Arguably, the arms race between intelligent trading systems is working on a goal similar to this, although those bots are concerned only with enriching their makers — not everybody.

Or go back a step: what if we deployed machines working on creating recursively smarter machines focused on the task of making us all wealthier? Machines can only tell us what they think we should do. They can’t force us. But then, machines who can make us rich could make a pretty good case that they should be in charge.

First Driverless Vehicle to Hit the Roads

Singapore’s first clean and green driverless shuttle transportation system will soon see passengers shuttling between Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and JTC Corporation’s (JTC) CleanTech Park.

In a partnership between NTU, JTC and Induct Technologies, and supported by the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), an autonomous electric shuttle manufactured by Induct is expected to ply the two kilometre route providing a safe, reliable and environmentally-friendly alternative mode of transportation.

This is a pretty limited implementation of driverless vehicles — servicing a closed area and a small one at that — but it’s worthy of note because it isn’t just an experiment or a stunt. It looks like these vehicles are being introduced to serve a purpose, not simply to prove that cars get around without anyone behind the wheel.

That’s kind of a big deal.

In new mass-production technique, robotic insects spring to life

Production method inspired by children’s pop-up books enables rapid fabrication of tiny, complex devices

Devised by engineers at Harvard, the ingenious layering and folding process enables the rapid fabrication of not just microrobots, but a broad range of electromechanical devices.

In prototypes, 18 layers of carbon fiber, Kapton (a plastic film), titanium, brass, ceramic, and adhesive sheets have been laminated together in a complex, laser-cut design. The structure incorporates flexible hinges that allow the three-dimensional product—just 2.4 millimeters tall—to assemble in one movement, like a pop-up book.

Swarms of creatures such as these are almost certainly part of our future. One of the interesting passages in the linked article refers to little robots being used to build even smaller robots. So by the time we have little bugs constantly watching us, feeding us data, protecting us from other little bugs, etc. they might be much smaller even than what we see here. Perhaps they will be no bigger than a dust mite.

Mass production means that these devices can produced redundantly and will probably be seen as highly expendable. At the size shown above, they will constantly be swatted, caught in doors, smashing into windshields, and on and on. At the dust mite stage, we will be forever accidentally eating and inhaling them.

1. Robots:
   • Drudge Report: …self-driving cars have logged over 140,000 miles http://drudge.tw/9PJ6rD

   • Barry Ptolemy: Computers Are Driving Cars In Traffic http://fb.me/ItKWo1Wa

   • Pete Cashmore: 10 Amazing Real Life Robots – http://mash.to/2RodQ

2. Space:
   • Drudge Report: Private spaceship makes 1st solo glide flight… http://drudge.tw/cM9dD0

   • Scientific American: Mission To Mars Will Search For Lost Atmosphere

3. Medicine:
   • Lifeboat Foundation: Atomic Medicine: Bret Kulakovich, author of “Atomic Medicine: Further Evidence of Accelerating Returns.” link

   • DISCOVER Magazine: Now that we can make designer babies, do we have an *obligation* to do so?

   • Sarah Multiverse: Berkeley Bionics had parapalegics using their new exoskeleton. Bawling like a baby.

   • Aaron Saenz: Italian Boy Receives Permanent ‘Artificial Heart’ Implant http://singularityhub.com/tag/artificial-heart/

4. Rapid Prototyping:
   • Sean Flanagan: Full-Scale Turbo-Prop Aircraft Engine built using 3D printing.

5. Computer Interface:
   • Sean Flanagan: Thoughtware.TV – Head-mounted display projects directly onto the retina. link

6. Out of the Box Engineering:
   • DiscoverMag DISCOVER Magazine: OK, this green “incredible edible house” is farfetched, but pics are great. And it has “hydroponic insulating shingles”

   • MIT proposes the Boeing D Series to Reinvent the 737 for 70% greater fuel efficiency

7. Fun Stuff:
   • io9: Death-defying wingsuit video shows what it’s like to be real-life superhero http://io9.com/5657398/

   • Boing Boing: A Free Comic, Courtesy Dan Goldman and Tor Books

8. Memes worth spreading:
   • Jay Oatway: Stephen Johnson’s “Where Good Ideas Come From” is a hymn to multidisciplinary creativity + open systems. link
9. Perspective:
   • Nathan Wolfe’s Jungle Search for Viruses.

10. Prize Winner:
    • Scientific American: Nobel Prize in Chemistry Honors Technique For Synthesizing Complex Compounds

Oh, and they can also eliminate vermin…by eating the pests. The video says it all:

I’m not usually one for robots-gone-mad scenarios, but doesn’t the idea of a robot designed to seek out and eat living things in your house sound like a recipe for disaster?

(h/t: Mike Dougherty)

[W]hat we regard as the simple process of “recognition” would leave many computers stumped. Even something as apparently simple as recognising a birthday cake would normally require computers to be fed with information on what a cake generally looks like, the various shapes and sizes it comes in, the different forms and numbers of candles and other decorations you are likely to find adorning it, etc.

In brief, computers might be able to calculate pi to hundreds of decimal points and model complex weather patterns, but they may find it impossible, without complex and painstaking programming, to recognise a human whose grown their hair or realise that Chihuahuas and Dobermans belong to the same species.

One of the most intriguing scenarios for how robots will become a part of our everyday reality is their introduction as househhold assistants / servants — particularly for the elderly. But object recognition is crucial to performing household fucntions in a meaningful way. This little fellow can tell you that it isn’t as easy as it sounds:

Here are some things we would get awfully tired of saying to the house robot:

“No, the polo shirt — not the sweater vest.”

“Um, looks like some of the tomatoes you put in the spaghetti sauce were actually apples.”

“Thanks for folding and ironing the laundery, but it looks like we’re going to need a new cat.”

Luckily, some top people are on the case:

[Belgian researcher Luc] Van Gool is involved in a project, Cognitive-Level Annotation Using Latent Statistical Structure (CLASS — http://class.inrialpes.fr/), which is developing technologies to recognise visually specific objects, such as your car, or classes of object, such as a random car on the street.

“The recognition of an object as belonging to a particular group is a harder problem for a computer than the recognition of a specific object. The reason is that object classes show large variability among their members,” Van Gool points out.

The 3.5-year, EU-funded project managed to achieve technological improvements compared with previous efforts. It developed a system in which the description of the objects is based on the appearance of many separate, small patches. Such localised features give the necessary robustness to deal with the massive variations mentioned earlier. In addition, CLASS created special mechanisms – known as efficient approximate neighbourhood searches – for the comparison of an image or an object with huge numbers of reference images.

Sounds like an excellent start. But I think we’ll still have to be awfully careful if we don’t want our cats to end up ironed and folded.

Thanks for your attention.

Thanks for your attention.

Give that bot a skin or shell and it would be ready for mass production. Note that built-in segwayesque mobility.

UPDATE: And don’t miss this one. Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote Hacks. A $50 interactive white board, 3D head tracking for like $10. H/T to my brother Daniel. Cool stuff:

The armed robots that have been fielded so far all have a human controlling the trigger. He thinks that could change. I agree. As AI’s grow in power we will be tempted to take humans out of the loop. We shouldn’t do this.

Sharkey also stated that terrorists might reverse engineer these devices and start using them instead of suicide bombers. Terrorists, of course, will use any method at their disposal, but I doubt seriously that reverse-engineering our robots will be the way they go.

The SWORDS robot.
Click the picture for a better look.

It is much more likely that terrorists will continue to use off-the-shelf devices. Terrorists, of course, already use “improvised explosive devices” (IED’s) in Iraq.

“01 Call Missed.”

If a terrorist duct taped an IED to a remote controlled 1/8 sized model car (like this one – video at the link), he could chase down a crowd of civilians or a squad of soldiers at 45 mph with little risk to himself. And he could do it for less than $500. With simple cheap possibilities like that, it’s just not likely that they would spend the money necessary to reverse-engineer our robots.

Robots like the SWORDS already help defend our soldiers against IED’s. Our need for these robots would only increase if the terrorists started improvising robots of their own.

Research scientists at the University of Michigan have identified antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) on the skin of frogs–but the AMPs that work so well on the skin’s surface have a couple of nasty habits inside a host. They break down when exposed to enzymes, and they have a tendency to stick to and damage host cells.

Dr. Neil Marsh has found an ingenious solution to both problems–coating the AMPs with nonreactive fluorine coating –aka teflon.

According to the story at Discover.com, the “same technology that keeps your eggs (or frog legs) from sticking to the pan may someday be a key part of a new family of antibiotics.” Marsh’s Teflon-tipped AMPs show promise–the story says they may even work a bit better than natural, untreated AMPs, at least against some bacteria.

One day, the human civilization will spread out to the stars. Self-replicating Von Neuman robots will scour the universe looking for the basic materials we need to move ever onward — you know, stuff we can make multi-colored interlocking children’s blocks out of.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see where this technology is going. UAV’s could end up looking like F-22′s and our infantry could look like this:

It’s amazing how similar the real thing is to the prop from Terminator.

We’ve already got three of these in Iraq. Many more are on the way.