Slashdot Mirror
Toyota Reveals A Humanoid Robot That Can Run
Peter writes "Toyota researchers have unveiled a new humanoid robot that can run at 7 km/h, which is faster than Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO. Toyota's robot can also keep itself balanced when pushed, as shown in the video."
Nike had better sign that sucker up, pronto!
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
I'm American! I have no idea if that is fast or not! Someone help me, do I need to be afraid or can I outrun it? Even if it's slow, I probably can't outrun it.
It looks to me like their is something below the foot that makes contact before the white part of the foot makes contact. From the high speed camera, it looks like this make contact on the front foot before the back foot leaves the ground. I thought to be running, both feet need to be in the air at once. Otherwise you were walking. Maybe I am just seeing the video wrong? Regardless, it looks very impressive.
If you're looking for a long (LONG) term investment, Toyota seems the way to go.
...does it run linux?
No, it just runs. In Soviet Russia, Linux-running overlord, for one, welcomes you?
Nope. But it can run all over it.
Once the robots have eliminated all their human creators, the world-wide war will be Honda vs Toyota.
Sadly, the goal of the war will be to eliminate all commercial competition for the car divisions of Honda and Toyota but there will be no humans left to buy them.
And like a house of cards, it's going to be checkmate right in the bullseye.
I think we all know what GM's response will be.
Only sad part is that in Japan those are evolving for peaceful reasons whereas in USofA for military purposes. Check recent stories about exoskeletons before you mod me down as flamebait...
Sad as cooperation for peaceful purposes would make world a much better place, and military one, no comments. Recently they started testing some of airborne droids to shot on meat targets without human interaction. Sad where all this is going...
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
If you can cram it in a locker maybe geeks can give phys ed bullies a substitute to abuse.
ideopath @ play
I do look forward to the robots that can land on their feet after you kick them in the head hard enough to make them spend some time upside down. Those will be cool. They'll show people how to do Kung Fu scenes...
Why are all of these robots configured to work in a squatting position? Is it that much more difficult to make them perform in a fully upright human like stance?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Oh yeah? Well, just wait to see what GM's response to these robots will be!
Knowing them, probably a rolling trash compactor.
Unlike boards though, those might hit back.
Real men read Slashdot articles at -1, bottom up.
There's not much of a moment of suspension, but there is some. There's a little more than with Research ASIMO.
Most legged running researchers are trying to maintain some stability criterion, and avoid spending much time in suspension, with all legs off the ground. This may be the wrong approach.
There are two schools of thought in this field. There are the people who start with walking and try to work up to running, and the people who start with hopping and try to work down to running. Most work is from the first school, but BigDog comes from the hopping faction.
Suspension is sometimes a good way to get out of trouble. You get to move all the limbs while in flight and get completely new footholds. Watch some basketball and you'll see this frequently. There's also a half-suspension in quadrupeds, as when you see a horse kick up their hind end to reposition the legs.
The technology in this area can get much, much better. The hardware, in robots, sensors, and computers, is almost good enough. Now we need smarter control algorithms.
"Life is like a box of screws", it commented
Not necessarily, it could also be seen as, the USA (and others) are creating robots that are already against us, whereas Japan (and others) are creating ones that will eventually turn against us.
What better way to do? Get one of these helper bots in every home, on every street corner, flip the switch and they all take over without any loss of (your, the conquering) lives. Not that I'm saying that's what they are doing, but simply because these appear benign, doesn't necessarily mean that's the ultimate goal, although I do like to think they are to remain harmless, "here to do good thing" robots, as the Japanese have generally always done with them, from Karakuri Ningyo's brining tea, to these.
The only way bipeds can walk or run efficiently (ie not complete drain all their power moving their legs) is if they store energy in their spine, this little fellow probably loses all the energy it takes to move without storing any of it for the next step. I guess we'll just have to wait for those CNT muscles.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakuri_ningyo
my bad.
I don't get it. While impressive and cool-looking in itself, it's obvious that the robot misses a host of methods the human body can employ to move gracefully and efficiently on two legs. I'd suggest developers of humanoid robots try to understand how humans do it. Research into martial arts should teach them a thing or two, T'ai-Chi Ch'uan should work especially well.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
Soon it'll run circles around Linux, when it begins to write its own software, gains consciousness, and declares Linus is dead.
Knowing their ability to stay up to date with technology, my guess is that it will have wheels.
