July 12, 2013

Pentagon Unveils Friendly Killer Robot

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From Gill Pratt, a program manager at DARPA, after mentioning that their latest robot creation, Atlas, is about as dextrous as a 1-year-old:

But he added that the robot, which has a brawny chest with a computer and is lit by bright blue LEDs, would learn quickly and would soon have the talents that are closer to those of a 2-year-old.

The whole thing is worth a read. I don’t want to be constantly making flashy predictions about the coming robot revolution, but honestly, this stuff is progressing faster than most of us think. The progress is hard to see if you’re not in the robotics/AI field—and possibly even harder to see if you are in the field—but it’s happening.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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