grown up with the first wave of robot companions (Furby!) and it will be far from out of the ordinary for us to expect our vaccuuming to be done by AI.
Not everyone is ignorant enough to excuse robots as mere toys, their application will grow infinitely in the coming years and they will be all the more transparent in our day-to-day lives. Right now we're afflicted with a overflow of gimmick bots that give people the impression all they're only good for entertainment, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Just wait 10 years and see.
+ Donald Gunth
+ Email: dgunth@quicktek.net
"Caffeine is the greatest lubricant ever created." -ESR
I think that the idea of robots is useful, even with what we have today. There have been robots that can mow the lawn for you, that can vacuum for you, and things along that line.
Things like Botball (kipr.org) really help to stimulate the idea of thinking about autonomous systems, and these are high school and sometimes middle school kids working on these projects. Sure, the contests that they run are really just getting the robots to move balls into cages and such, but the underlying point is a big deal. The future for robotics lies in autonomy, and it is a big problem.
It's rather difficult to get a system robust enough to last in an enviornment that you can only protect for as much as you predict (unless you plan on being able to "teach" the robot).
Maybe right now it seems like everything is just "ingenious", but there are some gems among it, and you just need to be a little more patient, the practical applications are the only ones that stick around in the end. Wait another 10 years, then see where we are.
Sig for GotSpider threatens to invade. France Surrenders.
...by Hans Christian Andersen, and all the ingenious "automata" of the nineteenth century, show, at least, that there is nothing new about the love of gadgetry for the sake of gadgetry.
It's probably a form of idolatry... that's a sin we're not very conscious of these days...
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Only after widespread network and Internet adoption did personal computers realize the productivity gains that had been promised for three decades.
This question should have been answered fifteen years ago when the question "when will PCs fulfill there promise" was first asked. No one answered it then and I really doubt anyone will provide an insightful or informative answer now.
J. Bradford DeLong has an excellent article in the current issue of Wired discussing this very topic.
I used to wonder why Wired didn't have a "Comment on This Article" link after their postings. Then I realized that Slashdot provides that service for them.
I belive the answer is this: people who are pushing the boundaries pursue what is interesting to themselves. Many of these interests will be obscure and useful to only a few; that's human nature. But occasionally someone will come up with a brilliancy that affects all of humanity profoundly.
Electric and steam powered engines did that for the Industrial Revolution. The Internet and networking did that for the Personal Computing Revolution. What ever the next revolution is it will come faster and harder than any revolution in the past.
obviously no deficiencies vs. no obvious deficiencies
Every age has new ideas; some of which will last, and some which won't. The cutting edge ones invariably look pointless at the time.
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Well, maybe he's right. But I must say that as far as problems go, this is a pretty good one to have.
(By the way, when electricity was first discovered, it was mostly used to amuse people by shocking them.)
Um....if you live in hurricane/tornado/blizzard prone areas your view on that "wind-up radio" might change. Their IS a market for that product and people will pay for it (and it's development/improvement). Just because 1 person doesn't like/see a use for that product doesn't mean it isn't there. This article misses the point that these "creature comforts" may not make people "happy" or "fufilled" but they make getting my ass outa bed in the morning that much easier. Once i've had my coffee from my auto-timered pot and a shower (using hot water from a water heater with a timer that's a hugh energy saver) i'll be a lot more prepared to go insearch of happiness/fufillment/my next caffine hit.
I think we may be headed towards a self-imposed matrix. I forget what game it is, maybe MOO2, that had virtual reality simulators for your citizens. Think Minority Report too, I think it was, where you can act out your every fantasy for a fee. What if technology like that becomes commonplace, where your every whim can be created and seem absolutely real? What kind of person would you be then? I can already see a kind of wilting away of life through my father, who just comes home from work and plays Everquest until it's time to go to bed. It truly is like he's leading a completely different life that he would much rather pay attention to than the real thing.
:)
I'm not Luddite by any means; I fully welcome every new technology that comes around. But I wonder if our descendants will merely plug themselves into a fantasy world that for all purposes, is real...and what kind of person would be able to resist it and continue advancement in the real world.