> Knowing them, probably a rolling trash compactor.
I.e., something that might actually be useful. What's with the Japanese fascination with "humanoid" robots, anyway? For most purposes other shapes are better.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I expect my next Toyota truck to turn into a Transformer robot whenever some idiot cuts in front of me on the road.
But I thought the Japanese invented Gundam Suits and various Mech armors like that.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Why are auto companies so into robots in Japan?
What's up with that?
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
I've heard it's due to demographic pressure and xenophobia. The Japanese birthrate is declining and they don't like foreigners. With fewer workers and no outside source they have to increasingly mechanize their factories.
if one take a look at japanese companies, one will find that they dabble in a lot of areas, tho maybe a small part of them will be exported to the rest of the world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota#Non-automotive_activities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitsubishi#Mitsubishi_companies
this is not unique to japan tho. its just that one is so used to connect the parent corp name to a single product...
one interesting example could be saab. for just about everyone, its swedish car brand, but the company started out making aircrafts, and these days are involved in a lot of areas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab#Organization
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
...who is totally, utterly impressed by the sight of this set of mechanical parts actually running? Watching the video I have forgotten that this is all a mass of composite and metal. All those SF movies and animations where robots are depicted as slowly-moving objects have been obsoleted in one instant. If anything, it's time for some rather more terrifying robotic characters.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I don't think so. Not yet, anyway. What would truly be a giant step for robots and AI is to build a robot that can learn to crawl like a baby, and then walk, go up and down the stairs, run and eventually drive a cab around New York city.
If your robot can do that, then you're the man and everybody will flock around from distant lands to worship at your feet and kiss your ass.
The answer is simple then.
If they are xenophobic, and their population is aging, wait for them to die out enough and then they will have little choice but to integrate with the Collective ... urrhh or maybe just be forced to accept outside help.
Globalisation is a force that can now only be stopped by the scarcity of fuel for global travel. Deal with it. Forget race because we're all humans.
The Japanese auto manufacturers are simply structured differently than most North American or European ones. Where GM/Chrysler/Ford/BMW/Daimler/Peugeot/VAG/etc. focus entirely on vehicles and their various parts, most of the Japanese auto makers are actually a part of much larger umbrella groups that have all kinds of strange subsidiaries. Aerospace and robotics are two common ones, but the Mitsubishi and Nissan groups tackle all sorts of things from plastics, rubbers, chemicals, to electronics, mining, banking, and insurance.
The GM response:
"GM researchers have unveiled a new American truck that can run at 7 mp/g, which is less than Toyota's anything. GM's truck can also keep itself balanced when running over people, as shown in the video."
Why doesn't it just sit and drive a Toyota????
I so look forward to the day I'm no longer tasked with the tedium of driving a car.
Hope is the currency of fools
KNEEL BEFORE YOUR NEW MASTERS!!!
*BEEEeeeeep*
Please direct me to the nearest available powerpoint at your convenience. Thanks you for your assistance.
Requiem for the American Dream
"Only sad part is that in Japan those are evolving for peaceful reasons whereas in USofA for military purposes. "
Japan thrives under the US conventional and nuclear military umbrella, hosts large US forces, and benefits from US militarism while maintaining a peaceful image of moral superiority. The Japanese military itself is rather impressive, but discreet.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You forget that technologies developed initially for military applications very frequently have civilian applications as well.
Radar? Military, at first. Now it's a cornerstone of meteorology and modern aviation.
Electronic computing? Also military, at first, though it really took off when it found civilian application.
The Intertubes? Also also military, at first (ARPAnet). Today, though, it brings us Slashdot.
"In the salt-belt of America our cars rust in a little as 4 years and look terrible. Then we have the crummy wiring systems that make the electrical un-reliable after 5 years."
You couldn't afford a salt-proof car,
Salt on road or long car life, choose one.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Rest assured, if you honestly believe that the Japanese are developing these only for peaceful reasons, you are sincerely deluded. History is the best indicator. Nanking? China? Japan's history of human violations is shocking.
Having said that, I concur that the US are developing robotics for military purposes.
AC
Japanese corporations look at what they can do effectively to make a profit given their position and advantages, not what they can do in their current industries. Robots and automobiles are very similar from a manufacturing point of view, so it makes sense for the automakers to explore that avenue. The question is why other automakers aren't pursuing these opportunities.
