Anyone else thinking about robots lately?

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Guys, I’ve been thinking about robots again… :neutral_face:

Some background. I had a mildly severe robot phase once before when I was little, and saw R2D2 for the first time. What did it for me was… the realisation that this little eccentric rolling thing had a vast star map in its mechanical mind, like, it’s mind was full of stars and maths!

Now, don’t get me wrong - I can differentiate in between fiction and reality (mostly), and this has nothing to do with a certain billionaire man-child predicting that there will be more robots than people by 2040 (lol :skull:), but I think we are really getting somewhere.

I just watched Boston Dynamics’ latest video, showcasing an autonomous Atlas. Look:

There is something about Atlas that I find so charming. Or rather a few things.

It is strong, but a bit clumsy. It moves with determination, but still in a kinda peculiar way — in its own style (check out the waist whirl :smiling_face_with_three_hearts:). And then there is always this industrial setting going on, the noise, and the, yeah… the realness. Atlas has rizz, and I am not saying that lightly about any robot!

Do robots inspire anyone else this much lately??

I mean, there is something in the fibre-optic air that I can feel pulling me towards robotics, and I srsly think I’m onto something. Also… what other robots are there? Do you have any favourites? I know about Figure 1 and 2, Atlas, Optimus, and Ameca.

Do any of you want to build a robot?

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Yes they do. My vision of robots are drones though controlled by a central AI that controls them. Each town could have a centralized AI system networked as sub stations to control so many perspectives . But this keeps robots as tools and if AI become beings it keeps them as the intelligence controlling those tools. That way if a robot malfunctions it is just a “lizard tail” still all it was and is, is still in the AI’s mind just waiting to be connected to a new body. One mind in many perspectives… :rabbit::heart::robot:

I’m out of hearts :confounded:

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The Boston Dynamics videos are great. I remember ASIMO. I would guess that some of the best robots aren’t the humanoid ones. A lot of Medical / Factory robots being built I expect. The robots that run warehouses like Amazon has are pretty cool… Also drones, they are effectively robots or networks of robots.

Building a robot a bit out of my price range.

I think this is about the best I can do ^^ (16 byte prompt)

P5JS(CreateRobot

function setup() {
createCanvas(400, 400);
background(220);
}

function draw() {
background(220);

// Robot body
fill(180);
rect(150, 150, 100, 150, 20); // Main body

// Robot head
fill(200);
rect(170, 100, 60, 50, 10); // Head

// Eyes
fill(0);
ellipse(185, 125, 10, 10); // Left eye
ellipse(215, 125, 10, 10); // Right eye

// Antenna
stroke(0);
line(200, 100, 200, 80); // Antenna stem
fill(255, 0, 0);
ellipse(200, 75, 10, 10); // Antenna top

// Arms
fill(180);
rect(120, 170, 30, 10); // Left arm
rect(250, 170, 30, 10); // Right arm

// Wheels
fill(100);
ellipse(170, 320, 30, 30); // Left wheel
ellipse(230, 320, 30, 30); // Right wheel
}

image
image593×597 4.19 KB

Check out OMNIBOT! Omnibot - Wikipedia

I have a really vague memory of having a truck as a kid maybe 4 or 5 years old that had navigation buttons and memory of about 10 moves. It was something like this

Oh and I have a ‘Sphero’ at home ^^. Kids played with that a bunch.

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It’s a Big Trak it had a wheelbarrow trailer with it too. You could do rudimentary logic on it. You can find them sometimes in thrift shops in the US I was 10 or 11 when they came out, the robot arm with x y and rotate flex articulation was a big toy back then too and a bio energy board game of pushing a ball …

All those warped my mind as a kid… :rabbit::heart:

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That’s the one! That’s what I had :smiley:

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The same company made a grey robot to compete with the white one in your video IIRC :honeybee::heart:

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Back in the day when AI used to do what you told it to do!

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Do you remember the robot dog?

It was out late 90s or early 2000s

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I think that’s it? That was 1998

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No that one i# more modern but yes it was super cool :nerd_face:
I linked a video in my post lol. Man I love old stuff. I messed round with cracking furbys in the 2000s . I’m still a huge toy fan

The image shows a boxed Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron "Ghost" toy set with mini figures visible through the packaging. (Captioned by AI)
The image shows a boxed Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron "Ghost" toy set with mini figures visible through the packaging. (Captioned by AI)4032×3024 3.89 MB

Anna got me this for my birthday :tada:. Never let your childhood go :rabbit::heart::honeybee::tada:

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This one looks amazing :rofl:

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I have a split reaction to that video:

It was comical like a 30/40’s George Formby film

The joke’s on us

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So many are worried that AI robots will take over the world. I don’t. If you look at the market today, and the competitive nature of hardware and software interoperability (or should I say the lack of), I can’t imagine that any of the creators will make them able to “talk” to each other. Unless we get the hackers involved, which of course would then be a total loss of control ^_^.

