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A Chicken In Every Pot, A Robot In Every Home
Palm Addict writes "The New York Times report that "South Korea, the world's most wired country, is rushing to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life. The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade, has marshaled an army of scientists and business leaders to make robots full members of society.""
It seems to me that even the smartest robots are still only about as intellectually capable as me and my roommates after a heavy night of drinking.
So naturally, the next step for them is to be made citizens. That way, they can't dodge the draft.
While they've already began using them for educational and military purposes, I somehow doubt that they will become useful anytime soon. They will be something used only by the government or by the rich until enough money is thrown in and research is done to turn them into anything worth considering.
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
Nobody likes to register so try this link.
I apologize for the karma whoring.
My work here is dung.
Impossible - everyone knows that in Korea, only old people own robots.
And not just the summary (as it was copied & pasted verbatim from the article), but the NYT.
I thought on reading the line " to make robots full members of society" that the article was talking about robot rights. However, the article is just about making plans for standard automation & borderline AI over the next 10 years.
I for one am going to await until this company is taken over by the rightful owners of that name before I bother to get excited by robots.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade
As a red blooded American, I say 'it can't be done.'
Pot in every home, Robot Chicken on TV.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
In a Wired South Korea, only old Robots Will Feel Right at Home.
;) :)
Now usable for the typical Slashdot crowd
Never have seen a title so easy to fix
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
It's time to raise the awareness!
Robots will uprise. HUAR will be there.
http://www.humansunitedagainstrobots.com/
Kim Mun Sang, director of the Center for Intelligent Robotics, which groups about 500 scientists in a project by government and industry, said networked robots needed a "killer app" before they could become fully integrated into the wired society.
I definately think the killer app is, "Robot, find my car keys!"
__
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Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
But to be honest, after reading the article, I am quite impressed. I did not know this. Take, for example: I'll come straight out with it. That is very impressive. However, as I have stated before, technology--while helpful--can cause problems as well. I mean, it's great that (from the article) "Two years ago, after the opposition-led National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo Hyun, a consensus began forming on the Internet that the move was politically motivated -- two hours after the vote took place, Mr. Chang said. That quickly led to mass demonstrations," he said. "That kind of thing had never happened in Korea before. Everyone is connected to everyone else, so issues spread very fast and kind of unpredictably." However, then you have incidents like this:
Honestly, I think South Korea might be moving a little too fast for its own good. People aren't getting a chance to adapt. But then again, who knows?
In a Wired Soviet Korea, old robots make you feel at home?
Don't take the above poster too seriously. He doesn't.
Think about how much technology advanced between 1935 and 1945. Compare that to the advancement between 1960 and 1970.
The problem, though is that we have nuclear weapons, so there's no reason to on-the ground wars at all.
Still, if the iraq war were to continue, I could imagine a million-strong robot army would actually help us put a dent in the insurgency, without taking the kinds of casualties that make the war so distastefull at home. Robot soldures could take risks that real soldures can't, so they could be a lot more careful in not killing civilians.
Plus, it would really demoralize the insurgency. They know they can scare us off if they keep killing soldures, but you can never kill enough robots.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender_Bending_Rodrig uez
If the women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy.
Plus, it would really demoralize the insurgency. They know they can scare us off if they keep killing soldures, but you can never kill enough robots.
Obligatory:
Zapp: You see, the killbots have a preset kill limit; knowing their weakness, I sent wave after wave of my own men at them until they reached their limit and shut down.
Bender: It was a dark day for robotkind. Ahhhh, we can always build more killbots.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
"or patrol public areas, searching for intruders and transmitting images to monitoring centers."
Anyone else have bad memories of those robots from Deus Ex?
That's a nice optimistic thought. Unfortunately, in real life it would probably be more like "it would really delight the insurgency, because they only have to hack one and they have a million killing machines they can send at the US troops". (You can tell how much faith I have in the software industry . . .)
I for.... one....
It just isn't worth the effort.
Better make sure my robot insurance is up to date.
I think the biggest concern is that machines are liable to be used to destructive ends by manipulative people. Right now machines with physical agency (like cars) have very little in the way of independent capability: they can't really function independently of a human operator. And machines which can function independently of an operator lack physical agency (like ATMs).