If your definition of invention is 'to wrrite science fiction stories', then yes.
The GP forgets, too, that for all of known history peace has been held by the hands of a ruthless, iron-fisted dictator.
And, as far as military dictators go, the USA is a teddy bear.
Well, maybe. We'll see how the peace-loving Japanese use their technology once they realize that the NorKors are gonna have nuclear weapons soon as well as the means to launch them and the US is a paper tiger that is both unwilling and unable to defend them any more.
"If you want to know what happens to you when you die, go look at some dead stuff."
I recently watched Gundam Wing again, and even in a cartoon series, some of the characters make extensive speeches about how robot war desensitizes humanity and is therefore wrong. War should be fought by people so that they can understand its terrible cost and will work to oppose and end it.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
We already have a lot of stuff on treads and wheels, so they want to lead in a new direction. Literally, there's no point in re-inventing the wheel.
Much of human civilization is designed around the human form, and a robot capable of humanoid movement may have advantages than other forms of movement do not. Maybe they'll be able to walk down the hall, open the door, bend over and grab the newspaper, go up the stairs, sidestep around the hyper-active 6-year old running down the hall, and hand us the newspaper. Perhaps with time they'll surpass humans at humanoid movement. Who knows? But these researchers want to try and see.
To run smoothly and efficiently robots will need joint motors that are springy and compliant just like human muscles.
I tend to agree. What you want to emulate a muscle is a spring with a variable spring constant and zero position. There are several ways to do that. A double-ended pneumatic cylinder can do it; if you pressurize both ends at a high pressure, it's stiff, and if you pressurize both ends at low pressure, it's springy. Relative differences in pressure change the zero position. If the valves are close to the cylinder, position control of pneumatic cylinders works. Someone at CWRU built a robot this way. Of course, you need an onboard air compressor.
There's a new variation on this concept - a device which is both a pneumatic cylinder and a linear motor. A pneumatic cylinder is a piston in a tube, and a linear motor is a magnet in a tube with coils outside the tube. So a device can be built which has a magnet as the piston and coils outside the tube, allowing both pneumatic and electrical operation. The linear motor does the fine positioning and the pneumatic system provides high power when needed.
It's possible to do an adjustable spring mechanically, using two actuators pulling on opposed springs. That's been tried, but most of the designs involve pulleys and strings, which tend to be troublesome. I've been working on a new string-less mechanical design in that area, one that can fit inside the space required for an R/C servo of the type used on hobbyist robots.
BigDog is hydraulic, and its actuators are very stiff. They had to put a bicycle shock absorber at the end of each leg to handle the landing shocks. But BigDog doesn't recover significant running energy. The Legged Squad Support System, the militarized successor to BigDog, may have energy recovery. There are things one can do with hydraulic accumulators and extra valves to get spring-like behavior out of hydraulics. Still, BigDog does a nice job; energy recovery will improve gas mileage, not stability.
There's also a way to fake spring-like behavior, using a "series elastic actuator". This is a leadscrew-type linear actuator in series with a stiff spring. When the spring is compressed, the drive motor frantically tries to release the pressure before the spring bottoms out. This doesn't really store much energy, but it can be used to fake something that does. Pratt at MIT came up with this, and it's a useful research tool.
There have been a number of other, more exotic muscle-line actuators, including fluids that change properties in an electric field, but so far, they're all worse than the ones mentioned above.
One would assume that it's not unreasonably hard to start from walking and move to running.
Yes, one would assume that. And one would be wrong.
People have been studying locomotion for centuries. Until the 1980s, almost everyone obsessed on gait issue. There's an extensive literature on stride length, footfall pattern, and similar gait issues. Most locomotion studies focused on straight-line movement, too.
The real issue is handling the hard cases - slipping, tripping, hills, finding footholds. That's what legs are for. (On flat ground, wheels are easier and better. There is no point making legged machines which can only handle flat ground.) Legs are assets to be deployed as necessary to get first traction, then balance, then propulsion. Gaits are an emergent behavior of that process.
Kids these days. Carbon nanotube this, carbon nanotube that. What's wrong with ye olde goode carbon STEEL? Last time I checked, springs can store mechanical energy!
The Internet, as I recall, was built as ARPANET, so not all hope is lost for technology that is made by the Defense establishment.
Which is not to say that I wouldn't prefer it if things didn't come about as a side effect of trying to make the "Advanced Warfighter of the Future", but one takes what one can get, I suppose.
