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Camel-Riding Robots
misterpies writes "Of the many jobs robots could be put to use, here's one I'll bet not many slashdotters have considered - camel jockeys. According to the BBC, from next year racing camels in the United Arab Emirates will be ridden by robots. And for once, the folks put out of work won't be complaining - mostly children (some as young as four) who are reportedly abducted or sold by their families to unscrupulous racing-camel owners. How long until we see robots take over from humans in other sports?"
How long until we see robots take over from humans in other sports?
Better yet, how long until we see robots take over humans for sports?
Nothing like the sound of a solid ka-thunk of a head to make a goal in front of a roaring crowd of robots.
I'm a virgo and on Slashdot. Coincidence? Yes.
20 rubees on Robo-Akmed!
I do believe this is the stupidest story I've ever seen posted here.
Pshaww... pretty much as soon as I found out what a robot was when I was a child, the first thing that came to my mind was, "I wonder if such things could be made to ride camels". Geesh, I wonder where that submitter has been all his life...
Wait until People for the Ethical Treatment of Robots starts throwing oil on the camels in protest!
I'm a big tall mofo.
This is exactly a prime use for robots, assuming I don't mistunderstand the social aspects involved.
What surprises me is that a relatively complex task in an area where human wages are fairly low should justify the replacement of humans by robots, and yet in countries where wages are sky high, human workers are doing much simpler tasks.
The fact that is appears as surreal as a python sketch obviously shows up my lack of knowledge of other cultures.
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing; those who count the votes decide everything." (attrib. Joseph Stalin)
I'm betting on seeing regular athletes get cyborged before being replaced by robots outright. Imagine, get an implant, drug tests all come up clean, improved reflexes are less a give-away than overdeveloped musculature from steroid use (assuming you're not being ridiculous about the improvements you're giving yourself), the actual nature of the machinery can be obfuscated away as some necessary thing like a pacemaker...
One of our best misbehaviour prevention threats has been removed. Now the kids wont believe us when we threaten them with being sold to an arab for a life of camel racing. Please tell me they have not yet developed a camel pooper scooper robot, so at least we can still threaten them with a life of camel dung collection.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I'd be quite happy to see robots take over in motor racing. It'd be great to see what kind of machines people could come up with to get themselves round a track as quickly as possible, once all the design concerns related to human safety are removed.
;-)
It's also more practical financially, as in most of the large motor racing series there is already a substantial budget for hardware maintenance.
"Pokey, are you drunk on love?" "Yes. Also whiskey. But mostly love... and whiskey."
Sure they can run camels, but can they run linux?
rewriting history since 2109
Has anyone asked the camels what they think of this? Large evil beasts might not take to kindly to having robotic jockey overlords.
FTFA: "mostly children (some as young as four) who are reportedly abducted or sold by their families to unscrupulous racing-camel owners."
Why is it that they're so worried about winning some meaningless race with camels? They need their ass kicked for even considering selling a child. I can't understand how cold people can be sometimes to do something like this.
These "robots" will look curiously like small children wrapped in tinfoil...
The goal of robocup: To build a team of robots that can play and beat humans at soccer (possibly without killing the human team)
My uni has a team competeing.
We do pretty well at the f180 and abio class comps.
From the summary:
How long until we see robots take over from humans in other sports?
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
PETA throwing motor oil? I sure hope not! I work in the rendering plant where we take lambs and bleed them to death in order to provide PETA liquid blood to pour on furs during their protess. They are our biggest client right now.
Looks just about as silly too. Rendered pic of camel jocky
90% of the wealth is in 2% of the pockets. Bummer to be in the majority.
...I was absolutely shocked to see the phrase "camel jockeys" on the front page of slashdot. I had to take a doulbe take. I am sure that many other English readers will feel the same. A "camel jockey" in english slang is a term of denigration for Arabs in general.
As regards your percapetion of the arab world sports may I remind you that we, in the west, put migets on horses and race them. Anyway makes more sense that American Football or Cricket...both incomprihensable to outsiders.
The article says that there are 40000 child jockeys right now. It seems unlikely that they could build enough robots to replace them in less than a few years... Let's hope that this law to forbid child jockeys will be passed and enforced, otherwise it seems unlikely that those childs will be freed anytime soon...