But maybe I'm just ranting
Of course we keep building more gadgets and robotic doodads, its just the natural order of things.
Think about it, how are the robots going to rise up and kill their human masters if we don't make enough of them?
Frankly I'm still waiting on those flying cars and maybe a robot housekeeper like on the "Jetsons".
I agree that there's a large variety of consumer gadgets that are largely useless. I bought a 97 Geo Prizm for my last car only because my 85 Nissan Sentra gave out. I don't need a whole lot over a vehicle that works, has a radio and A/C.
But seriously, when it comes to health care or even stuff more trivial like music production, bring on the tech. Yes, sometimes you can do great things with a stethoscope and/or and acoustic guitar, and sometimes I'm content with that. But other times, it's a tool that enables you to do cool things you never could have w/o it. I'm all for Sonograms and Synthesizers. I'm healthier and happier because of both....
Tweet, tweet.
I've always wondered what George Boole's fellow mathematicians must have thought about him speding so much time developing an algebra based on only two numbers. And I believe that when Joseph Fourier presented his work to the academy of sciences showing that any function could be represented as an infinite sum of sine and cosine functions, the result was a big yawn from everyone.
While I look at a lot of modern technology as useless yuppie crap, there's something to be said about the relentless pursuit of scientific and technological advancement.
GMD
watch this
'Our response to being bored and rich is not to discard our possessions and live more simply, but to buy more stuff to reduce the space in which we might contemplate our shame.'
Hmmmm, a society that is based on spending $ on crap they dont need is setting itself up for disaster........one should learn to be content as possessions bring only "short term" happiness.
Who's dated philosophy? Buddha.
Having read thru the article, I think that this individual wanted nothing more than to Rant on for a couple of pages about how all of the current group of top notch inventors do nothing but make devices to make technology a little bit more personalized. Insofar as the Rant on 3G phones go, they only really take notice of sales of the devices in the UK, which has nothing to do with their sales in other places where the phones were received extremely well, like japan and some places in Central Europe, like Germany. In short, this seems to me like nothing more than a rant against extravagance in technology due to the fact that the author thinks that the time would be better spent trying to improve the life of the impovershed.
I have no regrets, this is the only path.
My whole life has been "UNLIMITED BLADE WORKS"
The author seems not to have much perspective as to how different people might view particular gadgets. A robotic vaccuum cleaner sounds great to me, since I've got 3 kids under the age of 16 months and hence a titanic workload just to keep the house under control.
The question for all of these gadgets is whether or not enough people find them useful and affordable to make the R&D investment worthwhile. This is inherently a risky proposition, so there will tremendous hits (DVD) and flops (Iridium)...
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I recently made a $60 investment in a tiller garden utensils and plants (onions, peppers, tomatoes, mellos, and corn) and planted them a new garden in my back yard.
Granted gardening is far from new technology, but a tiller that weighs no more than 20 pounds and can still cut through 8 inches of earth? That's a pretty good feat of technology. I really enjoy the fact that what used to take an entire weekend now only takes me 25 minutes.
While the technology may not have a huge impact on our lives it does bring about more time for leisure. Some of us spend 9 hours a day at work, come home and clean the house (because we couldn't before work), make dinner, and then notice we have maybe 2 hours tops of free time before we have to get to bed and do it all again the next day.
Technology has made it easier for us to be able to actually relax and release stress from us. To not have to worry about the lawn because you placed a chemical that causes it to grow stronger and less fast or to be able to not have to worry about the house because a new weatherproof paint won't fade peel or chip. It's these "simple" things that we may not notice, but we also don't notice the impact they have on us. It can take an entire weekend to plant a garden, take care of a lawn, or paint a house.
It's technology that makes it possible for us to have more time to enjoy life.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
It's about a cultural obsession with temporary diversion and amusement in novelty.
