Miscellaneous

Watch this video from Engineered Machine Products on why they automate.

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This film presents a huge social problem called technological unemployment. Whilst doing so, the film also presents two potential solutions to this major social issue. The transitional path described in the film concerns a transition towards a job guarantee program of environmentally sustainable, socially and scientifically beneficial jobs through a public service program organised by the government, coupled with an eventual transition towards an Unconditional Basic Income.

It is up to the viewer to decide on whether they see such a transitional path being a realistic consideration for governments around the world to think about.

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Intuitively, one might indeed suppose that lifelong bliss would make us weak. Contrast, for instance, the Eloi with the Morlocks in H.G. Well's The Time Machine. In practice, the opposite is true. "That which does not crush me makes me stronger," said Nietzsche, but the best way to make ourselves stronger short of becoming cyborgs is to amplify our pleasure circuitry and enhance our capacity to anticipate reward. Experimentally, it can be shown that enhancing mesolimbic dopamine function doesn't just make us happier: it also enriches willpower and motivation. This is how novel antidepressants are tested: if effective, they reverse learned helplessness and behavioral despair of clinical depression, the plight of hundreds of millions of people in the world today. Regrettably, low mood is bound up with psychological and physical weakness, just as popular stereotype suggests. Superhappiness confers superhuman resilience. So enriching our reward circuitry promises to enhance our capacity to cope with stress and adversity even as their incidence and severity diminish. Biotech can empower us to become supermen — not in the callous sense of Nietzschean Ubermenschen, since our enhanced empathetic capacity can extend to all sentient beings, but in the sense of an indomitable strength of mind. Sadly, millions of people today feel hopelessly crushed by life.

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As technology speeds forward, humans are beginning to imagine the day when robots will fill the roles promised to us in science fiction. But what should we be thinking about TODAY, as robots like military and delivery drones become a real part of our society? How should robots be programmed to interact with us? How should we treat robots? And who is responsible for a robot's actions? As we look at the unexpected impact of new technologies, we are obligated as a society to consider the moral and ethical implications of robotics.

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The hot new book about the digital economy is Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson's The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress and Prosperity In a Time of Brilliant Technologies. It's amongst the first books to seriously address the fundamental question of our digital economy: what will be the economic role of human-beings in an age of artificial intelligence, 3D printers and an Internet of things? Andrew Keen talks to Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson about their new book, "The Second Machine Age."

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How might people react if they were touched by a robot? Would they recoil, or would they take it in stride? In an initial study, researchers at Georgia Tech found people generally had a positive response toward being touched by a robotic nurse, but that their perception of the robot's intent made a significant difference.

Charles Kemp, associate professor in the Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and Tiffany Chen, doctoral student at Tech, talk about their investigation that looks at how being attended by a robot can affect people's comfort level.

The research took place in Kemp's Healthcare Robotics Lab with the robot known as Cody. Cody is now sporting new Xbox 360 Kinect headgear, gear that he didn't have in the initial study.

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This episode of Economics in Plain English tackles the pervasive fear that technology is making humans (or at least human work) obsolete. How long before the robots take over the jobs we do today -- and is it time to panic? Not just yet, senior business editor Derek Thompson explains in the video above. Decades of film footage from the Prelinger Archive illustrate the steady march of progress in America, from farms to factories and beyond, all thanks to technological innovation. Machines have been doing more and more of our work for us since the industrial revolution, and that's not a bad thing.

Derek Thompson

Story: "Are Machines Really Taking Our Jobs?"
A brief history of technological progress and why it's not necessarily a bad thing

by Kasia Cieplak-Mayr von Baldegg
August 16, 2013

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Five years since the great recession engulfed the world, the impact is clear. Millions of middle-class jobs have vanished. Experts now fear those jobs are lost for good - killed by sophisticated technology and smarter software

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On. Prof. Maria Chiara Carrozza
Italian Scientist and Member of the National Parliament, Chamber of deputies and foreign and European Affairs Commitee

Abstract:

Research, science and social innovation are strictly interdependent, and in this framework, my vision for the future is that progress of humanity is the ultimate mission of science.
Today, it is universally accepted in science that challenges of the society will require a strong interdisciplinary effort for scientists: it is not possible to address global problems as clean energy production, urbanization, migration, antibiotics resistance or climate change without an holistic approach: social challenges requires comprehensive methods and knowledge, which must include human sciences, ethical issues and sustainability.
The integration of robotics with artificial intelligence, deep learning and high speed connection will revolutionize the society because devices will be connected to internet, and will become physically powerful, intelligent and adaptive. Large amount of data will be available with small latency and cloud robotics will share information, data, intelligence activities and brains. Robots were originally designed for manufacturing plants, and nowadays mass production is not possible without robots but now they are indispensable in special environments as space for exploration, oceans for underwater activities or hospitals in surgical rooms. In particular, as it was predicted in science fiction, now deep space exploration is based on robotics, and robots will be essential for space science progress.
The next step will be for Robots to enter in our everyday life: in the streets with self-driving cars, or ‘at our place’ in doing cleaning, entertainment or service activities. Therefore robotics is becoming ‘social’.
In order to achieve these goals, engineers must address several issues, related to human-robot interaction, to safety, to sentience and adaptability. The problem of safe, secure and effective interaction between human being and robot, cannot be faced without addressing legal and ethical issues.
The road map is already in place, with time and application those issues will be studied and investigated, and robots will share life and environments with humans, supporting their physical and cognitive activities.
Moreover, one of the most fascinating questions to answer in Robotics will be originated by the integration of robotics with bionics and prosthetics, when Robotics will enter into the human body with different levels of invasivity, to support human movements and physical interaction with the environment. Wearable robotics is expected to revolutionize the society in the next decade. What are the implications of this transformation of Robotics? Which areas of science will be involved in the evolution of robotics? What are the main milestones to be accomplished in the journey of robots from manufacturing plants, to Space, Health Care and ultimately into the Human Body?

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