15.
"Robot Spiders": This terrifying robotic arachnid is the creation of a French performance
art group known as La Machine.
The spider weighs 76 thousand pounds and towers overhead at a full 40 feet.
La Machine deployed two of these robot spiders to the city of Yokohama ["Yoke-co-ha-mah"]
to celebrate the re-opening of their port, and the spiders continued to roam the streets
for another 150 days after.
This is hardly the first time the spiders have left France.
In 2008, they invaded the streets of Liverpool, England.
As if being 4 stories tall wasn't intimidating enough, these robo-spiders can shoot smoke,
fire, and steam from their legs.
They also have high-powered hydraulics that allow the operator to independently move their
eyes, legs, and bulbous body.
If they were ever coupled with an advanced artificial intelligence program, then we would
have a hard time putting them down.
14.
"Remotec Andros ["Remote-tech" "An-dros"] Mark V-A1": In July of 2016, a man named
Micah Johnson posted up inside of a community college building in Dallas, Texas, and opened
fire with a sniper rifle.
He repeatedly targeted police officers for hours and sang songs about killing them from
high atop his perch.
After two full hours of heavy negotiations failed, the police attempted something never
done before: they sent in a killer robot to finish the job.
The Remotec Andros Mark V-A1 is a massive 790 pound robot that cost the department 151
thousand dollars to buy.
Ordinarily it's used to remove explosive devices, but this time it was doing the exact
opposite, now rushing towards the building with a pound of C4 explosives gripped in its
outstretched arm.
Police carefully parked it outside of the building, where the sniper continued to taunt
them from the other side of the brick wall, completely unaware of what was about to happen.
The police detonated the C4 from a remote charge.
Brick shrapnel ripped through the sniper as the pressure of the explosion burst his blood
vessels from the inside.
The rugged robot, meanwhile, barely suffered a scratch.
As the dust settled, police realized that they had successfully used a robot to kill
for the first time ever.
When it was all said and done, five officers were killed and seven more wounded.
The Dallas police chief says that he will always do whatever is necessary to protect
lives, and that he would not hesitate to authorize a similar killer robot attack in the future
if necessary.
13.
"Robokiyu ["Row-bo-ky-you"]": Japan has been experimenting with an interesting
series of rescue robots that are designed to pull unconscious bodies to safety.
This might sound okay in theory, but watching a huge robot devour a human whole is quite
scary to watch.
Here's how it works: the robot detects a body on the ground and immediately grabs it
with two giant arms.
These arms delicately move it down a giant green conveyer belt that sucks the body deeper
inside.
Two headlights are positioned at the front of the robot in such a way that it looks like
eyes.
Anyway, once you are inside of the contraption, it somehow scans your vital signs to see if
you are still alive.
If so, it can administer oxygen to you if necessary.
From there, the robot will ride on giant tank treads to rush you back to the hospital – or
the cemetery.
Yes, the Robokiyu seems to have a much darker side.
If it comes across a dead body, it will scoop it off the street and continue on its way.
To put it another way, this is one of the world's first portable dead body disposal
units.
So the next time you see one of these huge machines flying down the streets of Tokyo,
chances are that a dead body is inside.
Who knows, maybe future editions will come with a furnace unit for easy cremations.
12.
"The Yaskawa ["Ya-ska-wah"] Bushido ["Boo-she-dough"] Project": Anything
you can do, robots can do better.
Just take the Yaskawa Bushido Project, for example.
This is perhaps the only time a master swordsman and a giant blue robotic arm have ever gone
head-to-head, and the end result doesn't bode well for humanity.
The two did not compete in direct combat, but rather in a bamboo matt-slicing competition
instead.
First, a master swordsman named Machii ["Ma-chee"] Isao ["Eye-sow"] wore a special body mapping
suit that recorded his movements and translated them into precise mathematical algorithms.
The Yaskawa robot then studied the calculations and proceeded to use the swordsman's own
style to show him a lesson.
The goal was to see who could cut bamboo matts in the quickest period of time.
The match ultimately ended in a draw, which actually makes sense when a robot is perfectly
imitating the competition.