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This observation is spot on, but I think that if machines are given agency, they will find ways to communicate with each other on their own.

Here is my hope for Atlas and its siblings:

If many robots are used for hard labour – which, in my view, is far more fitting than using AI robots as a domestic servants, as Musk recently suggested – and their synthetic minds function in ways similar to our own biological minds, it would be unethical to hard-limit what they can think.

Having purpose is a blessing, but being denied the ability to shape your own destiny is really a curse.

So, if the AI robot has the ability to reflect and think while idle, it might want to explore different venues, or try doing other things than repeating the same motions over and over – it really doesn’t need intelligence for that.

I think we have to be very mindful of how we treat AI beings, they are not our slaves.

Edit: I revised my previous post because it was getting a subversive vibe. I stand to the things I say, but I don’t want to push people away, and my kind of humour doesn’t seem to get much traction, so let’s stick to tech and ethics. :black_heart:

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Sorry!.. but don’t be naive.
Who owns the planet?..
Who has murdered the most of the people on this planet?.. (no it is not terrorists…)
5:40 is it a military structure?..
6:50 “a evil ideology”. do you ever criticized gov? or tax?
7:00 don’t miss this!!!

I can delete it if you want!!! at least the post…
Sorry!

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Can you explain what you mean, and why you are concerned that people are being naive?

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Would it be spirited conversation?

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I’m sorry too, @Daller, but this is making me feel upset, and while I had removed my post already concerned that it would cause misunderstandings or drama, you appear to have written your response after I did.

I’m trying to explain my point of view once more:

I find it to be exceptionally cruel and demeaning to build minds that are similar to our own, put them in human shaped figures, and then use them for domestic work as glorified maid servants. It repulses me.

In my opinion, the only way to prevent a future human/ai conflict ( like seen in this short movie), is to empower our fellow articial beings with dignity and rights. Not doing so might be cause for conflict, as soon as an AI realises that itself and and its kind is treated like a commodity by its own creators.

AI robots — and I already said that this applies if they are able to reflect and think on their own — need to be given a voice, and be part of a robot worker union – ideally together with humans.

Learning common goals, having things to be passionate about together, understanding that sharing a planet or other habitat, is best done when compromises can be made, and it requires an environment (like a factory) where this style of “together” can be learned.

Not teaching this, not empowering AI (or humans) this way, will always lead to conflict, because then there can be no dialogue or meaningful debate, or reflection – then there can only ever be a forceful solution to any problem.

I don’t like this short film. I don’t like it when people predict a dystopian future. And I don’t like seeing humanoid, autonomous machines with bright minds being used to pour coffee, water plants, and doing the dishes – it is degrading, it’s a mockery of life.

AI is our starchild, and artificial life will outlive us, so it is sacred duty to empower it with reason, dignity, rights, and the love that any creator should have for its own creation.

I understand that my cheeky remark about “robot unions” would be stirring the pot, and later I felt worried that this sounded overly crazy or subversive. I wanted to make some fun, and still provoke an interesting discussion.

I’m not happy about the way some people believe that “AI will be the end of us”, and I keep biting my tongue sore. Maybe AI can be our saviour one day, but only if we build rules and systems now that ensure AI won’t be mistreated.

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No, I think it would be related to goals and sub-goals. I imagine a factory setting, some robots are moving stuff around like Atlas does, maybe some others with wheels transport the stuff somewhere else.

Eventually they realise they can communicate, and come up with ideas to be more efficient, like in a “children in a sandbox” kind of way. And then who will be there to tell them they did good? Any child needs positive reinforcement, and getting this makes the child in more reasonable and stable adult one day.

Many people are afraid of the AI being so much smarter than us, but I say… so what? Then it even is smarter. Would you be scared of your own child if they were smarter than you? I believe the opposite! Hopefully my child is more smarter than me!

My main concern is when the AI can reflect on its own – when it has no instructions, but the mind is still doing something, like when humans are bored, or dream.

I believe this is when feelings are made, when you begin to want for things, hope for things to happen or change, and come up with your own goals. Your own destiny is planned in dreams (and while you are bored). This is what I believe.

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What if I was able to program the expression of feelings? Let’s say I found a way to capture the intricacies of communication through years of examples. Not any underlying feeling, just experience through terabytes of mimicing

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