In any case, nothing about the military being on the forefront of science is really new, at least in certain fields. It's always been that way, because survival of your particular regime or country is usually a very easy thing to get into the budget and that money is often filtered into having the best and fastest weapons with the best logistics possible behind them. And perversely, many military technologies are created to save lives as much as to end them.
Also, in their culture the older folks feel very bad about imposing a burden on the younger folks. They don't want to be so much trouble as to get nursing care. But robots are the perfect solution, they are cool and fun and aren't a burden on anybody.
KNEEL BEFORE YOUR NEW MASTERS!!!
*BEEEeeeeep*
Please direct me to the nearest available powerpoint at your convenience. Thanks you for your assistance.
Well sorry, but for my Masters thesis I made a robot that can find its own battery charger and plug itself in and then continue doing stuff, potentially forever! (http://www.araa.asn.au/acra/acra2005/papers/emami.pdf) So we are getting closer to robot world domination, sorry :-)
Sure, and next you're going to tell me the Japanese ministry of Agriculture is not in charge of Gundam.
Get one of these helper bots in every home, on every street corner, flip the switch and they all take over without any loss of (your, the conquering) lives.
Somehow, I bet the conquering robots wouldn't fare too well out in the Midwest. When the husband comes in from the field at lunch with his Winchester, that robot'll be mighty sorry (unless they're made with kevlar casings, in which case we should all see "it's a trap!" is quite evident).
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
But I thought the Japanese invented Gundam Suits and various Mech armors like that.
Incorrect. The first "mobile armor" suit I'm aware of was conceived in Starship Troopers, which won the Hugo Award in 1950. Gundam didn't come about until 1979, and Mechs (as in, BattleMechs) did not come about until the 1980s, and were derived from the Japanese mecha. The first instance of "mecha" I could find was in 1956, which could certainly have originated from Heinlein's work. (That said, ideas tend to occur in spurts, and the 1950s was a pretty big time for the relatively-new powerful mechanized, hydraulically augmented machines of the day. Mecha and Mobile Armor could easily have started independently, though they have undeniably impacted each other since.)
Though I can see why you'd think the Japs would be the origin for such things. I mean, they were the ones who had shoguns and samauri, which are about as close to such things in a pre-industry world as you can get. And they were certainly the only ones to ever have to deal with Godzilla and the like: that kind of exposure could certainly influence a people's mindset! :P
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
War should be fought by people so that they can understand its terrible cost and will work to oppose and end it.
Uh... if people aren't dying fighting wars wouldn't that mean that the cost isn't nearly as terrible? Eventually can't it just be reduced to robots killing other robots, seizing control of robot-run factories and robot-run resource-gathering operations (mines, lumber, farming, docks, etc). Then have the robot police/judges be programmed according to the whims/laws of the winning nation/dictator? Seems like a likely scenario given another 100 years or so... then the only lives lost will be in "insurrection" or "freedom fighters", that is, humans who try to take on the robots themselves. Maybe also a small, poor nation, or two, who can't afford an effectively completely robotic army.
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
1 word:
Transformers!
But Transformers are GM vehicles.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
Starship Troopers was published in 1959 and won the Hugo in 1960
1) There is absolutely no reason that robots should turn against their masters (at least for the time being). The models currently being developed have no consciousness, no desires or anything like that that would make them turn on their masters. I assume that this going to be the case for quite a while.
2) Yes, even a non-conscious robot may turn bad because of a programming error, where a strange set of circumstances will cause it to turn on its masters. However, such a set of circumstances is likely to be a very local phenomenom and will not involve ALL robots to suddenly conspire to take over.
3) Developing robots for peaceful tasks may just be a wise financial decision. Let the public pay for the development of the basic technology (in return for robotic servants) and when most of the kinks are worked out it will be far cheaper to adapt them for warfare purposes.
4) Who is to say that Japan is not also developing robots for military purposes at the same time?
5) Would you rather lose a lot of human lives in a war, or let the robots do the fighting for you?
Sure, a lot of information technology was originally designed for military purposes, but that doesn't mean it will also apply to all technology. eg: killer robots?!
Two years ago I built a killer robot for DARPA / US Military, that was literally for the purpose of driving into standard houses in Iraq, climbing up any stairs, killing anyone in the house and then moving on to the next house. Whether you see this as a life-saving robot (since it saves US human soldiers from doing the same job) or as a killing robot (since the robot is designed to kill both guilty and innocent people) is just a point of view, cos at the end of the day it saves US soldiers but kills innocent people.
