The other day I saw something amazing. My husband is a fan of the Singularity Blog and he's always saying, come here look at this.
First he showed me this one - a robotic's company called Cyberdyne. Yes, you heard right, someone has a sense of humour. They're making exoskeletons. See here. The lower leg version has been available for a year now.
And this one was elegant and amazing, a robot bird. It is controlled by a computer which communicates with the bird and controls it in real time, responding to air currents.
I like to read New Scientist on the train to work. It gives me ideas for stories and keeps me on my toes.
How do you get mental stimulation to keep your brain ticking over?
People have been finding the idea of robots fascinating since Mary Shelly wrote about a man who attempted to make a human being in his own image.
Is it because they appear to be like us, but they aren't? I remember reading Asimov's Robot mysteries 30 years ago and finding them fascinating. Even people who don't read SF can quote Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.
Hollywood finds the idea of robots fascinating. They range from the Terminator type robot to the way the concept was handled in AI.
I thought we were long way from real robots until I came across this. A firm has created man's perfect female companion.
'LAS VEGAS, Nevada (AFP) - Roxxxy the sex robot had a coming out party Saturday in Sin City.
In what is billed as a world first, a life-size robotic girlfriend complete with artificial intelligence and flesh-like synthetic skin was introduced to adoring fans at the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo in Las Vegas.
"She can't vacuum, she can't cook but she can do almost anything else if you know what I mean," TrueCompanion's Douglas Hines said while introducing AFP to Roxxxy.
"She's a companion. She has a personality. She hears you. She listens to you. She speaks. She feels your touch. She goes to sleep. We are trying to replicate a personality of a person."'
What I find interesting is that they can program her to like everything the guy likes, cars, motorbikes etc. Is that what men want, a mirror that happens to have female genitals?
Reading about this Roxxxy reminded me of the movie 'Lars and the Real Girl'. The movie explored isolation and how desperate someone can be for real contact. So the movie's theme and what Lars is looking for, is the opposite of what 'Roxxxy' offers men.
There is the concept of uploading yourself to a computer. If your body dies, you can revert to your latest save and download into a fresh body. If you need to be in two places at once, you can send a spare body with your latest download in your place. But which version is you?
Have you read any books recently that deal with robots and artificial intelligence in an interesting way?
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