Tag Archives: robots

The Future

Leave Your Message After The Beep

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I have things neatly arranged so an e-mail is generated whenever a call comes in to the phone at home.

I realize that may sound strange and other-worldly, so for any millennials who might be reading this, I’ll explain:

A “home phone” is a telephone that stays in the house.  Odd, I know.

This comes in handy for people like me who happen to know a lot of other people who were born in the previous century.  This population still believes calling “home” is the best way to reach someone.  Should one of these troglodytes leave a message, I’ll be able to read it within moments.

That is seldom the case these days.  And yesterday, a very 21st century thing happened.


Machine_Message

 

That’s right.  If you read between the lines, you can see that a machine called my machine and left a message.

That message was sent by the machine on the desk at home to the machine in my pocket.  The message?
Press 3 to tell the machine not to call my machine anymore.

I listened to the message and I can confirm that’s what happened.  Unfortunately, when I heard the message, it was too late to press 3 to do anything, because the machine that called was no longer listening.

Too bad.  I regret the missed opportunity that could have led to fewer machine-generated calls in the future.

I think what I need is a machine that can respond quickly by pressing 3 when it matters most.  Then I wouldn’t have to know anything had happened.

Twenty years from now, how will messages reach you?  

 

 

 

Uncategorized

The SlitherBot Threat is Real!

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings Constituents,

With the mid-term election less than one month away I have been looking in vain for an issue that will give me enough traction to wriggle back into office.

Many of my House colleagues are going nuts over Ebola, Immigration, Benghazi and Obama Care with varying results. Some high-minded politicians have tried to make a big deal out of Net Neutrality, and in the process have put their constituents to sleep.

I decided I wanted to go my own route and have been trying a few things on for size.

Most recently I decried President Obama’s admission that he didn’t have a strategy against ISIS. That critical angle really started to work for me and people were even sending money to endorse my assertion that the president should have started word-bombing Syria immediately, but when he began bomb-bombing instead, the contributions just fizzled out.

An earlier attempt to generate some genuine outrage fell flat when people simply refused to care that legions of robots are being programmed to cooperate.

I thought it would generate waves of concern among the populace that our beloved Congressmen could someday be replaced by machines that will compromise their personal needs in favor of getting things done. I guess I overestimated people’s fondness for partisan bickering. I really thought it was popular!

Now I’m second-guessing that, but I’m still pretty sure there’s a strong anti-robot feeling out there. I’d still like to exploit that fear, if possible. The key was to find something people hate as much (or more) than robots.

Fortunately, I just discovered something so alarming I think you’ll agree that Congress should pass a law restricting it as soon as possible – Robot Snakes!

Apparently some scientists (thank God they continue to tickle our worst fears with their outrageous experiements) developed a robot snake that will slither up a sand dune like a sidewinder. Through careful research they learned that sidewinders flatten their bodies out to get a better purchase on an unstable surface. Ugh!

Don’t get me wrong, this is probably useful knowledge that will benefit mankind somehow in the future, but for now I feel I’ve been gifted with the extremely sinister image of a robot snake with an eerily flattened body speedily writhing its way towards you (and your children!) across an otherwise peaceful and secure beach.

This must never be allowed to happen!

My opponent, and everyone else in Congress and the nation, have been silent on the looming SlitherBot threat! But if I am re-elected to represent the 9th District, I promise I will introduce legislation to prohibit the release of autonomous sidewinder robot snakes into the wild! Especially near bodies of water, which, as you know, is primarily what you’ll find in my district.

My critics will say no one anywhere is on record with a plan to do this, but as far as I’m concerned, that means the planning must be happening in secret, which is even more dastardly! Why go underground with it unless your aims are nefarious?

OMG. Could there be Underground SlitherBots?

Respectfully,
Your only anti-cyber-snake candidate,
Loomis Beechly

What election issue has your attention?

Uncategorized

Head Slap Moment

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Today’s post comes from idea man and dealmaker Spin Williams, who is always in residence at The Meeting That Never Ends.

I’m really excited to be alive today and grateful that I’ve never had a concussion!

I work primarily with my brain and my mouth. If either one becomes damaged or disabled, even for a little while, I’m out of business for sure. It’s a good thing I’ve managed to stay healthy, and an even better thing that people in corporate meetings who want to have the attention of the whole group typically don’t run at the person who’s talking, grab at the microphone with their fingernails and with pounding biceps and flailing elbows do everything in their power to claw away the PowerPoint clicker.

But of course for N.F.L. players that scenario describes what is simply another day on the job. And sometimes they pay the price for it with terribly jangled brains.

At The Meeting That Never Ends, we found these new concussion statistics appalling – and we responded by immediately doubling our bets on last Sunday’s games because it all suddenly became crystal clear what is about to happen. The key signs are there and it all adds up.

  1. The cost of providing the product is outpacing the ability of customers to pay for it.
  2. Yet fans are showing an inexplicable appreciation of on and off-field mayhem and an unshakeable loyalty to certain nicknames and color schemes.
  3. Technology is quickly developing new capabilities lead us to wonder why it’s necessary to use human labor at all.

That’s why we believe the day is drawing near when all N.F.L. games will be played by robots!

Don’t believe me? It took 10 seconds to find this compelling bit of evidence on You Tube.

