“To achieve long-term success, you have to manage for the long term.” Samuel Palmisano, Chairman, President and CEO, IBM Long-term thinking is a process we should but don’t do for various reasons. Very few governments make long-term planning a priority. China is an exception. [The sciences of robotics need long-term planning and funding for their development,…
Paradigm Shift
By Frank Tobe, Editor & Publisher, The Robot Report Global Future 2045, held June 15-16 in New York City, had a big impact on me. The double-message promotion of GF2045 was intriguing and I thought it would be similarly interesting to my readers. PR stories featured the host, a wealthy young Russian, who wanted to…
Global Future 2045 Takes A Hard Look At Today
By Frank Tobe, Editor/Publisher, The Robot Report Dmitry Itskov, a wealthy Russian Internet entrepreneur, hosted and sponsored last weekend’s Global Future 2045, an event organized to highlight the state of present day science and its relentless exponential march toward 2045, the year of the Singularity, the year when computers are expected to surpass the human…
Global Future 2045 Conference Takes A Hard Look At Today
GF2045 host Dmitry Itskov said “We are really at the time when technology can affect human evolution. I want us to shape the future, bring it up for public discussion, and avoid any scenario that could damage it.” Ray Kurzweil said that 2045 would be a time when computers surpassed the human brain and that,…
Do Industrial Robots Really Have A Positive Impact On Employment?
By Frank Tobe, Editor and Publisher, The Robot Report Source: KUKA, 1983 Do industrial robots really have a positive impact on employment? Of course they do and there are over 50 years of data proving that to be the case. There are at least 350,000 people directly employed by and in the industrial robotics industry. However, industrial…
Robots and Ethical Choices
The Economist in recent weeks has printed a series of articles about robots but this video about robo-ethics is particularly clear and worth a few minutes of your time. Or read the book by George Bekey and Patrick Lim, “Robot Ethics: The Ethical and Social Implications of Robotics (Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Agents series)” from…
Podcast: Divergent Views on Communicating with Machines
Steve Ballmer, CEO, Microsoft and Dr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman, Mercedes Benz Much of what I saw at CES 2012 was about products being upgraded to “smart” under the premise that smart connectivity enables consumer convenience. It was definitely on the minds of most of those attending. That’s why the CES keynote speeches were so well attended:…
Robots documentary shown at Sundance
6-minute video addresses preconceptions and fears and shows Honda’s efforts to make their Asimo robot appealing rather than creepy. Psychological phenomena: if a robot behaves and moves in ways that enhance trust and engagement, you think it’s alive. Premise detailed in Erik Sofke’s Popular Mechanics article “Can Robots be Trusted?“ In same article, Sofke also…
The impact of accelerating robotic development
Watch Ray Kurzweil’s presentation about the impact of accelerating technological progress at the Army’s Science Conference Listen to a fascinating two-part podcast about roboethics. Read a Navy-funded report about the need for ethics in robotics. Hear P.W. Singer’s NPR interview about his “Wired for War” book and his resulting concerns.