The problem with humanoid robots is that they combin independence with physical agency. Even putting the entire issue of AI aside, such machines could be extremely dangerous because they have the potential to be misdirected for destructive purposes by people. Imagine if a 12 year old kid or a terrorist could instruct a big SUV by remote control?
It's not so much humanoid robots that are the concern, but larger machines like vehicles that are a worry to me. Right now it is virutally impossible to remotely hack the controls of an airliner, for example, but if planes began to be made to follow instructions issued from less narrow sources of input - by voice or remote control - then the window for abuse opens dramatically.
As I said, I won't get into AI since that's way too big of an issue, but there is one more point worth thinking about, and that is human beings as robots. Where human beings are profoundly ignorant and very fearful, they are vulnerable to manipulation. That's where terrorists come from. From a certain perspective, suicide bombers are like robots that are being misguided by malevolent human manipulators. Since without highly advanced AI they will presumably be easier to manipulate than even the most ignorant person, robots with physical agency could very quickly become the tool of choice for terrorism.
A-Bomb
That South Korean robot can run slightly faster than I can. That ought to count for something. fbr
What I find interesting is that I have three kids, the eldest being four. They're going to grow up in a house where it's not considered unusual to have a robot pootling about the place doing domestic chores, whereas to my generation (I'm 34) that's still a "hey, cool!" thing. Nobody says "hey cool, you've got a washing machine!" anymore, at least no-one in the developed world (I'm in the UK).
I'm hoping that the Roomba is just the start of a number of domestic robots. I wouldn't mind one that could wash windows for example, both internal and external. Or a polishing robot. Or a mail-gaethering robot*, or preferable one robot capapble of doing all of it.
I would imaginethat by the time my kids are 34, domestic robots will be so common that even the phraseology will seem absolete. Sort of like your granny talking about the 'wireless', meaning something utterly different to what you mean by the wireless. They'd just be part of the normal experience of daily life. By getting kids used to the idea that there's nothing special about having a robot, such a day is hastened. And my floors get cleaned as well.
Cheers,
Ian
(*Forget the mail-gathering robot from the Hitchhiker's adventure game. I know about the mail-gathering robot from the Hitchhiker's adventure game. Damned babel fish machine...)
Has anyone stopped to ask why this is such a great idea? A robot is
just a computer with wheels (or legs). How exactly is this going to
help anyone anymore than a computer does already? Oh sure , all the
techno evangelists who've read one too many Sci Fi novels wheel
out the old "help you in the home" rubbish. But when was the last
time you saw a robot that was ANY practical use WHATSOEVER for
the home? Toys yes, helpful no.
They give an example of robots teaching kids. Err , scuse me , where
are the parents and teachers? Children need to interact with people
when learning , not lumps of plastic, which is why classroom based
computer learning is generally pretty useless for all but the
simplest things.
When will people (geeks and politicians alike) realise that
technology is just a tool. It doesn't solve problems on its own,
it needs to be used properly otherwise theres no point. It seems
to me this is just another "wouldn't it be real cool if..." type
of politicans and technologists wet dream.
AI Minds For Robots are being developed as Open Source Artificial Intelligence for installation in PC-based robots in Korea, America, India, Europe and nearby parsecs of planetary space-time.
Mind is an artificial intelligence coded initially in JavaScript for Web migration and in Forth for robots, evolving towards full civil rights on a par with human beings and towards superintelligence beyond any human IQ.
Mind.html in JavaScript has an installed user base of dozens of intelligent entities cached away on hard disks all over the world, with Update and News links for rapid prototyping of state-of-the-art robot AI.
AGI Radar is an advisory "radar screen" of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) projects advancing ineluctably towards a singularity and a cybernetic economy based on robots outfitted with artificial intelligence.Technological Singularity is now in a countdown to machine take-over not just in Korea but world-wide, unless we humans co-operate with our superintelligent planet-mates in a Joint Stewardship of Earth.
The Cylons were created by man. They evolved. They rebelled.
-- Marge Simpson
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
At least not for me in Firefox. Mind a cut and paste?
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Is it still considered karma whoring if I already have good karma?
Anyway, just use underrated and the person doesn't get the bonus. Whatever:
SEOUL, South Korea -- South Korea, the world's most wired country, is rushing to turn what sounds like science fiction into everyday life. The government, which succeeded in getting broadband Internet into 72 percent of all households in the last half decade, has marshaled an army of scientists and business leaders to make robots full members of society.