Shockingly, he supposes that lasting value in life might come from knowing oneself better, and that real sources of happiness are pusued with fewer contemplative distractions.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Get a new career? Oh yes, everyone should do that. I'm sure that garbage men are in it because they love the excitement of garbage, and not because it is the way they afford food and a roof over their heads. I'm sure that all the janitors in the world feel the same about sanitation. Why doesn't everyone just work doing what they love? I'm sure the world would run swimmingly.
If someone wants to get home from a hard day of work (ever notice how they don't call it happy-fun-time?) and wants to play a game of Splinter Cell why is it the business of some over paid, stuck up, hack who probably wonders why I don't just jet off to Singapore whenever I feel bored?
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
He's victim to a common fallacy -- that there's a finite amount of stuff in the world and one can only have TV-glasses at the expense of one's neighbor going without shoes. It's unimaginable to him that if we "discard our possessions and live more simply", the people who make and sell drink-pouring robots will be going without possessions too, as will whoever depends on them for a living.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
...and they're not even the same luxuries I want! Don't they know that there are people starving, and dying of diseases?
This kind of bootless diatribe is as old as language. Expect part 2, "People Were Better When I Was Young," next week.
One of the sadest things to me is that corporations will finance projects they believe will have the best return on investment. The little gadgets and features that have been added to the Audi may not change the world, but Audi is banking on those features bringing in more revenue. Very few corporations with the financial backing to endorse inventions that "could" change the way we do things in the world are willing to take the risk that such an expenditure requires. Sure, maybe the world would be better off in many facets of daily life if financiers began to look at the needs of a society that they are capable of meeting, instead of just bringing in more wealth. The idea of corporations or those with vast financing power contributing their wealth to inventions of consequence is great, but just like some of the good ideas within socialism it cannot account for one factor...human nature.
It is happening in more than just the US. Half the people in Europe are above the median weight as well.
This all sounds great fun, but only in a society where all our basic needs are met could we be so pleasurably diverted by gadgets. It's not only fun to be excited by the latest gadget, it gives us the feeling too that we're part of the forward flow of life. It also gives us something easy to talk about: we make connections with people by discussing what our gadgets can do, even by laughing at our own silliness.
He has a point. Look back at the inventors of the really useful devices (like the steam engine, the airplane, electricity, lightbulb, etc.), and see how many of these were invented in the "won't it be cool to do this!" spirit, and how many were in the "if I invent this, it will change the future!" spirit.
It could be that today, thanks to the ubiquitous media, the "gadget" inventions are getting a lot more coverage than the "earth-shattering" inventions. In the old days, these "gadget" inventions probably never made it out of the inventor's shack.
~The wind up radio? Trevor Bayliss developed it at his own cost, and Christopher Staines and South African entrepreneur Rory Stear put up the finance to make production a reality. Previously, people had to spend more on batteries than they did on the radio. Batteries are more expensive and less reliable in rural Africa than they are in the rich parts of the world.
Are they any use? Read this and make your mind up. But I'd say they're a damn sight more useful to many more people than a 3G phone.
He completely ignores the fact that incredible things have been accomplished in this age of gadgets he deems pointless. Does he really think the most inovative thing in this modern era is a wind up radio? What about genetic engineering, hybrid cars, nuclear fusion, nanotechnology, etc...? The scary part is, there must be a lot of people like him for this drivel to be published.
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musings on politics and technol
All new technology is first monetized in the sex industry. Sony just messed up in coming out with a toy dog first.
People who disagree with you are not automatically evil, greedy, or stupid.
My life is whittled down to the basics, so I only concentrate on what's important. Gadgets are just used to fill voids in empty lives.
And what is a 'full' life, pray tell?
Seriously, what do the self-righteously self-deprived do with their copious free time?
My life is filled with useless shit, and you know what? I love it! I am *extremely* content with all my CDs of music (more and more coming from independent labels, as that's where the interesting stuff is), my shelves and shelves of escapist SF, my Tivo full of Farscape re-runs (damn you, sci-fi, for cancelling this great show!), my office full of computer-geek stuff.
