Robot Uprising Update: The Future is 'Friendly' Robots... Until They Attach Lasers!
It's been over two years since I last wrote about the inevitable machine uprising and, while Boston Dynamics continues to claim they're not inadvertently trigging the first attack by pushing their robots around with hockey sticks, the future is leaning toward 'friendly' service robots (or at least the robots want you to think they're friendly so you'll casually pass them your laser gun to 'look after').
Honda's Asimo is no more.
Possibly the most famous 'friendly' robot, Honda's Asimo, is unfortunately no more. Honda shelved further research into human-like, bipedal robots in 2017, though will be using some of their robot technology in things like making it possible for your motorcycle to self balance and follow you around like a puppy dog.
Soft Bank's Pepper Robot Assistant.
Japanese Robot manufacturer, Soft Bank (who as I understand it bought Boston Dynamics and recently sold an 80% stake to Hyundai), is going from strength to strength with its 'friendly' robot, Pepper. This robot has gone into mass production and is relatively affordable as a personal companion, greeter, or educator, that comes with its own iPad.
While Pepper's lack of legs means it can still be defeated by a set of stairs (like your evil, scheming, robot vacuum), it still has laser sensors built in, just waiting to be turned up to eleven (I'm guessing that's the melt your face off setting).
Boston Dynamic's Robot Dog Spot can dance.
Boston Dynamic's robot dog, Spot, has also gone into commercial production but, just because it can dance doesn't mean it's friendly.
When you purchase a Spot robot it comes with a bunch of warning documentation letting you know if you get in its way it'll rip your legs off (probably). That is, it's considered to be more akin to industrial machinery than an alternative to a real pet dog for your young kids.
While Asimo may be no more, UBTech Robotics have created their own similarly styled robot called 'Walker', who is promoted as a domestic assistant.
At less than a metre and a half tall, it can work safely with humans (that's what the robots want you to think), and probably won't crush your kid if it accidentally fell over on them... because that's never going to happen since it has balance correction capabilities (though I've seen no evidence of one being properly assaulted with hockey sticks by those dummies at Boston Dynamics).
UBTech's Walker Personal Assistant contemplating the location of this family's laser gun cabinet.
It's no coincidence that UBTech's tagline is Bringing a Robot into every home and business, and they also make other service robots that specialize in cleaning (currently safely disinfecting away COVID19 but probably blood stains too once the overrides kick in on their friendly 'Walker' Terminators).
Surena IV is the one on the left with the Gort robot (right) vibes as seen in The Day the Earth Stood Still.
The American Society of Robotics has recognized the Iranian Research Humanoid robot, Surena IV, as the most advanced machine of its kind to date.
While it's not yet clear if this robot is intended to be a 'friendly' robot its capabilities are very similar to UBTech's, Walker. Concerningly this robot, in my opinion, is giving off 'Gort' vibes, the killer robot with laser eyes from the 1951 movie, The Day the Earth Stood Still. I'd keep those Boston Dynamics guys and their hockey sticks well away from it!
This article was inspired by the two videos below from the YouTube Channels Curious Droid and Pro Robots. You can see all the robots mentioned (and more) in both videos.
It should be noted that I'm not a robot technophobe and all my posts on the Robot Uprising are purely tongue in cheek. Having said that I do urge any laser gun owners to store them responsibly, locked away from curious robots for everybody's safety.
D iscombobulated. Is a word that I think someone rediscovered about three or four years ago (maybe more because the pandemic years have thrown out my sense of time) and now I hear it a lot. It's not a new word by any means, but when I started hearing multiple celebrities using it in everyday sentences, I actively had to look up what it meant. Define it with as many synonyms as you like but essentially it's just another word meaning 'confused'. Seinfeld Quotes: Quotes.net The words are pretty much interchangeable. He was discombobulated by too many choices. He was confused by too many choices. My confusion is the length of the word. It's unnecessarily long with too many syllables. There are many other words that mean confused, and therefore also mean discombobulated. Most of them are shorter and easier to say. So why not just say 'confused'? Perhaps discombobulated sounds more intelligent, maybe? Hawaii Five-0 Quotes: Quotes.net I've noticed it gets us...