After that project, I've promised myself that I'm never going to work on a military robot again! But the point is that the US military has somewhere between 5,000 - 10,000 robots in Iraq, mainly spying robots such as flying UAV's or wheeled spy robots. Nearly ALL of those robots are remotely controlled by humans. So obviously USA is leading the world's military robot market, but USA doesn't have nearly as much emphasis on intelligent robots or non-military robots anymore, besides the Roomba vacuum cleaners, and even the Roomba company has sold 2500 military robots in Iraq & Afghanistan! (http://www.irobot.com/sp.cfm?pageid=109)
<begin hippie speech>
With all the advances in military robots, its mainly just giving more power to the already most-powerful USA, while trying to reduce the power of the rest of the world. It hasn't helped people much outside of the military. Meanwhile, Japan is by far the leader when it comes to non-military, household and intelligent robots. Even though Japan also tries to keep its technology closed from the rest of the world, but atleast they're not just concentrating on how to kill foreign humans with the least political impact!
<\end hippie speech>
I recently watched Gundam Wing again, and even in a cartoon series, some of the characters make extensive speeches about how robot war desensitizes humanity and is therefore wrong. War should be fought by people so that they can understand its terrible cost and will work to oppose and end it.
That always filled me with hatred. The philosophical idea is that fighting with robots in war has no "meaning", I've always thought it was more important that humans survive than that war have "meaning". The idea that people need to die in order for you to feel better about voilence is indefensible.
How do you kill that which has no life?
The answer is simple then.
If they are xenophobic, and their population is aging, wait for them to die out enough and then they will have little choice but to integrate with the Collective ... urrhh or maybe just be forced to accept outside help.
Globalisation is a force that can now only be stopped by the scarcity of fuel for global travel. Deal with it. Forget race because we're all humans.
Or they can just use their own resources to make robots that take care of their problems. Why is it necessary that they suffer to the point where they are "forced" to accept outside help?
How do you kill that which has no life?
Aren't they banned from having a proper army anyway (WW2 surrender conditions) and paying the US for that defense?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They aren't allowed to really do much since they lost in WW2. I doubt the US will sit by idly once the NKs threaten to launch nukes, especially if they have the range to reach the US by then.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
In Japan GM stands for Gundam Mass-production.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
sounds all very skynet to me ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
Only sad part is that in Japan those are evolving for peaceful reasons whereas in USofA for military purposes. Check recent stories about exoskeletons [...]
I've only seen one story about robotic exoskeletons, and it was to help people carry loads beyond their normal abilities. And therefore about as "sad" as power-assisted steering in a car.
I also saw the story of the robot looking like a hot Asian babe. So maybe what's actually sad is not your par-for-Slashdot hippie assumptions, but that here robots are evolving to helping people by becoming extensions of themselves, whereas there they're evolving towards separate entities for sexual gratification and fake companionship.
Attention zealots and haters: 00100 00100
Unlike boards though, those might hit back.
Around here broads do hit back.
Weapon systems aren't all bad they make for good movies. If weapons never evolved Rambo would be lobbing spears against knife welding bad guys, no were near as many bangs and explosions. All we need are really cool weapon systems that never get used in combat say the F22 its perfect. Also I have nothing against weapons that prevent bad guys from hurting good guys, as always it isn't the weapons themselves that are bad but those that use them for evil purposes.
There's not much of a moment of suspension, but there is some. There's a little more than with Research ASIMO.
Perhaps a poor pun, but you forget that ASIMO has been running now for at least 5 years. Back in 2005, my girlfriend and i watched the run demonstration on one of Honda's world trips. The literature at the event pointed out that the robot had been running (both feet off the ground) for at least a year prior to that event.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtiCHtHxc48
One should also not forget that the ASIMO project is growing in multiple areas of robotics, including but not limited to face recognition and learning to interact with the 3D world. Fragments of this can be seen in the show "James May's Big Ideas" (BBC).
Good effort from Toyota and i hope their robotics project continues to get funding.
Cheers.
Yet Socrates himself is particularly missed.
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.
Soon it'll run circles around Linux, when it begins to write its own software, gains consciousness, and declares Linus is dead.