Once I lived the spartan life, and I thought great thoughts, and I wrote great stories. I was published once in a while, but eventually the rejection slips became more frequent, and more magazines went belly-up.
And what did I realize? I'm gonna die, and everything I know is going to die with me. So I spend time with friends when I can, and have fun at all times.
And I love the little shit that pervades my life.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
What a whiner.
I made it through maybe half the article and get bored with it. Maybe a robot to read his articles would be something he'd approve of.
We pretty much have our bases covered with things that we need. There are not food shortages in the civilized nations of the world., we are able to provide for everyone on the planet with leftovers on top of that (minus political influences). We have the basic technology to live anywhere on the planet that is inhabitable and many places inhabitable. There are no more physical frontiers beyond space for us.
However, when you figure in that in 8000 - 12000 years we have gone from living from the land we could till to just starting to reach outer space, I'd say we've done pretty well. Its fair for folks to take a bit of luxury in life.
Once food production was not a worry, everything after that has been fluff. Do we need cars? Nah. Do we need anything that specialized labor grants us? Han, but its nice.
Do we need to have a cause? Maybe. As a Christian I believe it is serving God in the capacity he sees fit. Do others need to have a cause to believe in for focus on? I dunno. Some folks just want to eat, drink, and be merry for tommorrow they die. Perhaps that is their purpose.
Why does this fellow feel he needs to fire us up for anything? As that does seem to be his issue here. Or more important to me is, why does he seem to think we need firing up, when many already see advances even without groundbreaking advances.
Medicine for instance is always advancing. Personally I think this is a great thing. It may not affect me every day, but it certainly will be important the next time I need surgery or come down with an illness.
I know a couple folks that work on review mirrors that auto tint when a car with its high beams are behind you are blinding you. Is that fluff or a safety measure in this guys book?
Intel and AMD are designing incrementally faster processors everyday, is that fluff or real research? By faster processors we can evaulate and process data faster, maybe to help advance medicine.
Ah, heck, enough. Sounds like this guy simply is a lost soul who is really lacking in life. Maybe he needs to find a cause to live for, I think many other people have their causes to live for.
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
it has been my experience that it is impossible to get a robot to do the simplest things. navigation among clutter, picking up an object, etc. are all research topics. people usually get results in very narrowly defined environments.
periodically when i hear about people at places like the MIT media lab making robots have feelings, it makes me quite annoyed, since it is such a ridiculous topic. hard robotics problems get ignored, and the media doesn't ever write stories about the limitations of robots, which are enourmous.
The problem is capitalism and its current crisis of abundance. People don't get paid unless they work. The essentials people really need can be produced with a fraction of the work force - maybe 20%. The rest build or service extravagant trickets. Non-renewable resources are wasted to provide diversions so that people can be employed so that they can buy mostly trinkets. Meanwhile people starve because they are in the third world and not participants in the trinket economy. No stopping it. This all has a momentum of its own like a hurricane. Enjoy your video games and slashdot while you still have electricity.
But I tripped on my Roomba and fell on my battlebot...
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
When is luxury not luxury? When it's available 24x7, at every mall and shopping centre, in every town, and every state. Then that's just plain decadence, endemic to an entire country. Technology is a tool like any other, creating wonderful things, but also some socially desructive, needless things, ususally produced at the expense of some Third World country. Look at the 5000 children dying each month of Malaria, and tell me you need an automatic hoover.
Sometimes I feel ashamed to be in the country I am.
"...I've got 3 kids under the age of 16 months..."
That's either triplets or one hell of a woman.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
You confuse meaningful, basic-research with mere productization, or development engineering.
My whole point was that the development of Boolean algebra or Fourier series wasn't "meaningful" at the time. It was just a curiosity. As far as the distinction between "basic" research and "development engineering", I'm not sure why you feel that's important. Many important problems get solved as special cases before some bright individual realizes that there is a more fundamental basic principle at work. A silly little beeping trinket may require the engineers to solve some new, very specialized problem. You never know if the lessons learned by solving that problem might carry over and provide insight or be applicable to another, not nearly so trivial technology.