Why not just make and race robot camels?
Survivor 25: twenty robots stranded on a desert island, equipped with only 5 bolts and a single AA battery, battle it out to see who can make it the longest without a change of oil.
I see a lot of comments regarding the "how long before robots replace humans" comment, but I have to say, is this not a sport where the CAMELS are the athletes? I hardly see this as a case of humans in sports being replaced; as some other poster mentioned, if underfed kids were the original jockeys, then this is a boon more than anything.
The way I see it, humans won't be "replaced" in sports that actually require the humans to be the athletes for a long, long time. Perhaps, when the technology is far enough, robot-run variants may spring up, but I have a strong feeling the human versions will still be around.
Expectations are for the unprepared.
I could be wrong, but I don't really think there will be a big push to replace humans with robots in most sports. Maybe as a cool, project/aside from traditional sports, as robots are capable of doing things that humans aren't and it would provide a challenge to those interested AI, but not replacing persay.
One of the things most people who enjoy sports like is the ability to relate to the players, and the fact that they can aspire to be like them or view them as role models, etc. This aspect of sports would be lost if the players were robots instead of humans.
So they are currently fed little to keep them light. Exactly how much food do you think they will get once they aren't earning money for the arse who owns them by riding camels.
My guess is the amount of food won't go up!
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Actually, this is no big shit. Child labour is extremely common in most countries in Asia and Africa. It only sounds outlandish or cruel to you because it's not common in your country. Note that i'm not supporting child labour or "child selling" in ANY form. I'm only commenting on the present day reality.
The reality is that a LOT of people in Asia and Africa have never ever had 2 square meals in a day, ever since they were born. The number of said people also exceeds the total population of USA, Canada, and Europe combined. Faced with such extreme hunger, many families prefer to sell off their children instead of watching them die of malnutrition or disease. The added benefit is that they make a little money out of it, which sees them through a year or two.
It's not that these people don't love their children. For many such families, selling off their children is actually a demonstration of their love for their child. They know that even though their child will be ill-treated by the Arab or whoever is buying the child, at least their child will be reasonably well-fed and will have an outside chance of getting a decent education. It beats a slow death in any case.
Look at it another way. Say, hypothetically, that you're stranded in an island along with your child. You have a boat that can only seat your child. You're also slowly dying of hunger in the island. Given impending death due to starvation, will you or won't you set your child adrift in the sea if you know that your child has a 10% chance of survival?
P.S. I'm not exaggerating this by any means. Thousands of families in India commit suicide every year, especially if the rainfall is bad that year. The poison of choice, IIRC, is a local pesticide, which has now been banned in many villages. Selling children is also not uncommon.
we, in the west, put migets on horses
Actually, the politically correct term is "little people", you insensitive clod...
I would think anyone who truly wishes to have freedom would be against these oppressive, racist tactics on this "fight" against terrorism.
> If your family has been poor and hungry for several generations, why have children?
> Its called a condom, folks.
Because they'd like to keep eating (if not well) in their old age. Your children are your retirement policy. So you not only have kids, you have a lot of them.
Chris Mattern
From Wikipedia:
The sport has its origins in an exercise for Norwegian soldiers. The first known competition took place in 1767 when border patrol companies competed against each other. Gradually the sport became more common throughout Scandinavia as an alternative training for the military. Called military patrol, the combination of skiing and shooting was demonstrated at the Olympic Winter Games in 1924, 1928, 1936 and 1948, but did not gain Olympic recognition then, as the small number of competing countries disagreed on the rules (see also Governing body, below).
The first World Championship in the sport was held in 1958 in Austria, and in 1960 the sport was finally included in the Olympic Games.
Interested in a Flash-based MAME front end? Visit mame.danzbb.com
That's why mandatory population control (using sterelisation, if necessary) would be a more humane policy than demanding child jokeys to be replaced with robots.