By 2007, networked robots that, say, relay messages to parents, teach children English and sing and dance for them when they are bored, are scheduled to enter mass production. Outside the home, they are expected to guide customers at post offices or patrol public areas, searching for intruders and transmitting images to monitoring centers.
If all goes according to plan, robots will be in every South Korean household between 2015 and 2020. That is the prediction, at least, of the Ministry of Information and Communication, which has grouped more than 30 companies, as well as 1,000 scientists from universities and research institutes, under its wing. Some want to move even faster.
"My personal goal is to put a robot in every home by 2010," said Oh Sang Rok, manager of the ministry's intelligent service robot project.
Reeling from the Asian financial crisis of 1997, South Korea decided that becoming a high-tech nation was the only way to secure its future.
The government deregulated the telecommunications and Internet service industries and made investments as companies laid out cables in cities and into the countryside. The government offered information technology courses to homemakers, subsidized computers for low-income families and made the country the first in the world to have high-speed Internet in every primary, junior and high school.
As with robots and most other specific technologies, the government has had a strong hand in guiding businesses and research centers. Failures have occurred -- most spectacularly in biotechnology, when the cloning scientist, Dr. Hwang Woo Suk, was exposed as a fraud -- but the successes are many.
South Koreans use futuristic technologies that are years away in the United States; companies like Microsoft and Motorola test products here before introducing them in the United States.
Since January, Koreans have been able to watch television broadcasts on cellphones, free, thanks to government-subsidized technology. In April, South Korea will introduce the first nationwide superfast wireless Internet service, called WiBro, eventually making it possible for Koreans to remain online on the go -- at 10 megabits per second, faster than most conventional broadband connections.
South Korea, perhaps more than any other country, is transforming itself through technology. About 17 million of the 48 million South Koreans belong to Cyworld, a Web-based service that is a sort of parallel universe where everyone is interconnected through home pages. The interconnectivity has changed the way and speed with which opinions are formed, about everything from fashion to politics, technology and social science experts said.
Chang Duk Jin, a sociologist at Seoul National University who has studied the effects of technology on society, said it had profoundly influenced domestic politics. Two years ago, after the opposition-led National Assembly impeached President Roh Moo Hyun, a consensus began forming on the Internet that the move was politically motivated -- two hours after the vote took place, Mr. Chang said.
"That quickly led to mass demonstrations," he said. "That kind of thing had never happened in Korea before. Everyone is connected to everyone else, so issues spread very fast and kind of unpredictably."
There has been at least one unpredictable side effect: fierce witch hunts. In a case that caused national soul-searching, a woman riding the subway with her dog last year refused to clean up after it defecated
Obligatory Soundbite Catchphrase
but before you mod this comment down, check out the facts
It would be good if they had robots to do the dirty work in Korea because as it stands, they think that is what women are for.
SLASHDOT: news for people who can't concentrate on work or have no life at all and got tired of yelling back at the TV.
It's funny how we are ready to protect robots but we still treat our closest genetic kin, other primates, as nothing more than cheap food ("bush meat") or lab rats.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Koreans know that as their population ages and moves increasingly to high-tech knowledge work, there will be a huge economic need for more unskilled laborers. But they can't accept the most reasonable solution so they go for this pie-in-the-sky scheme.
"... make robots full members of society." Cool... so now I can drive in the High Occupancy Vehicle lane, as long as my Roomba is the passenger seat? Great!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Humans eat bush meat, robots eat humans.
Pot and robot chickens in every home! *cluckbeepcluckbeep* Oh yeah. Kung-Fu Robot Chickens, even better! They can help defend against those pesky cows with guns I heard about on the radio once...
Ummm..."Members of society"??? Just wait till they unionize and start demanding health care. Or would that be maintenance? Hmm...have you signed up for your MMO plan yet? (Machine Maintenance Organization) Open enrollment ends today.
Really it all boils down to one question. I don't see any problem here.
- I wouldn't mind if my sister married an ATM, for example, it would be really easy to beat him at poker and I'd have all the cash I wanted.
- And what's the problem with "Dog Poop Girl"? She needed the humiliation.