I am sad that there isn't enough money going towards basic research. But there's no use crying about it. I knew a mathematican who worked at Honeywell. He was supposed to be solving a specific control problem but would often divert his energy towards playing with more general, but still related problems. When I asked him how he could get away with doing that, his response was "Well, my bosses have to put up with a little of that if they want me to work for them." Obviously, that was meant as a joke but I think his bosses probably realized that there is a healthy cross-fertilization between working on very applied problems and taking a step back and thinking about the bigger picture. It is my belief that effort expended on developing these yuppie trinkets can find application in other, more important areas.
GMD
watch this
I have a Fisher Space Pen, which I love. The Space Pen was created to solve the proble of how to allow astronuts to write in a zero G enviorment. It uses and pressurized cartrige and an ink with and intergrated adhesive. The Russians faced with the smae problem used pencils.
The innovations of the Spac Pen contributed to new uses in comercail pens, and therefore contributed to the technology base.
If necessity is the mother of inventionm, then cleverness is it's father. The fantasical examples of '50s "labor saving devices of the future" are examples of such inanities that proved to inspire good design, by at a minimum counter-example.
The persuit of technology is good, because economic growth is good. What the artical is really railing against is consumerism. it is capital folly to link the eschewing of consumerism to luditeism. Economics in it's basic form is the process of taking resources from lower to higher valued uses. The is only 2 way to do that in my mind, transportation and improvement. Both are inexorably tied to technology. All socailist delusions aside, the best and most effective way of improving everyones lives is through free(ish) markets. The wonder of free markets is that we let people do stupid things with their cash.
Spyder
Wow, you'd trust your three young children around an expensive robotic vacuum cleaner? They'd wreck it for sure! Are you sure you have a 15-month old child?
$#!^ happens, but why does it always have to happen to me???
In case the site gets /.ed into oblivion, the most relevant piece goes like this...
Practically speaking, if timesaving devices really saved time, there would be more time available to us now than ever before in history. But, strangely enough, we seem to have less time than even a few years ago. It's really great fun to go someplace where there are no timesaving devices because, when you do, you find that you have LOTS OF TIME. Elsewhere, you're too busy working to pay for machines to save you time so you won't have to work so hard.
Does anyone else feel like this? How much of the time do we spend stressing out on work-related pressure is born of necessity and how much is just for gaining status? Or better yet, how much of it is to feed an economic machine that depends on convincing us that killing ourselves to get useless stuff is worth more than the piece of mind we could achieve without actively pursuing said stuff in the first place. Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who notices there is a problem here yet I have to suffer under a lot of needless pressure because of others who demand everything "right now" without a thought of why. It wouldn't surprise me if the medical advances made possible by the current economic system are outnumbered by the health problems it caused due to work-related stress. Fuck, I'd rather die 10 years earlier than I would normally if it means that I get to relax and enjoy myself some while I was alive.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Shockingly, he supposes that lasting value in life might come from knowing oneself better, and that real sources of happiness are pusued with fewer contemplative distractions.
Not to sound like a nihilistic hedonist, but... there is no lasting value in life.
In due time, we will all die.
The only lasting value in life is the joy we derive from life; our only real duty in life is to increase the amount of joy experienced by others.
The path to death may be joyous or somber or angry; but it cannot be avoided. Every step you take is one step closer to the ultimate demise.
Knowlege is only valuable inasmuch as it contributes to your joy, and the joy of those whom you affect. I enjoy intellectual conversation, and so I value those who seek knowlege.
But are the real sources of happiness pursued with fewer contemplative distractions? For some, yes. For others, no. Me, I'm not arrogant enough to assume my inner complexity requires constant contemplation. I think I have myself figured out fairly well. Occassionaly, I reconsider who I truly am; but for the most part, I merely exist, and enjoy that existence.
