Here’s a little history of the robot competitions. I guess there’s a big rivalry between the U.S. and the U.K. and it isn’t just about who has the best bots.
The one episode that had relevance to my life was when they concluded you get better gas mileage leaving your truck's tailgate UP rather than leaving it down. I was shocked.
My dad did a little drag racing and when he raced his Dodge pickup he insisted that leaving the gate up gave him a boost from the air flow. The way the leaves blow out of the back of our trucks lends some probability to that theory.
I guess I’m on kind of a roll tonight with the YouTube thing but here’s something I really believe everyone should see. It’s pretty much blah-blah until about 5 or so minutes into it but after that there’s some pretty scary stuff going on with robotics and DARPA.
Girls of Steel Robotics A K-12 outreach program at Carnegie Mellon University The future is looking Rosie!
I tried to do an edit but hey, sometimes I just need a robotic brain or something to accomplish the simplest things. Anyway, good on those K-12 students ! I’ve known since my aunt gave me a “Robby the Robot” for my 5th or 6th birthday that robotics were in our future but until I started this thread I didn’t realize how much they are and will be a part of our everyday life.
Okay now, here’s one that is not so believable. The video is pushing robots for the AG industry and it pictures a kinda dog looking robot going different terrain and eventually winds up herding sheep. Let’s see, my Sheltie cost me around $300 which is a natural working dog. The robot in the video costs around a MILLION beans. Hmmmm...which one to choose to herd my sheep? DERN....that’s a rough decision!!
Musk is absolutely correct: We are idiots to keep pushing robotics! If the dancing robot video and the sheep dog robot video are real, then we're rounding the bend on creating robots who will, one day, "realize" that H.sapiens is a vile, disgusting, greedy, murderous, destructive species on Planet Earth, and take actions to drive us to extinction, Asimov's Three Laws be damned!
Yeah, but in deference to that Musk also said that 2021 is the year of the autonomous vehicle which is nothing more than a robot with 4 wheels and seats for humans. He also said the vehicles have a potential to pay for themselves by being a type of Uber vehicle whilst the owner is at work. To further that it seems that Boston Dynamics is pairing up with Hyundai to build autonomous vehicles. Dunno if that’s going to make me happy or not. I like my 20 year old Ford Ranger.
No matter, I would NEVER trust an autonomous vehicle enough to hop into the back seat, and let it take me where I want to go. As one who spent four years driving Yellow Cab in Chicago, to get through college, I know that the road puts up too many scenarios that require split second decisions that I would never trust a vehicle brain to make on its own. (Yes, I do understand that computers can "out think" humans, sure. Even so, I'll stick to my no go, as above.)