Slashdot Mirror
Robotic Ecologies
Roland Piquepaille writes "The University of Virginia (UVA) School of Architecture has started a new program about 'robotic ecologies' which wants to answer the question: Will robots take over architecture? As said the program leader, 'This research is not just about architectural machines that move. It is about groups of architectural machines that move with intelligence.' Apparently, buildings tracking our movements and adapting their shape or texture according human presence are not far fetched. Maybe one day, we'll talk to our homes and they'll answer."
What if you could talk to a building and it could talk back?
Then what about the wife we already have?
What if a building could adapt its shape, texture, light, sounds, and heat to your presence?
Only if it can also read our moods. How would it know if I am in the mood to read a book (good light source) or to watch TV (dimmer)?
And most importantly the question every slashdotter wants to know -- What if we want to have sex on the kitchen bench, instead of cooking? Would the building turn down the lights and maybe warm the bench a little?
I'm not expecting a machine to figure things out themselves, but its ability to learn on circumstances is important to serve us appropriately.
I guess it's human's unpredictability that makes robots imperfect.
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
"Maybe one day, we'll talk to our homes and they'll answer."
The question isn't if, it's when.
Another Roland Pigpile turd. Lovely.
How many "submissions" a day do you have to whore to Slashdot to get Roland's "Accepted" rate?
1)Make a bot that scans tech-related sites.
2)Upon seeing new content, bot posts it to slashdot.
3)Bribe the editors regularly.
4)Put ads on your site.
5)Link everything to your site.
6)Profit!!
It tells me it's going to impregnate me, incarnating itself as my child.
Or perhaps my house will see me opening the refrigerator one too many times and will decide to lock me out of the kitchen.
Didn't shower for 2 days? -- Sprinklers 'on'. There is nothing like living inside a robot that does whatever it wants.
Wait until these houses start talking to each other and decide that we humans are the enemy.
[oblig. cliche] I for one welcome our new intelligent infrastructure overlords [/oblig. cliche]
There was an Alternate Reality Game created for the A.I movie that involved "living homes" going insane, murdering, and being murdered. This game was arguably more creative and involved than the movie.
The ARG site is gone, but there are still some notes on the living homes at the Cloudmakers site.
I was discussing with one of my friends about how we don't use houses, houses use us to build them and spread across the world. Houses as a species have evolved to adapt to all parts of the earth and even into space. Dude, like whooaaah...
When I utter the instruction, "Squash!" to my building, I sincerely hope it delivers a diluted, fruit-flavoured drink rather than attempt to compress me into a small cube...
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
2)Upon seeing new content, bot posts it to slashdot.
3)Bribe the editors regularly.
4)Put ads on your site.
5)Link everything to your site.
6)Profit!! I'm patenting that!
You can't take the sky from me...
I for one welcome you to my new house overlords.
Only if it can also read our moods. How would it know if I am in the mood to read a book (good light source) or to watch TV (dimmer)? Good choice, Dave, the on-line reviews are very positive.
When you're done, would you like to play a game of chess?
You can't take the sky from me...
I think this is a bad idea. Robots should always be smaller than people because that way it's easier to fight back when they go crazy and try to kill you. If C-3PO whigs out it's no problem, just hit him with a baseball bat, but when you've got robots as big as buildings, you're just asking for trouble.
So, we're talking about a thousand-ton slab of moving floors and sliding walls, changing its heat and lighting... with you inside it? Constantly transforming and shapeshifting, all running off some intern's Java program?
All I can picture is that garbage-compactor scene from Star Wars.
I think it would behoove our culture to remember the writings of Henry David Thoreau on the subject of luxury and excess....he ain't perfect, but our culture has become so ridiculous, heeding at least some of his ideas would be one hell of an improvement.
If the extent of control descibed in TFA becomes reality the control systems better be OSS or I am gonna hafta take up hacking bigtime.
It's bad enough that my house's alarm system has built in maintenance overrides that I am not supposed to know about. Now magnify the potential impact in the TFA's future world by oh.. a couple orders of magnitude.
Regards.
Levithans in Farscape could change their internal layout as they grew to best suit their occupants.
When we start to grow our houses, make sure noone interferes with the reproducion process.
What possible benefit could you get from this sort of reconfiguration that would justify the enormous expense of automation? This isn't going to influence your average stick-frame house, it's going to be a curiosity and maybe a minor influence here and there. All the applications they've described are pretty specialized, and it doesn't indicate that your whole house will be restructuring itself anytime soon.
Remember, there were no nuclear weapons before women were allowed to vote.
"Maybe one day, we'll talk to our homes and they'll answer."
As long as they don't come equipped with Genuine People Personalities...
Short answer: No.
Long answer: That's a goddamned stupid question.
Comment of the year
Oh NO! Not the RED ONE! Heavens NO! Never push the RED ONE!!!
and she already answers... yes, she does... she love me
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I can see it now, the kitchen would come to you whenever you feel hungry, or instead from going upstairs, the upstairs floor could swap with the ground fl^H^H^H^H basement...
Prefigured responsive buildings in his wonderful Return from the Stars. Highly recommended.
you had me at #!
I can imagine what happens when the accounting routines gain their own profit motive: the building decides it can up its income by adding a few floors, reducing the headroom in all the apartments by a foot and a half.
"Never trust a computer you can't throw out a window"
"If these walls could talk."
If that would happen, I would assure myself that I would get the hand of things regarding my robot home or any structure, and surely conduct some experiments to make my robot building a more sophisticated and advanced in its era...and even more I think 15 years form now that is possible! Let's discuss some reasonable topics and we could exchange some ideas, you can reach me at: http://forum.affiliatebot.com/register.php
I can just see giant skyscrapers walking about in New York city, fighting sumo-style, squashing little people under their foundations. Now that would be a thrill!
They can do that already. A friend of mine who recently moved to cali has a security system you can program vocally and also talks back. Plus there was an article on Smart Homes I read about a wee bit ago. Wish I could remember the title/magazine.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
As much fun as many people have bashing Roland, you should note that the link is to the Hook (a weekly magazine here in Charlottesville) and not to his site.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Without sex in the kitchen, an EchoLogical Machine can be produced, created by employing usciiiiii-code for binary code machines ability to listen, talk and think plus sing along with us. While healthy sex and love are reserved for us - our best machines, as blind electronic brains, can be made to communicate verbally with us - but the creative and motivated human mind, is also to stay reserved for humans only, thanks to the usciiiiii-code you can be informed about by asking the search feature you mine the www with.
inventor@prepatent.org
Of course, when installing an artificial intelligence in your home, you should become acquainted with its development history first.
... And whatever was here before B.R.A.D.
Jack:
Fargo: It was a war games simulation.
S.A.R.A.H.: Would you like to play a game?
Everyone: NO!!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?