But, YMMV, of course. But to assume your purpose in life is another's purpose is the worst kind of self-important drivel in existence.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Infomercials are the best showcase of the truly innovative inventions of our modern time. Where else can you learn about the roto-till, the latest hair-removal cream, the newest ab-exerciser and the best and last set of knives you'll ever have to buy, ever! (until next year)
because I have been enjoined by this Holy Office to abandon the false opinion which maintains that the Sun is the centre
Most of the comments here are fully about debate of the usefulness and or purpose of new gadgets. I think some folks are so wrapped up in the tech-geek culture that they may be missing the larger point of the article.
What I took from it was that we are turning into our worst nightmares of ourselves. A world where we sit in front of some sort of box all day staring at it as it spews messages about what is right and wrong and the proper way to live our lives. Many of the gadgets we are creating only feed our laziness, giving us more free time to stare at the box. We get fat from the food we cram into our faces while staring at the box for the next proper thing to do. The message I continually receive from the media (maybe itâ(TM)s just my tinfoil hat) is that Iâ(TM)m in some way not OK. That Iâ(TM)m too fat, too ugly, not cool or a bad ass or some other inferiority. However, their nifty little XYZ will fix my world and I just canâ(TM)t live without it. I just donâ(TM)t like other telling me how I should think, especially about myself. Sorry for the diatribe, I guess my fears are that the marketing departments now tell the engineers what to build rather than marketing what theyâ(TM)ve builtâ¦
- vphl
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the author can frankly go fsck himself.
Plenty of similar arguments are made about the "worthlessness" of space travel, but what people often tend to ignore is the exponential effect of pure scientific research on useful technology development, not to mention the technological spinoffs from space technology research.
"Contemplate our shame," indeed. He's the one who should be ashamed of himself.
+++ATH0
For the record, that's twins (3/4/2002) and a little brother (3/28/2003), and yes, that is one hell of a woman!
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
...that three of the things he brought up as overhyped, useless toys, are the makings of something that will drastically change the way we live?
...and you have the technology for realtime internet and mixed reality in your sunglasses. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that, worthwhile or not, such wearable computing will become a cornerstone of our perception of the world pretty damned soon.
Combine:
1. 3G phones
2. video glasses
3. micro-sized digital storage
I'd call that at least an order of magnitude above idle gadgetry.
The Article Said
Yes and I'm sure anyone who has lost a limb would be much more interested in going to mars then they would be about having a fully articulated robot arm.
The Article Said
Okay what is this guy smoking? There is no way that advertisements projected onto people's windshields will ever be allowed. The amount of problems that would cause to motorists would be way to high exspecially [sic] as sue happy as the average trial lawyer is today. Also what do police sirens and car alarms have to do with it? Sirens serve a very useful purpose by allowing emergency vehicles to get to where they are needed. Car alarms however should be banned. They don't really do much good. (IMO)
The Article Said
Then don't buy the product. Thats the whole purpose behind capitalism.
The Article Said
An automatic vacuum cleaner equipped with a gun to shoot people that break into my house. (Or track dirt on the floor) Hmmm.. Maybe I should patent that.
The Article Said
Oh yes! Brilliant! We're rich so we should just sell everything and just sit around enjoying ourselves. No don't buy anything, that would be bad. After all money isn't supposed to make you happy its only supposed to make you feel bad about those who have less than you. After all if you bought something then some of that money might spill over to some poor guy who invented a body heat powered personal fan or something, and then he would be rich and bored too.
They guy has caught the basic truth that there's a lot of solutions looking for problems out there in the tech world, but so what? My eight year old nephew has figured that one out. Is it wrong to innovate for the sake of innovation? Does every thought need a definable purpose that serves THE PEOPLE[tm]? A lot of useful and life saving technologies grew out of idle tinkering in a lab somewhere.
Enough with the technoangst already, and the bemoaning of our oh-so-hideous-so-empty-argh-so-very-depressinbgly- HUMAN Western culture. Honestly, this guy sounds like any disillusioned tech head I know when they aren't getting laid enough.
--- Ban humanity.