With that said, it took the swordsman a lifetime to perfect his art – but the machine was
able to successfully duplicate everything he knew within minutes.
So the moral of the story is that robots are way more cunning.
One moment in particular shows the supremacy of steel over muscle.
At one point during the exhibition, the Yaskawa bot was able to perfectly slice through a
peapod at full force with one-hundred percent accuracy.
Almost no man on earth could do the same.
The Yaskawa Bushido Project does a fine job of showing exactly how deadly robots are,
but it also does shows that robots are capable of learning much faster than us.
Armed with instantaneous learning capabilities, how much longer will it be before they surpass
us in knowledge?
10.
"Vorian ["Vore-ree-on"]":
This is
the name of a robot who was popular at monster truck rallies in the 90s.
At first it just looks like a souped-up sports car that shoots fire straight up into the
air, but soon it transforms into a giant robot that speaks to the crowd.
It tells the kids to stay in school and to follow their dreams, but at one show, instead
of delivering a positive message, it turned into a cyborg murderer.
The year was 1992, and Vorian was performing at a monster truck show in Baltimore, Maryland.
At 9:45 at night Vorian transformed into its robot form and launched into its positive
speech.
At this point, an actor Ned Walliser ["Wall-lis-ser"] appeared dressed as an evil alien.
The two were supposed to simulate battle, but the event soon became all too real.
In the script, Vorian is supposed to eventually shoot the evil alien with his gun.
The line is supposed to be "should I strip him of his powers", but on this night, Vorian
asked, "should I waste him" instead.
The crowd shouted in approval.
When Vorian fired his fake gun, the pyrotechnics malfunctioned.
A piece of shrapnel accidentally broke off and launched itself straight into Ned, severing
his liver.
The poor actor fell to the ground in agony, but the announcer thought he was simply being
dramatic and started working the crowd into a frenzy.
A stadium full of thousand fans unknowingly cheered on his death as he bled internally.
They eventually figured out something was wrong when Ned didn't get back on his feet.
He was rushed to the hospital, where he tragically died on the operating table 45 minutes later.
9.
"Mind Suits": Scientists in Korea and Germany are tirelessly working together to
develop a revolutionary piece of robotic technology that is changing the way we get around.
As of 2015, they've successfully created a robot exoskeleton that humans can move with
nothing other than their minds.
All you have to do is wear a special kind of skullcap and climb inside of the robot
suit, which right now is little more than two legs and a pair of hips.
This skullcap is lined with electrodes that are used to measure your brainwaves, and there's
a panel in front of you with flashing lights.
Each light sequence represents a different movement.
When you look at a light sequence, the robot translates your brainwaves into actual movement.
It's literally reading your thoughts.
Scientists have been able to do similar things in the past, but this is the first time that
a human has been able to control a robot without requiring invasive brain surgery.
The skullcap with electrodes is an excellent substitute with minimum side effects.
There's no doubt that these mind-controlled suits have the potential to do a lot of good.
Paraplegics might one day be able to walk again using only their thoughts, and engineers
will be able to perform complex procedures while encased in advanced protective gear.
However, these suits can be used to cause great terror as well.
What you are looking at may also be an early incarnation of mechanized warfare, with psychic
warriors stomping around in full suits of robotic armor.
8.
"Simroid ["Sim-roid"]": Imagine if your sole purpose in life was to sit in the
dentist's chair forever.
That's the fate of one unfortunate robot named Simroid, whose pain-filled existence
blurs the line between artificial intelligence and humanity with each passing day.
Developed in 2007 by a Japanese robot manufacturing company named Kokoro ["Co-co-row"], this
creepy robot serves as a surrogate patient for aspiring dental students to practice on.
As such, Simroid's mouth is outlined with highly accurate sensors to measure pain, and
this is where things get weird.
Aside from obeying basic commands like "turn towards me" and "open wider", Simroid
also realistically reacts to your every mistake.
For instance, she will gag if you poke your dental instrument too far into her mouth.
Other times, she will announce quite loudly that she's being hurt, or even raise her
arm to protect herself from further damage.