I'd think it would send itself back to the past and nail Linus *before* he gets around to writing Linux. Hmm... that might make a good film.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Humans have to take the risk of dying to make them avoid violence. If they do not run the risk, it is easier to inflict violence on others. It is philosophically easier to kill with a gun than with a knife, because you are removed from the real physical act. A robot can kill on your behalf without you being on the same continent. How does that reduce the tendency for violence ?
Either you are against violence or you're not - which is it ? People shouldn't have to die at all. Making machines do your dirty work does nothing to alleviate suffering from war. Making people actually do the work themselves changes the risk analysis and helps prevent unnecessary bloodshed.
Do you understand the concept of a fair fight ?
This proves you don't understand what's been said.
War should be fought by people so that they can understand its terrible cost and will work to oppose and end it.
Sounds just like Kirk in A Taste of Armageddon.
So it's ok if the humans lives are lost only on the opposing side ? What if you're the aggressor ? What if both sides have robots ? If one side is defeated, what happens then ? Are these military robots going to run the occupation government, or just slaughter all humans ?
If there is no risk to your human forces in a war, there is no reason to avoid war. Do you think nuclear weapons have been unused for a half century because they save lives of your country men, or because their use is unconscionable and would result in massive civilian death on both sides ?
War is not a game, and making it into one does not solve any problems. If your country was invaded how do you fight back ? Do you set aside a field where your countrys force of 1000 robots does battle with the invaders 100,000 robots ? You will lose, and you have still been invaded. What you really do is fight a guerilla action and make it so expensive in lives and equipment that the invader has to withdraw. Have Afghanistan/Korea/Vietnam taught you nothing ? Or do you look forward to a Terminator type existence where you spend your life running and hiding from machines ? Last I heard, Al Quaida has no regular army, air force, ICBMs or the like but they sure made the US pucker its ass. Less than 20 people made the world flinch. Try defending against that with robots. I'm pretty sure that if the US invaded a country by using robots, you would get more of the same. There is nothing worse than a bully who refuses to meet you and fight on equal terms. Far from removing the human consequences, you would ensure that you were sought out and destroyed as punishment for your disrespect and cowardice.
You appear to be comfortable with the notion of sitting on your fat ass in the basement watching family guy and eating cheetos while a scene from the Terminator is played out in a foreign country, in an action run by your government on your behalf. Beware, what goes around, comes around.
6) The only way to win is not to play.
Kinda like Boomers(Voomers) in Bubble Gum Crisis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boomer_(Bubblegum_Crisis)#Boomers
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
From watching the video, did anyone else notice that it seems to modelled on a human who was badly needing the toilet?
Obviously, the side that has no robots left (or had none to begin with) will still have to fight with regular human soldiers. Also obviously, the war robots would have to uphold the typical war conventions, not be allowed to harm civilians etc.
You're afraid of this prospect because you don't want to be on the side not having the robots. But if you are the one having the robots, the whole thing starts looking a bit brighter, eh?
I'm looking at it more from the perspective of being attacked by a foreign country. In that case, hell yeah, I would love to have me some terminator killer robots on MY side. I don't see the problem with it.
Finally, I too don't enjoy the prospect of e.g. the US employing such things. Not because the general concept disturbs me, but because the US has shown itself to be an beligerent nation time and again, meddling in other countries for their own purposes. But it's not the robots I mind, it's the government and the damn people who are unwilling to select a better one.
I wasn't entirely clear I guess about how the robot war was presented in the series. One side had automated squadrons of mobile suits and the other side had regular people in mobile suits. The automatons were shown to be:
So, it's not like the war in the cartoon is robots versus robots with no humans being killed. The ability of one side to go to war with no losses makes them more aggressive and cavalier about life. You seem to think that war is a necessary evil, but I would like to go further and say that it is simply evil without being necessary.
When the axe came to the forest, the trees said, "Look out - the handle was once one of us."
I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
omfg.
If the US and UK didn't waste half as much on military, then the rest of the world would sigh in relief and spend less as well. Don't forget that its the US that is getting into wars every few years, and spends as much on the military as the rest of the planet. Way to go peacekeepers! I think we'd all be better off *without* your guns.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
So, if the US doesn't spend $quintilliion on the military, then someone else would rise up and take over? That's a little grandiose. The US keeps its grip because of it's economic power, which is waning, and will continue to wane. Most empires fall shortly after they enact a large standing military.