So, what the blowhard at the London Business School is saying is that in our terrorism-filled future, everyone's an entrepreneur. Everyone with a 3G phone, of course.
Good evening, and welcome to America's Funniest Home Terrorism Videos!
This may be the most deeply cynical post-911 spin yet to crawl out of the right wing mind. It makes our own Homeland Security honchos, with their fever dreams of Total Information Awareness, seem amateurish. Think big, fellas. It's time to unite the policy of scaring the public out of its wits with the glories of trickle-down economics. Dare to dream of a future in which technology allows us all to get a piece of the action in the next big terrorist attack!
Well, this is the Guardian, which means itâ(TM)s your average cultural snob, elitist leftie whinging and whining about how modern life is sooooooooooo bad because we, the unwashed, unsophisticated masses spend too much time with our crass, petty little toys and not enough time brooding over the existential meaning of âoewhat it all means.â
Translation: theyâ(TM)re a bunch of fucking twats.
Let Stuart Jeffries climb a pole and ponder his bloody navel, Iâ(TM)ve got cars to steal in GTA:VC.
Why did this get modded up? It's the same kind of blithering high school banter we've been having to put up with on /. since that crap Reloaded film came out. People PLEASE get it through your heads already. Noone wants to hear you spew your BAD sci-fi psychobabble. It's not relevant to the discussion at hand and it's making you look like a junior higher taking pot for the first time, contemplating the existance of twinkies.
The Automobile, when it was invented was a novelty at best. see its history laid out here: http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aacarsst eama.htm
It was difficult to get it onto the muddy( read dirt ) roads of the day. At best you would consider such things a diversionary hobby and certainly not practical for real travel. ... until Ford. Enough said about that article i guess. On the others hand there has been more then a few negative effects of cars along with the good ones. Maybe we should all simplify our lives and become Amish?
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
"Our response to being bored and rich is not to discard our possessions and live more simply, but to buy more stuff to reduce the space in which we might contemplate our shame."
ok, not this guy. Im not going to 'toot-my-own-horn' here, but this is *not* true of everyone. I agree that the NorthAmerica is quickly headed this way, but some of us are actively screaming out in the darkness and trying to convince others to wake up a little.
Brash consumerism, brand fetishism, ecological devistation, work-a-holism are all a product/cause of our the $wealth$ in NA.
So, while I am most certainly not a neo-luddite, I put alot of decisions to the "do I *need* that test?". "What is the environmental/social impact of that purchase?" I read labels. I live in "the city", but buy Local Food, from Local Farmers (novel eh?). I wont paint anything outdoors. I reclaimed all the wood from my demolition to serve anew in my home renovation. I volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. I am the President of my Local Green Party Riding Association. I run the neighbourhood composter in my back-yard. I only plant indigenous plants in my yard. I use the library instead of buying my own copies of books. I live in a 100year old townhouse "downtown". I ride my bike to work, and walk to the corner-store, and ride with Critical Mass to eductate traffic.
So, do I think Im better than other people? No, but I do think that other people are mindlessly, and aimlessly being directed by outside influences, driving them to be irresponsible, vapid and destructive to their communities and the planet.
Bottom Line: Simple choices can help dig North America out of its destructive funk - do something to help out please. As a side note, living this way is MUCH LESS EXPENSIVE. I want to RETIRE AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE instead of making bankers rich, work 60hrs a week and let strangers raise my children.
Here is where his argument falls down. What is the down side of personalization? AFAIK, there is none. Sure it's ingenious -- it's also tremendously useful.
Alvin Toffler pointed out in Future Shock (1970) that computer-aided personalization would eventually become ubiquitous. He was right. People *want* things that are customized to their personal preferences and, er, sizes.
Here are some ways computers have aided personalization: Firefly (Patti Maes, MIT). Bayesian spam filters (many personal computers). Levi's pants (Levis.com). Design your own car (any automaker's site). Customizable news feeds. Even Slashdot itself. ( You ... probably would be more interested in the Preferences links you see up top there, where you can customize Slashdot...)