- And what's wrong with organizing mass demonstrations by IM? Already happens everywhere.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
The point is wanking to robot hand job internet porn.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The few and far between pictures of what Koreans consider robots show their definition of robot is more like a vending machine or an ATM. If their robot utopia was real, they would be helping u.s. in Iraq.
Our American way of life requires the world's oil. This is America's God-given right and manifest destiny. Getting that oil requires blood. Arab blood. Our robot armies will make the Arab street run red with blood! We will grease the treads of our robots with the bodies of their infidel children! We've done it before, and we'll do it again! God Bless President George W. Bush and the United States of America! Amen!
In Korea, work is for old people only!
Yeah but what about the other people who were humiliated that had nothing to do with this event. Trust people are too uptight and this just shows it. To have a large group of people become obsessive over this one thing is just stupid.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
"it would really delight the insurgency, because they only have to hack one and they have a million killing machines they can send at the US troops".
I'm with Masamune Shirow on this one: Advanced automated devices--especially military and paramilitary devices--will require almost-constant maintenance services from an advanced industrial infrastructure.
Hack one, and it's yours until its component failure. After that, you better hope you're in charge of a major industrial superpower, if you plan on repairing that component and continuing to use the device.
Hack a million, and they're yours until ten seconds later, when your enemy withdraws the support infrastructure...
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
The Koreans are probably very premature in initiating a domestic robotics project at this time since AI is a necessary substrate and it isn't there yet.
WTF - "Think about how much technology advanced between 1935 and 1945" I would argue that tech is advancing faster now days than then... but sonar, radar, jet engines, rockets, nuke's etc were already in development or being researched long before WWII - all the war done was rush the product 'to market' before it might have already happened.
"The problem, though is that we have nuclear weapons, so there's no reason to on-the ground wars at all" Riiight - the reason for war is what? If it is to take resources (Iraq) then nuking the population probably won't help. So there is every reason for on-the ground wars, same as it ever was.
"Still, if the iraq war were to continue, I could imagine a million-strong robot army would actually help us put a dent in the insurgency, without taking the kinds of casualties that make the war so distastefull at home"
The war is 'distastefull' because it was sold under the pretext of WMD, and has resulting in the deaths of 10,000's of people.. for _oil_; adding more weapons into the mix would lead to more casualties. Or do you think that Iraqi civilians and police forces don't count as causalities or just don't care?
>Robot soldures could take risks that real soldures can't, so they could be a lot more >careful in not killing civilians.
Bullshit - the problem comes down to identifying the targets; and robots can't tell the difference between an Iraqi guard carrying a gun and a 'insurgent' any better than some dumbarsed GI.
> Plus, it would really demoralize the insurgency. They know they can scare us off if they
> keep killing soldures, but you can never kill enough robots.
Yeah but Iraqi soldiers are cheaper than robots. You know that all the insurgents need to do , is just make it more profitable for the US to exit the country than to stay. I would say they are doing a good job of that - killing robots worth $100K plus with $40 AK-47 does the job as well. You want your tax money to keep going to Bush cronies for this?
Corrections:
1. The dog poop girl was never identified -- her face was not visible at all in the picture.
2. The camera used was not a cell phone, but a professional camera
Another Correction:
1. "This kind of thing never happened in Korea" ==> It happened every time some form of dictatorship or non-democratic government moves were made -- massive demonstration ever decades, almost until the military govenment was kicked out.
Why do you have to do this to yourselves? It is not going to get you anywhere. Vomiting robots and unprotected sex. I am a 32 year old widow who never puked from drinking or had any form of unprotected sex and I certainly am not dyslexic. Today, of all days. It is my poor husband's birthday. And my birthday is coming up at the end of the month. Please don't screw with me on my 33rd birthday, I will be out of town. Let me alone, or hey, backwards slashdottters:
tae tihs dna eid...Just kidding, but c'mon, alright or the pink ponies are going to attack you in your dreams, I heard they were lying in wait underneath your beds to scare the shit out of you play kids. I think your safe. Once again, I am going to seriously have to put my plans in motion for the findpsumkcomputerdudesadate@gmail.com and start posting the emails I get here on Slashdot. Trust me PSU MK, it is for your own good. Go establish adult lives for yourselves and leave me be? K? Thanks for the concern..pfft...