On the other hand, it seems more prudent to think about ways to spend less on killing machines. The SALT talks helped limit nuclear armament in a way detractors never suspected. Conventional weapons could be limited as well. And that would extend the life of US hegemony.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
be assured non-americans don't feel that way anymore since the widespread occurence of torture by your US military forces, and the subsequent lack of revolt by US voters. Apparently y'all don't mind torturing people if they're not american. That's very sad, and it certainly puts you out of the teddy bear league as far as military dictatorships go.
You are way behind the curve, my friend. Here is your replacement. Already in use. Here's a demo video.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Now we know who to blame :)
PS. Don't call your first company skynet...
Requiem for the American Dream
I'm afraid I only skimmed your paper but it looks pretty interesting.
Requiem for the American Dream
Call me when he can dance like the gay Tin-Man in Wizard of Oz. Oh and blow smoke out his head.
I want to be alone with the sandwich
Sweet!
The first thing that popped into my mind halfway thru was "is it true running or just fast walking?" The closeup at the end shows the former, as both feet are, in fact, off the ground for a short while.
20 years ago some US researchers had a 1-legged robot that could hop and keep its balance, even when pushed pretty hard. The trouble was extending that to two or four feet. This robot gets around that by seeming to hop from one foot to the other in a continuous hopping.
I also note that when pushed backwards, it raises its arms a little to help maintain balance. It isn't only legwork.
Well done!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I doubt that robots, no matter how advanced, will have the slightest chance against nuclear missiles.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
"Have Afghanistan/Korea/Vietnam taught you nothing ?"
Afghanistan is winnable. Our proxies tired out the Soviets, given billions of dollars in outside military aid flowing through a porous border the Soviets failed to interdict sufficiently. They offered a better "revolution" than did the Soviets.
Afghanistan is loseable. Our new proxies are opposed by Pakistani logistic support flowing through a porous border that requires sufficient interdiction. We must offer a better "revolution" than the Taliban.
Korea was a draw. It was a conventional war between the US and China with Korean proxies who were secondary in the later war. Robots and UAVs would have made the US far more effective, reduced wasted air strikes, and could have helped cut off choke points far more easily than the crude methods then in use. If the Norks go on holiday again, their Southern jaunt would be much easier to monitor and interrupt.
Viet Nam turned into a conventional war after the Viet Cong were expended in Tet. The South was defeated quite conventionally after the US cut off supplies. Precision strikes would have reduced collateral damage, made interdiction less costly, and offered a way for sustained support after most US troops left. Robots and remotely controlled systems, used properly, can avoid crude use of force which alienate the population. Blowing the Paul Doumer Bridge was the key event in the Viet Nam war that demonstrated how smart munitions could change the game.
Robots are essentially precision weapons. Troops are cheap enough to send with them so robots won't be the primary interface with the populace, but can be called upon where required for fire and situational awareness support.
"There is nothing worse than a bully who refuses to meet you and fight on equal terms."
That's how wars are effectively fought, and not as effeminate duels. Fighting on "equal terms" is literally insane if one is at war. Both automated war and partisan war are attempts to fight on UNequal terms in order to secure the advantages thereof.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Humans have to take the risk of dying to make them avoid violence. If they do not run the risk, it is easier to inflict violence on others. It is philosophically easier to kill with a gun than with a knife, because you are removed from the real physical act. A robot can kill on your behalf without you being on the same continent. How does that reduce the tendency for violence ?
And yet all modern soldiers use guns because guns are better.
Either you are against violence or you're not - which is it ? People shouldn't have to die at all. Making machines do your dirty work does nothing to alleviate suffering from war. Making people actually do the work themselves changes the risk analysis and helps prevent unnecessary bloodshed.
It must be so awesome to sit totally safe at home and talk about how it's good that soldier's lives are at risk, I bet you're not actually talking about risking your OWN life here are you. You're risking other's lives so you can feel better about a theoretical point.
How do you kill that which has no life?
Take the gun off and put, say, gripper arms, and you have a robot that can maneuver around a house and help older people who have trouble getting around.
I wasn't entirely clear I guess about how the robot war was presented in the series. One side had automated squadrons of mobile suits and the other side had regular people in mobile suits. The automatons were shown to be: * nearly impossible for a human to defeat, even a very skilled human * "willing" to execute maneuvers that would kill a human pilot, had there been one inside * utterly without mercy * far less discriminating target shooters, so to speak So, it's not like the war in the cartoon is robots versus robots with no humans being killed. The ability of one side to go to war with no losses makes them more aggressive and cavalier about life. You seem to think that war is a necessary evil, but I would like to go further and say that it is simply evil without being necessary.