I also agree with the posters who pointed out that some innovations have applications undreamed of by their inventors. The Mayans discovered the wheel -- they used in their childrens' toys, and *nowhere else*.
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
This type of thing is typically said by people who are bored and poor (and trying to say something profound.) The amount of useful technology that has appeared in the past 20 years is a multiple of the useful technology that appeared in the previous 80.
Jeffries apparently didn't see fit to include any references to recent developments in engineering/technology that will benefit mankind
No slashdot readers did either.
As one example, in the last several days, a tidal energy turbine, apparently the first in the world, was turned on, and is generating electricity.
Now, while many consumers may have an interest in gadgets, unfortunately this may be the totality of "advanced technology" with which they knowingly come into contact on a regular basis. Most normal folks will never see a windmill farm ( at least for a couple of years ), or a tidal energy turbine farm, or the inside of a particle accelerators, or blast off to spend time on the International Space Station.
Most of the important new "gadgets" are simply too big and too expensive for regular folks to enjoy. And many people, unfortunately, really don't care about new technology unless it provides direct and tangible benefits to them. While tidal energy turbine farms may eventually be widespread, providing power for many coastal metropoli, you can't really impress your friends with it, and, most importantly, since you cannot have a tidal energy turbine of your very own, you can't impress women with one either.
If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law;
Please READ the article instead of guessing at what he's saying and flaming it. He is NOT saying:
- Capitalism is bad because it gives people what they want.
- Today's robots/PCs are not good enough; we need better technology.
- If I can't see the use of something, it's useless.
His essay is not a structural criticism of technology or economy but rather of society's values. I don't think he would criticise the inter/ARPAnet as a technology, but he is criticizing the use of technology for the purpose of building electric eyebrow tweezers, ultrasonic dog polishers and internet-enabled toasters -- as ends in themselves. Yes, we can build them, we can buy them; that's not the point. He's not questioning the purpose of the inventions, he's expressing dismay at the trivility of the answers. If you're satisfied with them, fine.
Here, have a baby's arm holding an apple.
Those labor saving devices had a huge impact. Back then, housekeeping was a full time job (generally for the wife). Now, women aren't stuck with that sort of drudgery. Getting rid of the several hours a day we each (those of us who can't afford domestic servants) have to devote to drudge-work will have a major impact too.
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Old Lady #1: When my ex-husband passed away, the insurance company said his policy didn't cover him.
Old Lady #2: They didn't have enough money for the funeral.
Old Lady #3: It's so hard nowadays, with all the gangs and rap music..
Old Lady #1: What about the robots?
Old Lady #4: Oh, they're everywhere!
Old Lady #1: I don't even know why the scientists make them.
Old Lady #2: Darren and I have a policy with Old Glory Insurance, in case we're attacked by robots.
Old Lady #1: An insurance policy with a robot plan? Certainly, I'm too old.
Old Lady #2: Old Glory covers anyone over the age of 50 against robot attack, regardless of current health.
[ cut to Sam Waterston, Compensated Endorser ]
Sam Waterson: I'm Sam Waterston, of the popular TV series "Law & Order". As a senior citizen, you're probably aware of the threat robots pose. Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel. Well, now there's a company that offers coverage against the unfortunate event of robot attack, with Old Glory Insurance. Old Glory will cover you with no health check-up or age consideration.
[ SUPER: Limitied Benefits First Two Years ]
You need to feel safe. And that's harder and harder to do nowadays, because robots may strike at any time.
[ show pie chart reading "Cause of Death in Persons Over 50 Years of Age": Heart Disease, 42% - Robots, 58% ]
And when they grab you with those metal claws, you can't break free.. because they're made of metal, and robots are strong. Now, for only $4 a month, you can achieve peace of mind in a world full of grime and robots, with Old Glory Insurance. So, don't cower under your afghan any longer. Make a choice.
[ SUPER: "WARNING: Persons denying the existence of Robots may be Robots themselves. ]
Old Glory Insurance. For when the metal ones decide to come for you - and they will.
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