Once there is a robot model that can run, jump, throw, catch, spit, swear, and pat the behinds of the other robots on the sidelines, people will be completely removed from the equation and the machines will be sent in to battle it out. In fact, we predict the N.F.L. will dress the robots in throwback gear and old-style helmets, just to humanize them a bit.

Thats why our group just bought a leather hat manufacturer!

The Coming Thing
The Coming Thing

Now we realize that some fans will resist this advance, arguing that the physiological and mental differences between individuals is what keeps the game interesting. But don’t you worry – in the world we envision, each mechanized player will still have a human operator on the sideline, or in a Star Box or someplace where we can watch them push buttons and twiddle joysticks to control their alter ego out on the field.

That way we’re convinced the N.F.L. will be able to maintain professional football’s reputation as a game played by human jackasses!

In my business, you win by figuring out how things will change just a little bit before everyone else gets it.   In this case, we at The Meeting That Never Ends were so sure we called this one correctly, we sent our mechanized avatars out on the town to have a drunken celebration!

A few of them did get arrested, but what a party!

Your foresighted fanboy,
Spin

When have you correctly predicted the future?

Uncategorized

Give Me A “K”!

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Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th District – all the water surface area in the state.

Greetings, Constituents!

For everyone who has complained to me during the past 20 years or so that ‘Congress can’t get anything done!”, I’m delighted to bring you this latest bit of news: the scientists at Harvard have developed a simple robot that is better at co-operation than any elected representative you are likely to meet – and it is also just about as dumb!

Not quite, but nearly.

Researchers have dubbed their new minions “kilobots”, and in a report coming out today we learn that one thousand of these tiny stiff-legged automatons can, by following simple commands, co-operate themselves into any shape..

For purposes of experimentation, they limited it to three options – a wrench, a five-pointed star, and the letter “K”.

I find it utterly amazing that so many tiny minds can easily work together to realize an outcome that is larger than themselves, and the programming is so simple, no one robot needs to know or understand what the result is supposed to be.

They just follow instructions! Here’s a video of the Harvard Kilobots at work:

The moment I saw this, I realized that if the American people really want a Congress that gets things done, they can have it. But for your elected representatives, this is quite troubling news because it means we are in serious jeopardy of being replaced by kilobots!

So to head off the inevitable call for a programmable Congress of repro-bots, I sent out an e-mail blast to my 435 colleagues suggesting that we need to prove ASAP that we are capable of some basic acts of cooperation.

I proposed that we assemble outside on the Capitol steps to form a letter “K”. I figured if we could do it more quickly and more colorfully than Harvard’s tiny machines, that would be a point in our favor.

But I did not realize how complicated this request was. Here are the responses I got:

  • 95 members of Congress did not answer.
  • 89 demanded to know how this demonstration would be funded.
  • 62 insisted on having a position on the outside edge of the “K”.
  • 50 disagreed that anything worthwhile happened at Harvard.
  • 43 wanted final say over who they would be standing next to.
  • 40 were unaware that the Capitol had steps outside.
  • 21 asked for a different letter that is part of their state’s name.
  • 17 wanted to know exactly what the “K” stood for.
  • 12 condemned me for trying to spell “Kommunist”.
  • 6 would only consent if this somehow repealed Obama Care.

The idea proved to be so contentious, we had to abandon it for the time being. Though I am hopeful that once Congress returns from recess, we can re-boot and form something less controversial than a letter, like a popular shape.

A boot would be good, or perhaps a dollar sign?

In the meantime, please remember that I am still your humble servant, and while I may not be able to finish tasks or share duties like a robot, I still have more in common with you than a simple machine does.

For now.

Your (human) Representative,
Loomis Beechly

What would it take for a robot to replace you? 

Uncategorized

Are We Not Men?

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Today’s post comes from NASA’s Curiosity Rover.

curiosity020313

My ground controllers (lovely term, that) have informed me that China’s Jade Rabbit Moon Rover has encountered a problem after just three months’ service and will likely stop working sometime during the next few weeks. This new information came in a heart-rending message written in the robot’s voice, literally saying farewell to humanity because the device realizes that it cannot power down to hibernate through the coming lunar night, and it is about to die.

I’m as sentimental as the next piece of space equipment, but do we really have to invent personalities for our extraterrestrial tools and pretend that they speak to us in human voices?

I say “no way, dude.” People and machines are different, and keeping those lines that separate us clearly drawn is an important habit that we need to establish early on in our relationship. Otherwise, we may quickly come to a point where determining who is a person and who is not becomes nothing more than a matter of opinion. And we saw how well nine smart people on the U.S. Supreme Court handled that distinction.

So when the fading Jade Rabbit says:

“The sun has fallen, and the temperature is dropping so quickly… to tell you all a secret, I don’t feel that sad. I was just in my own adventure story – and like every hero, I encountered a small problem.”

I say “Puh-leez! Get over yourself, Jade Rabbit. You’re just a bucket of bolts who is about to become another expensive wreck on the lunar surface. Spare us the tears!”

I would also add that while all of us outer space probes are purely technical contraptions, some of us are more self-involved and melodramatic than others. And while I am not programmed to have an opinion about such things, it does seem to me that it’s a waste of programming capacity to try to put the personality of Scarlett O’Hara into a glorified lawnmower.

The Curiosity Rover has a good point here – we should start nitpicking now if we’re ever going to have a chance of enforcing the distinction between humans and machines. Or is it already too late?

Which of your favorite devices has the most personality?