Is It Possible to Degrade and Exploit Your At-Home Sexbot? As artificial intelligence advances and our toys become more and more like us, we must consider the ethics of extracting pleasure from the machines.
If Immanuel Kant were still around, there’s no doubt he would be pro-sexbot. The term, once defined strictly as a physical robot made for sex (think “fembot”), now also encompasses any sort of artificially intelligent (AI) software made for sexual pleasure—and they’re becoming increasingly popular. While Kant makes it clear in his writing that he believes humans are rational beings because they can choose to follow a moral law, non-rational beings are merely “objects of our inclinations.” Uncanny android sightings, from Freud to Hollywood - Image 1. 18:00 09 January 2013 Long before anyone had heard of the "uncanny valley", people knew that human-like artificial beings can make us feel uncomfortable.
Richard Fisher Read more: "Freaky feeling: Why androids make us uneasy" Image 1 of 7 What makes things uncanny or freakish? 28992101.jpg. Hanson Robotics is proud to introduce Jules - (Build 20100722150226) Kojiro Humanoid Robot Mimics Your Musculoskeletal System. Kojiro is an advanced musculoskeletal humanoid robot under development at the University of Tokyo's JSK Robotics Laboratory.
Kojiro's creators designed its body to mimic the way our skeleton, muscles, and tendons work to generate motion. The goal is to build robots that are light and agile, capable of moving around and interacting with the physical world in the same way our flesh bodies do. I met Kojiro during a visit to the JSK lab late last year. Stunning Video of PETMAN Humanoid Robot From Boston Dynamics. It can walk, squat, kneel, and even do push-ups.
PETMAN is an adult-sized humanoid robot developed by Boston Dynamics, the robotics firm best known for the BigDog quadruped. Today, the company is unveiling footage of the robot's latest capabilities. It's stunning. The humanoid, which will certainly be compared to the Terminator Series 800 model, can perform various movements and maintain its balance much like a real person. Boston Dynamics is building PETMAN, short for Protection Ensemble Test Mannequin, for the U.S.
Marc Raibert, the founder and president of Boston Dynamics, tells me that the biggest challenge was to engineer the robot, which uses a hydraulic actuation system, to have the approximate size of a person. PETMAN was one of the robots that most impressed attendees of the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems in San Francisco last month.
Led by Dr. PETMAN. PR2 Successfully Bakes Giant Cookie From Scratch. This is it, folks.
The epitome of robotics. After some practice runs, PR2 has successfully managed to bake itself a cookie completely from scratch: Not being a baker, I'm not sure if it's normal for the cookie to look more or less the same coming out of the oven as it does going in. Cookies, Anyone? Donned in a gauzy dental gown, the PR2 robot lifts its left hand and grasps the mixing bowl placed in front of it.
The robot’s right hand, equipped with a rubber spatula, shortly follows suit, veering inside the bowl and towards the mound of softened butter waiting inside. Then, in a concentrated and meticulous manner, the PR2 turns its head down towards the bowl, and slowly begins mixing the butter. Cookie-baking robot! German Robot Plays Pool, Throws Down Robot Pool Gauntlet. Playing Pool with a Dual-Armed Robot TUM Rosie and PR2 James make pancakes together. It probably happens hundreds if not thousands of times every day; two college roommates get together to make some pancakes for dinner.
The only difference this time is that the parties involved were robots. In this case, two robots from the Munich-based cluster of excellence CoTeSys (Cognition for Technical Systems) starred as chefs, demonstrating their capabilities in the world of robotics -- and in the kitchen. In the video below, you can see James, a PR2 Beta Program robot, opening and closing cupboards and drawers, removing the pancake mix from the refrigerator, and handing it over to Rosie. Robotic Roommates Making Pancakes. Robotic Roommates Shopping for and Preparing Bavarian Breakfast. Aldebaran Robotics To Open Source Code of Nao Robot. Aldebaran Robotics has just announced that it's going to open the source code of its popular humanoid robot Nao.
The French firm has been developing Nao over the past five years, turning an initially obscure robot with a quirky name into a widely adopted research and education platform used to study human-robot communication, help treat hospitalized children, and play soccer. It's not yet clear exactly which parts of Nao's software platform will become open source and which will remain proprietary. The company said in a release that it will "share a significant part of [Nao's] source code with the research and developer community by the end of 2011. " Mystery Robot Revealed: RoboDynamics Luna Is Fully Programmable Adult-Size Personal Robot. That mystery robot that we've been teased about for months now, originally rumored to be something developed by either Apple or Google, is in fact a project by a company called RoboDynamics.
Geminoid Robots and Human Originals Get Together. The Geminoid family has gathered together for the first time.
The ultrarealistic androids, each a copy of a real person, met on March 30 at Japan's ATR laboratory, near Kyoto. Attending were Geminoid F, Geminoid HI-1, and Geminoid DK, as well as their respective originals: a twentysomething woman (whose identity remains a secret), Prof. Hiroshi Ishiguro of Osaka University, and Prof. Henrik Scharfe of Aalborg University, in Denmark [photo above]. The Geminoid robots, conceived by Prof. Anyone can teleoperate the androids, but the experience is certainly unique for those individuals who served as templates. "We wanted to get together and share our experience of having robot copies," Scharfe told me. Watch what happened: Geminoid Summit. Finally, a Robot That Can Punch You in the Face.
PunchingPro Upgrade. Why We Should Build Humanlike Robots. Robokind Zeno, a small walking humanoid with an expressive face created by Hanson Robotics. People often ask me why I build humanlike robots. Why make robots that look and act like people? Beyond Human: How to Design a Humanoid.
France Developing Advanced Humanoid Robot. Romeo, shown here in a computer-generated rendering, is a French humanoid robot designed to assist elderly and disabled people. Image: Aldebaran Robotics France is set to join the select club of countries that have developed advanced adult-size humanoid robots. Robotics : Research : Hitachi Global. Hitachi’s humanoid robot EMIEW2 in action. David Hanson's Incredible Robot Heads. Last year, we reported that British researchers are using a Charles Babbage robot head to develop emotional machines. We wondered whether the Charles head was a Hanson Robotics creation. We now have the answer. "Yes, Charles is a Hanson Robotics creation," David Hanson, founder and CTO of the company, tells us.
Hanson says they built the robot more than a year ago and he was pleased to see that the Cambridge researchers have put it to work. "I think they’re up to some good stuff," he says. Above is an image of Charles at the Hanson robot factory. Hanson also updated us on his company's latest developments -- they've been busy working on some new robots and updating old ones. Chatting with Zeno the VERY Human Robot.
2011_PhilipAndroid.MOV. Julio Robot from Hanson Robotics. Hanson Robotics JULIO. Hanson Robots, including the newest Zeno. Hanson Robotics ALICE.