Of course, the Western society (and human rights activists) doesn't really care about people, they care about their perception of what is proper.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
There are two types of enhancment surgeries open to baseball players: laser eye surgery and Tommy John surgery. The first one is fairly ubiquitous and currently not very scrutinized. Improve your vision and you are better able to see what the pitcher is throwing your way. The second almost seems like a response to the first: they drill holes in your arm bones, figure-eight your tendons, and suddenly the pitcher can pitch better than he ever has before. Currently, AFAIK, the latter is only done on "injured" pitchers, but as my scare quotes are meant to indicate, the threshold for what injured means seems to be getting lower.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
I'd rather see them replace the fans with robots. Then we can stop listening to people yelling about how they are number 1, because some millionair that couldn't care whether they live or die, made a touchdown.
Damn the yankee imperialist dogs for their evil Western influence. How dare they destroy a time honored tradition of selling children into bondage.
When will the West learn that their technology and influence is against the will of Allah?
You act like those 18-years didn't sign up themselves. Nobody forced them to join the military. It's a decision everyone makes on their own. So please don't try to run that sob story on us. This country needs soldiers and it needs physically fit soldiers to meet the demands of today's wars. So please stop acting like it's a travesty.
Been tried before in Germany and the US, both by evil folk. Didn't go down to well, in fact there were some cases recently stateside where people that had been forcably sterilized sued. However, you'd solve more of the abstract problems causing the poverty by giving out immunisations to common diseases rather than than serilization. Jeez, daily aids deaths are around 3,000 and they can't even give out enough contraception to them.
Of course, the Western society (and human rights activists) doesn't really care about people, they care about their perception of what is proper.
No, they onlu care about the sales brought by appearing to be proper. It's all front.
And it was really popular in western society at one point. Chimney sweeps, mining, anything where your small size was an advantage meant that kids got the job.
It's only recently that we've gotten this perverse idea that childhood lasts til 18 (and all the rebelion that comes from treating adults as children). And then we slate other countries for being 50-100 years behind us in social development!!
Now, being smaller means there's less difference in gravity potencial between head and feet. According to general relativity, this means less difference in speed of time. Therefore I propose as next term:
Now, thinking about it, this may be negative towards the tall people
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
10 years ago (when I worked there) McDonald's was testing a robot fry cook. At the time it was too expensive. However they took one part of the cook and installed that everywhere: a robot to fill the fry baskets.
Fast Food kitchens are a good place for robots. People should not work near hot grease, because of the danger of burns. (One guy I worked with was hospitalized due to burns from cleaning the vats. After that everyone started using the provided gloves)
Bend it like soccer unit 3500-4X!
We do not "put midgets" on horses. Jockeys climb on voluntarily and are paid for their services. They are paid professionals, not involuntary slaves. Helluva difference.
Ignorance is curable, stupid is forever.
I just had to respond to this since it was the most retarted thing I have ever read.
Slavery is wrong, period. These kids are being sold in to slavery where there are beaten, abused, sexually exploited, and when they get too big to ride the camels, they are sold off to some other low life who does worse things to them. You think the men who buy these kids setup college funds for these poor kids? Nope, they sell them off when they have no use for them, and if no one will buy them, they kick them out onto the streets or they kill them.
Now, that your island is plain fucking lame. If I had a kid and I had a choice between starving with my kid and selling them off to be abused, exploited, and/or raped, I would pick starving to death with them. Yes, that sucks too, but I would die with my kids, in my arms, knowing how much I love them, rather than have them turned into 14 year prositute who will die of AIDS at 15.
All I have to add is, if the other billion people in your country think that way, you should call up the Queen of England and ask her and the British to come back and run your country, again.
Linux O Muerte!
I think you should know that while that MAY be the case in India, it is certainly quite different in Thailand. Daughters sold into prostitution are shunned and outcast by the family for it. If they ever safely return to their family, despite sending money home for years on end and being forced into the trade to begin with, they are basically a lower class of society and within the family. They're looked down on, called dirty whores, and blamed for everything they did during that period of time. This isn't uncommon throughout southeast asia.
Parents will quite often pick a kid before birth. They will decide on one, and treat it more like a dog than their child. They'll try not to grow attached to it, because they know its fate. It will have older, crummier clothes, and be treated like crap until it is old enough to be sold into sex slavery. At that point in time it'll have to send home all the money it earns, and if it ever survives without any fatal diseases or anything else, and gets a chance to return home, it will already have shamed the family and itself with its deeds.
I have to agree with you, these parents _really_ love their kids in ways westerners will never understand.
SWM seeks new sig for a brief fling