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LDR Category List
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Robosapiens: Evolution of a New Species
By Faith D'Aluisio & Peter Menzel. Of particular interest from a 'Posthuman' point of view was the move away from the strong-AI goal of modelling the human brain in order to replicate consciousness towards an understanding of consciousness as a brain-body phenomena. Such work is being conducted using a $1 million 'Dynamic Brain' robot at the Japanese ATR Centre just outside Tokyo under the direction of Stephan Shaal and Mitsuo Kawato. Equally interesting from a 'Postdigital' point of view is the seemingly awesome power of Mark Tilden's 'Unibug' made from cast-off electrical parts assembled for a couple of hundred dollars. The Unibug, almost uniquely amongst current robots, dispenses with digital processing and uses analogue feedback circuits which allow this little 'creature' to move about and learn. These units are highly efficient, very cheap and more reliable than many more expensive systems. However, what seems to unite much of the research documented here is US Defense funding since a large proportion of the projects described are directly or indirectly supported by DARPA. One can see in certain cases, like the remotely operated rifle, how the research might be immediately relevant, but this is less so in many others and one inevitably suspects covert motives in otherwise innocuous projects. I was left with the impression that whatever the outcomes of current thinking and developments in robotics, it is the ubiquity of defense funding which means that the armed forces that will get the first and greatest benefit, maybe making Karel Capek's fantasy nightmare even more probable. |
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