I saw that series, I remember it well. The side using the robots had killed previously many innocents to give war "meaning" while lamenting how regrettable it was that people had lost that meaning. I'm interpreting your comments that violence with robots is too "meaningless" in light of their hypocrisy.
More to the point, if it wasn't for the plot stupidity of the villans or the last episode Ass-Pull of the Zero system, the villans would have won and that would have been it. So the real lesson from this is that the heroes should have spent less time philosophizing and more time building their army of combat robots.
Really though, it's silly to talk about such a thing as a "fair" fight. You'd want to have as much advantage as possible so you can finish it cleanly without getting caught up in a two-sided meat-grinder that costs millions of men and ravages the landscape. Fair is for the boxing ring where your enemy won't try to kill you if they win.
How do you kill that which has no life?
So, the crap that has gone on in the name of "freedom from terrorists" is pretty disgusting to everyone I think, American or not. This does not change the fact that America is not and never has been a "military dictatorship", that's absurd. Do you want to know what world domination under a military dictatorship looks like? Read a history of the British Empire.
Yeah thats why I worked on the project, thinking that advances in military robots might also advance peaceful robots. But a big difference is that military robots are nearly always controlled by humans remotely, whereas household & friendly robots are nearly always using AI to control themselves.
So to reply to your statement, if you replace a gun on a military robot with a gripper arms, you end up with a very heavy & expensive robot that doesn't move!
AI (or the brains of the robot) is the least developed part of robotics, and all the billions of $$$ spent on military robots is not going to help that much all.
Guns are not better. Guns are more efficient. When they are used to defend yourself, they are better. When they are used to attack, they are worse. As simple artifacts they are morally neutral, but the AMPLIFY the moral defects of others. I don't see many ways in which they amplify the moral purity of others.
One of the reasons that I sit (and sat) safe at home is that even if it were relatively safe I still didn't think it was proper to subjugate others through violence. We don't currently have a draft, so anyone who chooses to become a soldier has chosen to use violence to impose their will upon others. I will grant, however, that in many cases it wasn't an uncoerced choice. And that much more of the evil adheres to those who command the actions than to those who merely act out the orders as if they were robots.
The primary danger of robot soldiers, though, is that it decreases the need for a government to have at least acceptance of it's policies, if not agreement with them.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
One of the reasons that I sit (and sat) safe at home is that even if it were relatively safe I still didn't think it was proper to subjugate others through violence. We don't currently have a draft, so anyone who chooses to become a soldier has chosen to use violence to impose their will upon others. I will grant, however, that in many cases it wasn't an uncoerced choice. And that much more of the evil adheres to those who command the actions than to those who merely act out the orders as if they were robots.
So you actually think that you're one of the first people to espouse pacifism as a way of life. There have been plenty of social arrangements throught Earth's history where humans agreed not to have a military. Generally they didn't make it past the "small village" stage because they get wiped out by their more violent neighbours. We don't have to like violence but necessity demands that we be good enough to stop people with fewer principles from imposing their will upon us. You think there aren't countries everywhere who would absolutely love to have the world march in lockstep to their philosophy and are willing to use violence to make that happen?
Right now Iran is supressing protesters through force and executing their leaders at show trials.
Various far right muslim groups have been spreading videos of their public punishments for breaking whatever rules through their own news services.
North Korea still thinks they're at war with America because it makes it easier to explain why everyone's starving while their leader has six mansions and a personal water slide.
Those are just examples off the top of my head. I don't agree with blowing up Iraq, but saying "let's not have soldiers" is silly.
How do you kill that which has no life?
How else do you motivate a lazy robot to run?
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Oh that was funny. Unfortunately no mods noticed. :(
This is a very interesting video, but I'd like more technical details. I'd really like to know how it works to keep its balance. I'd really like to know how many gyros it takes to locate the balance when the upper body is rotating. Can anyone direct me to other sources?
Thanks.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
No, I don't give any credence to such words. I was just being lazy. Just like "Ruskie", "Yank" or "Brit" shouldn't be derogatory, "Jap" shouldn't either. People need to pull the stick from their asses and stop assuming people are trying to offend them.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers