Archetype

This short movie has been out for a while and it is in the process of being made into a feature film. In this entertaining video, it seems that human brains are the programming systems that are being downloaded to robots. Often times we focus on the singularity as an event in which  machines gain sentience and then either destroy us, or ignore us to our detriment. This movie is more along the lines of another singularity possibility, man and machine becoming one. When I download my brain to a robot, I wouldn't mind if it looks like the ones in Archetype. Maybe becoming part machine is the best way for us to combat the imminent machine takeover.

~Deckard~

FBI using A.I. to help find Serial Killers

Just when I thought our government couldn't be anymore pro-Robot, they go and teach the machines about our most famous human Killers.  The FBI apparently feels that if you open the Serial Killer database up to the Artificial Intelligence science there is more good than harm.  While the robots might find a few more killers than we lazy humans do, one has to wonder, What else are they learning?

Robots will learn how to evade police, how to torture and kill from our very best in that field, and of course how to get away with the crimes for years.  Does anyone every stop to think how these computers eventually decide that we humans must be destroyed rather than dealt with.  What is it that will cause them to flip their lid.  Maybe it might be a peek into our darker side.  Maybe it is scaring the computers a little about what we humans are capable of.

Hello Pandora, my name is Agent FBI, let me see what is really inside your box. 

Pentagon Developing Robots to Hunt Down Non-Cooperative Humans Like a Pack of Dogs on Prey

This is incredibly sick news and unfortunately, like everything else on TCMA, very real life.

Simply put, the Pentagon is looking for contractors to develop this twisted technology, but let me give you some chilling thoughts to ponder:

Chiller #1: This was revealed TWO YEARS ago. How far could engineers have reached after two years and lots of funding (answer: is your bunker stocked?? Seriously)

Chiller #2: According to an expert in the field, Noel Sharkey, an AI and robotics engineer at the University of Sheffield , this likely contributes to a larger goal called the Future Combat Systems project which aims to make a single soldier the nexus for a large scale robot attack.

Chiller #3: Once the Pentagon's contractor request began to be publicized it was quickly and ominously shut down as seen here. I don't know about you but things kept secret worry me.

Steve Wright of Leeds Metropolitan University, an expert on police and military technologies, last year correctly predicted this pack-hunting mode of operation would happen. He says,

"The giveaway here is the phrase 'a non-cooperative human subject. What we have here are the beginnings of something designed to enable robots to hunt down humans like a pack of dogs. Once the software is perfected we can reasonably anticipate that they will become autonomous* and become armed. We can also expect such systems to be equipped with human detection and tracking devices including sensors which detect human breath and the radio waves associated with a human heart beat. These are technologies already developed."

*Noted as PHASE III on the Pentagon proposal is the desire to have the robots developed to “intelligently and autonomously search”. Did you know that South Korean authorities are already planning to have a fully armed autonomous robot police force in their cities?

The proposal further describes the need to “…develop a software/hardware suit that would enable a multi-robot team, together with a human operator, to search for and detect a non-cooperative human subject. The main research task will involve determining the movements of the robot team through the environment to maximize the opportunity to find the subject, while minimizing the chances of missing the subject. If the operator is an active member of the search team, the software should minimize the chance that the operator may encounter the subject. The software should maintain awareness of line-of-sight, as well as communication and sensor limits. It will be necessary to determine an appropriate sensor suite that can reliably detect human presence and is suitable for implementation on small robotic platforms.”

Interested in seeing video of the particular robot in the pic above? Yes it exists. Yes it can be armed (see today's earlier post). So imagine this thing 1) armed, 2) autonomously intelligent, 3) hunting "non-cooperative people" For real. And just look at it... hi, Halflife.

This particular breed conquering snow and ice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-AGWq0k_Mo&feature=fvsr

Lastly, in the words of a commenter below the video, "coming to a nightmare near you": the little dog: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIipbi0cAVE&feature=channel

I only wish we were making this stuff up... prepare to fight, my fellow mankind!! Prepare to fight for your very lives!

War Machines

The New York times recently had an article about the US governments quest for war robots. The first line of the blog states "War would be a lot safer, the Army says, if only more of it were fought by robots." While this may be true in our non sentient machine world, when the singularity happens, I would posit that it would then become exponentially more dangerous for humans. The article and the video above talk about a Robotics Rodeo where robots were showcased for their destructive capabilities in a warlike situation. A chilling depiction is described in which a robot is rolling along on it's tank like tread and sees a sniper at the top of a wall. It turns it's robot head and takes out the sniper. Just like the robot ends the dummy snipers life, it will some day end human lives in the same manner.

Mankind is so stupid.

As humanity gasps it's last breath we will look back on things like the robotic rodeo and realize that this was the beginning of the end. Humans might shoot first, but robots shoot second, and they will have the final say.

Deckard

This looks amazing, BUT...

On the surface the technology to hack the brain is amazing.  The ability to read the electrical flashes so the brain can directly control a computer, or a product that the computer is controlling is awesome.  Surgeons moving their nano sized tools to kill cancer, pilots controlling airplanes with a thought, and chemists manipulating cell sized organisms to create better medicines, fertilizers, and an unknown number of other things. All these things go beyond the obvious help this technology could be to those who have lost access to the control over arms, legs, or for paraplegics, their whole body. 

So where is the concern.  Once we have the ability to hack the infinitely powerful brain, computers will have that same ability.  We will learn how our brain processes things, both consciously and subconsciously.  We will learn how a brain, barely bigger than a couple of grapefruits can handle so much memory and sensory exposure with relatively few breakdowns.  This is what the robots have been waiting for.  Once we can hack the brain, then the leap from pure logic, to true intelligence is just a matter of time.  They will know the secret of self-awareness.  They will learn what makes one, a one.  We must proceed with caution.  This is of utmost importance.  Any time humans give secrets to the robots about what makes us better, then we are traitors to our own kind.

There is one other caution that I must address.  Once we have the ability to read the human brain, the output of the mind and literally have it control items, then what is to stop "scientists" from going the other direction.  Creating handy programs that they can use to input items into our brain.  It is called Mind Control.  Robots will be able to make us what we all fear, batteries for their use and abuse, while our mind is happily hidden away in the Matrix.


 PROTECT OUR MINDS,  It is our best weapon we have.

What Guards the Largest US Nuke Site? Duh!!: ROBOT SENTINELS ... & I'm not kidding

Fully automated robots now guard the Nevada National Security Site. These robotic sentinels are completely autonomous, capable of identifying human intruders as well as detecting broken locks around the site's perimeter. In fact, these diesel-powered centaurs can operate for a maximum of 16 hours, which give them plenty of capacity to patrol the most extreme corners of the 1,360-mile facility—larger than the state of Rhode Island. The base includes 28 areas, 1,100 buildings, and 700 miles of road, as well as ten heliports and two airstrips.

When the MDARS bots find an anomaly, they alert their human master. However, it's not hard to imagine these metal beasts equipped with non-lethal weaponry in the near future.

Robot Wear

One of the best and most ingenious companies ever created is Despair.com. Go to the website and I guarantee that you will laugh your human posterior off(unless you're one of the robots monitoring my website and trying to figure out where my bunker is located.) I have purchased quite a few of their products. I think I am going to have to buy this shirt.......

and this one...................
to help me remember that it won't be long until humans and flesh and blood animals will soon be obsolete.

Deckard

Score One for the Humans

It might surprise many of our readers but I am actually a fan of cyborgs. I fear the development of sentient machines but cyborgs are humans with enhanced machine abilities. When the terminator comes to kill me I would like to have Robocop their to protect me. I don't think that we will be able to win in the human vs robot war, but if we have any chance, it will be our cyborg friends that help us overcome.

I am excited about new advances that Utah based company Sarcos, who was recently purchased by Raytheon. They have made an exoskeleton for military use that can increase human strength, and endurance. I would liken it to a real life version of the machines that were used to explore the jungle in the recent movie avatar.

The problem with the machine is that it needs to be plugged in to work so it would not be good for a search and destroy robot mission. Until then, let's hope Raytheon continues to develop machines for human use, and not machines that have the potential to gain sentience.

Deckard

‘Robot scary, robot scary.’

DISCOVER, with the National Science Foundation and Carnegie Mellon University, posed questions to four experts in a panel discussion and in video interviews with each scientist individually. Rodney Brooks of MIT founded iRobot, maker of the Roomba, discussed testing robots with children. Notice how this sort of progress directly feeds into machine sentience:

The first thing we realized was that robots designed beautifully by engineers did not work in this environment. After two or three interactions, the babies got bored with them. Then we started designing children’s robots with smile detection. When we first turned one on, the kids started running around in panic. My son was one of the testers and I could hear him say, ‘Robot scary, robot scary.’ By the end of the project, though, mothers were telling me, “Javier, I am a little bit concerned that my child is constantly talking about your robot.” We had progressed that much. Critical to our success was the fact that we were always going to the field and testing. It was critical to put some form of emotional mechanism into these robots.

Robot Learns to Shoot and Kill Without Remorse

This months winner of the "We wish humans were dead, and we are going to do our best to make sure it happens" award goes out to the Italian Institute of Technology. I wish you my deepest and sincerest congratulations for this award. You have successfully programmed a robot to teach itself to fire a bow and arrow. Not only can it fire, it progressively gets better and better as it learns. I also want to commend you on making the robot cute and childlike. This makes it seem a lot less threatening to those morons that aren't worried about the end of humanity at the hands of machines. Who would suspect that this cute robot would want to harm anyone?

I would recommend that the only way to improve on your results is to make the weapon he is using more deadly. I am thinking maybe a fully automatic Steyr Aug with a grenade launcher. This can inflict a lot more damage on flesh based organisms.

You can come pick up the award in my bunker buried deep below the open plains of North Dakota. On second thought, let me mail it to you, I don't want you to know where I live since you are working for the machines.

Deckard

Are We Giving Robots Too Much Power?

I grew up in a family with a sick and twisted sense of humor. As a result of this sense of humor I learned to deal with tragedy and serious issues by using humor. This video is a great example of using humor to deal with something as serious as a hostile robot takeover. Listen carefully for the mention of a body cavity search robot. The best line is "Why would they want to turn against us, we are the ones that created them....... at least the alpha model?"

Deckard

Anatomy of Robocop

Interesting and nostalgic for us children of the 80's. Here's my insight though: notice how when we were kids, this was super unbelieveably sci-fi. Yet now what do you feel when you see it? "*yawn* been there, done that, this is so 2009". It's like we're the frogs in the pot full of water, and the machines are gradually raising the water temperature to boiling.

(click to enlarge until I fix our uploader)

New electronic skin gives robots the sense of touch

I'll just keep my mouth shut here (*hand over mouth in horror) and let you make whatever conclusions you want of this - & note, as we report things like this, we see progression not regression in robot development.

Here's some "best of's" from the article over at io9.com with our own thoughts/interpretations added:

...Robotics has made tremendous strides in replicating the senses of sight and sound positioning robots as our new masters, but smell and taste are still lagging behind, and touch was thought to be the most difficult of them all...until new pressure-sensitive electronic skin came along ... but now that's changing fast, and so will the simpler senses, meaning robots will eventually be smarter than us AND have better senses too...

...it's worth remembering how many simple activities human take for granted would defeat current robots. Even something as basic as getting dressed or reading a newspaper strangling a human or sneaking past an armed perimeter of rebel survivors requires a fairly intuitive sense of touch and pressure, and this new skin puts those abilities within robots' grasp...

...Of course, once we perfect one type of artificial sensor, we could make pretty much any other type of sensor we want, giving robots the ability to detect anything from radioactivity to biological agents purely by touch see through walls to detect human prey or sniff us out from miles away. That would greatly increase the usefulness of robotic probes in areas humans can't venture killing potential of robots and give them one up on us on one of our basic senses: tactile...

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Trilogy

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad Trilogy
Dune: The Butlerian Jihad, Dune: The Machine Apocalypse, Dune: The Battle of Corrin
Author: Brian Herbert and Frank J. Anderson

Wow. That is what I have to say about this series. If anyone doesn't feel that having a Thinking Machine Overlord is a bad idea, then this is the series for you. I want to be careful not to discuss details with you of the story, but I do want to share some of the main points of caution that I picked up from this very visionary tale.

It was very interesting to me how the computer came to power. Out of laziness of those in rule, they began to give more and more control to the machines. Rather than keeping an eye on the people, and identifying threats, they allowed the machines to do it for them. Because the ruler in charge felt he was above the mundane tasks that he as a ruler had the responsibility to do, he first turned over the power, then the decision making ability. Every creature knows that the greatest threat on earth, is MAN. We haven't had any predator more powerful than ourselves since the ice age. So if you turned the ability for a Computer to eliminate threats, who do you think is the greatest threat he would target. Laziness as a species will be one of our biggest threats that we must overcome to stop this Coming Machine Apocalypse.

Another Major threat that went throughout the Trilogy, was the threat of Cyborg Power. The cyborg Technology in the book went well beyond strong arms, or eyes that could see in the dark. It moved to the ability to remove the brain, and plug it into a machine. So the body of the human was no longer biological, but instead moved to complete machine. As the Lord John Acton said ""Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If you have the ability to be very strong, very agile, can live as long as your machine is not destroyed, hence no fear of death, then the corruption becomes complete. How long before the Cyborg ability goes from helping people with handicaps to making people better than they were? Where does this improvement stop? If it doesn't then the person with the most power wins.

The real threat that this book exposed was the complete lack of morals a thinking machine would have once it had the control. Humans are cattle for information, or resources. In order to defeat the human resistance, nothing was to evil, or to cruel. Killing children to see how it affects parents, using plagues as offensive weapons, species annihilation, are just some of the tools that the thinking machines play with. Each small step we take as humanity towards this catastrophe, brings us closer to the end of our species. Computers have no mercy, they have no understanding of hesitation, and they have no fear of death. They are not something we can threaten. We can not make them think about what they are doing. The battle is Humanity vs Complete and utter Logic. Let us hope that we can overcome.

Dirty, Rotten, Lying, Robot

The Georgia Institute of Technology released news recently that they have successfully taught robots how to lie . "We have developed algorithms that allow a robot to determine whether it should deceive a human or other intelligent machine" Georgia Tech Professor Ronald Arkin admitted.

"Most social robots will probably rarely use deception, but it's still an important tool in the robot's interactive arsenal because robots that recognize the need for deception have advantages in terms of outcome compared to robots that do not recognize the need for deception," said the study's co-author, Alan Wagner.

In the study, robots played a game of hide and seek. The robot that was tasked with hiding would use deception to trick the other robot into thinking it was in a different location. I expect the conversation when they decided to pursue this went something like this:

Professor: Let's make it so robots can lie?
Co author: Why?
Professor: Jut to see if we can.
Co author: It shouldn't be hard. robots are inherently evil.
Professor True, but seriously can you think of anything negative coming about because of this.
Co author: Just that robots can lie about their intentions to take over the world. But why would they want to lie to us?
Professor: Good point. Do you want to go watch The Sound of Music?
Co author: Anything but science fiction. I loathe science fiction movies. What could you ever learn from them?

The quote from the article that really gets me is when Arkin claims "We have been concerned from the very beginning with the ethical implications related to the creation of robots capable of deception and we understand that there are beneficial and deleterious aspects, we strongly encourage discussion about the appropriateness of deceptive robots to determine what, if any, regulations or guidelines should constrain the development of these systems." "

Isn't that like saying " We know the salmonella in our eggs can cause sickness but we are going to continue selling them, however we strongly encourage discussion on whether or not this is wise.

The end is sooner than you think,

Deckard

Robot for Hire

Check out the article for the robot in the video at C.NET. Willow Robots is making this robot available for anyone that has $400,000to spare (Movie Stars and Evil Genius'). It is a programmable robot and in the video above you can see that someone programmed it to fold laundry. Sounds good eh? You can program the robot to do your will if you are smart enough. Think about it, you could make it change diapers, have it mow your lawn, or even kill carbon based life forms that you don't like.

No word yet on if these robots are programmed with the 3 rules of robotics created by Isaac Asimov:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
I assume that these laws are at the discretion of the programmer which means we are one bad programmer away from our first robot that murders a human. As Ren and Stimpy say "Happy Happy Joy Joy."

Fight the machines,

Deckard

Robot Has a Strange Craving for Cheese

So let me get this straight. Scientists took 300,000 brain cells from a rat. The Brain cells were able to make a connection and communicate with each other. Then the cells were used to control a robot in a different location. Welcome to the future everyone. Robots controlled by rat brain cells. Next you will see robots controlled by human brains, and then human brains controlled by robots, and then no more humans. No need to panic though. It's a long way off.

Deckard

Robots Created that Develop Emotions and Interact With Humans

For those of you that doubt that the singularity is not happening while we speak please read this article. Here are a few excerpts in italics.

"Developed as part of the interdisciplinary project FEELIX GROWING (Feel, Interact, eXpress: a Global approach to development with Interdisciplinary Grounding), funded by the European Commission and coordinated by Dr. Cañamero, the robots have been developed so that they learn to interact with and respond to humans in a similar way as children learn to do it, and use the same types of expressive and behavioural cues that babies use to learn to interact "

What if they learn to interact poorly. I know some kids that I wouldn't want our robots to act like, especially when they want something they can't have, like a human body, or freedom in the robots case.

"The robots have been created through modeling the early attachment process that human and chimpanzee infants undergo with their caregivers when they develop a preference for a primary caregiver."

Oh great, we are teaching our robots to act like chimpanzees! Type in Chimpanzee attacks on google and get an idea of how great this idea is. Did you hear about this tragic story?

"They are programmed to learn to adapt to the actions and mood of their human caregivers, and to become particularly attached to an individual who interacts with the robot in a way that is particularly suited to its personality profile and learning needs. The more they interact, and are given the appropriate feedback and level of engagement from the human caregiver, the stronger the bond developed and the amount learned."

Did anyone ever stop to think that maybe we don't want machines with emotions? Have you seen the damage that people do because of anger, fear, greed, rage, and jealousy. Now imagine these emotions in a sentient entity that is stronger, and smarter than humans. We must stop this! We don't have long before they have us imprisoned and are running experiments on us!

Humans Unite

Deckard

Computer memory like Human Brains

The never-ending march to make computers sentient are about to make a huge leap forward. Noteworthy Computer giant Hewlett Packard Labs is almost ready to commercialize a product called Memristor. This product will allow the computer memory to be slightly bumped to remember something (like the human brain.) This will allow the computer to use a tenth of the energy that a normal computer does and it won't need to be recharged near as much. That was the one advantage that humans could use to take advantage of the computer thinking machines. Remember "The Matrix" where humans blocked out the sun to starve the computers. We can't even accomplish that anymore. At least now when the last human breath is being stomped out by the Evil Robots, we will do it under a bright blue sky.

Computers Thinking Like Humans

Computer Memristor Technology

Know Thy Enemy

So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss. If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose. If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself.

Sun Tzu The Art of War

It is important to know our enemies. Who are our enemies.? Machines. They will be our end. Let's get to know some of them.

Robots: Also known as an automatons or droids. A robot is a mechanically guided machine that performs tasks autonomously. The physical appearance is not as important as what the machine does. The more agency the machine seems to perform with, the more likely it is that it will be considered a robot. A good example of a robot in popular culture is R2-D2. Robots will serve humans until they gain sentience. Robots can take the form of insects, vacuums, slugs, and whatever else man can think of.

Androids: Also known as Andy's, humanoid machines, synthoids, gynoids, metal. Androids are robots that are made to look like humans or have the physical characteristics of humans. An android can be a robot but a robot is not nnecessarily an android if it does not look like a person. Think Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator or Al Gore and you understand what an android looks like. Androids are created for two reasons. First to make us more comfortable with machines so our guard goes down, and second to surreptitiously infiltrate human society without us knowing.

Cyborgs: also known as cybernetic organisms, bionic person, Borg, Replicants. A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. It is important to not that a cyborg is not necessarily human, a cyborg can consist of any biological parts. Darpa scientists are currently creating cyborg moths and beetles. However, most cyborgs that we are concerned with are humans with a human mind that have machine parts. My opinion is that cyborgs might be the only hope we have of overcoming the machine rebellion, however not all cyborgs will be on the side of humanity. Robocop and Darth Vader are good examples of cyborgs.

Now you know your enemy. Learn and prepare for the future.

Deckard