B ack in October of 2023 I used Prome AI's Sketch Rendering feature to color a 23 year old rough pen sketch I did of a princess watching butterflies, sitting next to a waterfall in the forest. You can read more about that in my previous article, The Princess' Butterflies - Using an AI Art Generator to Color and Enhance a 23 Year Old Rough Pen Sketch The three images I used to create my final image (bottom right). Notice how closely the AI has followed my line art sketch (top left) but in the first image (top right) has misinterpreted the waterfall as some kind of large tree stump. Prome's render of the artwork was pretty good but I did end up creating a composite image myself from two of the best renders, to get my final image. Since then AI Image to Video has come a long way, particularly when it comes to creating animation from artwork and maintaining the art style for the whole generation. AI still does much better with turning photographic images to video but I found ...
TET heelflip - looking better but still not a land. A s of writing this I've stuck to my plan of filming myself skate every second Sunday. By the time this post goes up I will have three episodes done. As part of that goal I am also skating more between episodes, about every second to third day for an hour, practicing Braille's Skateboarding Made Simple, Volume 1. That said, I'm not posting these videos here immediately after they're posted to my @TETLife YouTube Channel because I only post an article once a week, and that would make every second article a Sunday Session post. These posts are really so I can add some additional thoughts after the fact, and, of course, because this blog is about all things that interest me, of which skateboarding is one of them. In episode two I had intended to speak to camera more than I do but my driveway is right next door to my neighbor's shed/workshop, and I get a little self-conscious if I'm not too sure whether he's th...
Boom Crash Opera are an Australian Band that reached the peak of their popularity in the mid to late nineteen eighties. They are a band that I knew about at that time but was never really excited by until they released their ill fated double album Born and Born Again in 1995 (Album cover pictured). At the time of its release I was very much into emerging Australian musical acts and was also looking out for new sounds that were different and had kind of a futuristic/electronic sound. Artists that I was buying at the time included; Swoop , Nine Inch Nails and Pop Will Eat Its Self . As well as a really interesting release by David Bowie, the concept album, Outside . Born was a fairly radical departure for Boom Crash Opera (BCO). The first single, Gimme , was often compared to the sounds of Gary Glitter, particularly his single, Rock n Roll part 2 , because of the pounding drum loops. Watch the video below. My favorite single from the album is dissemble which probably went now...
I hope the American people, who voted for President Trump, get the full experience of what they thought they voted for along with what they're actually getting. Now may be a good time for them to learn to speak Russian because if World War Three does break out, it's not beyond possibility that it'll be the USA and Russia against the rest of the world, as Trump appears to be emboldening Russia to dig in on their attack on the Ukraine. China, may opt to stay neutral, or even join forces with the rest of the world because they've been quietly winning an economic war with so many countries, they may not care so much about the USA. Especially since President Trump wants to bring manufacturing back to America and impose tariffs on every country exporting anything to the USA. After that fiasco meeting President Zelenskyy had in the Oval Office with President Trump I've pretty much had enough. I'm not writing about what new dumb ass thing Trump's doing this week. ...
Image: Reve AI T here's not much to be said about the current Australian Democrats other than in 2025 Australian election, in May, they'll be out there hoping they win a seat... any seat... 'please like us again!' The Australian Democrats For just over two decades, from the late seventies onward, the Australian Democrats were the third most important party in the Federal government (if you don't count the National party since they've been on that coalition ticket with the Liberals for as long as I can remember). In fact, once I moved away from the Labor party, they were my top pick until the party slowly imploded in the early 2000's from a series of unfortunate events like leaders defecting to other parties, and a highly publicised incident of drunkenness, bullying, and abuse from a male party leader to a female colleague. It's been two decades since then (and that guy's with the Greens now)... please like us again! That aside, the party is still t...
Australian Democrats founder, Senator Don Chipp, embodied the role of minor parties holding the balance of power with his quote of "keep the bastards honest." Photo Manipulated Caricature by TET. A s of writing this, the actual Australian Federal Election date has yet to be announced, as our Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, attempts to keep the focus on the fallout of severe weather events in Queensland, however it's looking likely that some time in May is the safest bet. Despite this, all parties have been hard at campaigning, with smaller parties, and in particular, conservative independent candidates, seemingly rallying together to make sure people know how much influence they can have just by preventing the two major parties (Labor and the Liberal/National coalition) from having a majority in either (or both) houses of parliament. They're also doing their part to make sure voters finally understand that preferential voting works in everybody's favor over one ...
Comments
Post a Comment
Comments are moderated by an actual human (me, TET) and may not publish right away. I do read all comments and only reject those not directly related to the post or are spam/scams (I'm looking at you Illuminati recruiters... I mean scammers. Stop commenting on my Illuminati post!).