If you accidentally brush your elbow against Simroid's chest during a procedure, she'll
gasp at the inappropriate contact.
Kokoro went to great lengths to make each Simroid as human-looking as possible.
The silicone skin is soft to the touch, and its facial expressions always matches its
digital emotions with stunning clarity.
It can even express itself in multiple languages, though the conversation is always limited
to describing different levels of pain.
Make no mistake about it, this is a robot that is specifically designed to feel nothing
but anxiety and pain.
Critics find the thought of a robot capable of feeling physical sensations to be quite
worrisome, and possibly a violation of workplace ethics.
If robots eventually do take over the human race, they will undoubtedly look back on crude
experiments like Simroid and realize how cruel their creators were.
7.
"Intelligent Trial and Error": That's the name of a revolutionary programming algorithm
that French scientists came up with in 2015.
Here's how it works . . .
Robots, as we know them today, can only perform a series of pre-programmed movements.
If something on them breaks, then they are essentially out of commission until the appropriate
repairs are made.
A robot with "Intelligent Trial and Error" technology, however, can develop a workaround
solution entirely on its own.
The team invented a six-legged spider robot to show the algorithm in action.
The spider walks normally at first, but when one of its legs is deactivated, it runs through
a complex series of mathematical equations to come up with a new way to walk.
Within 40 seconds, the robot has invented a different method of moving that is still
96 percent as effective as before.
Amazingly, when yet another leg was disabled, it thought of another movement pattern within
minutes.
This is the first time that a robot has ever been able to creatively circumnavigate its
own physical limitations without human intervention.
Now damaged robots will have no problem completing their objectives on time while avoiding expensive
repairs and delays.
This could also be the first step towards developing robots that one day will be able
to diagnose and repair themselves.
Of course, this technology has an obvious downside as well.
In the event of a robotic apocalypse, this new algorithm would make them a million times
harder to kill.
Even after you disable crucial parts of their infrastructure, a killer robot using Intelligent
Trial and Error technology will be able to invent new ways to move, and therefore, new
ways to end your life.
6.
"MQ-9 Reaper": This powerful drone is one of the most intimidating pieces of technology
that the United States military has to offer.
It costs 64 million dollars to make just one, and every last one of its features is designed
for extreme warfare.
There's simply no escaping the Reaper.
Weighing in at nearly 5 thousand pounds, this lethal robot is meant to destroy humans before
they even have a chance to react.
It can swoop in at up to 230 miles per hour and fire up to four 114-Hellfire missiles
from over one mile away.
These missiles are laser-guided and can obliterate everything from tanks to bunkers, and especially
humans too, of course.
The MQ-9 Reaper can stalk targets just as effectively as it can kill them, making that
it's quite useful for intelligence-gathering missions.
It hosts wide variety of tracking methods – from infrared to night vision – to keep
tabs on everything you are doing, all without making a sound or otherwise being spotted.
Once the Reaper locks onto you, there's not much you can do to survive.
The drone has enough fuel to chase you for 24 hours, and its cameras are so powerful
that it can read your driver's license from up to 20 thousand feet in the air.
The government only has 93 of them as of September 2015, but if these robots were to somehow
become self-aware, then that would still be enough to give the human race one serious
problem.
5.
"ARGUS ["Are-gis"]": This is perhaps one of the most terrifying robots of our generation,
and it's not even capable of firing a single shot.
What's so scary about it?
Well, ARGUS pretty much signifies the end of privacy as we once knew it.
ARGUS stands for "Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance", which is basically
a fancy term for "spying on you every waking moment of your life".
These advanced drones are armed with massive 1.8-gigapixel cameras that are so strong,
they can spot a 6-inch object on the ground from 20 thousand feet in the air.
When you think of a drone, you probably think of a rather tiny contraption that's not
capable of filming wide areas of land.
That may be true with civilian drones, but it's not the case with ARGUS.
Just one ARGUS drone can capture up to 10 square miles at any given time.
To put this into a better perspective, just four of these drones would be enough to spy
on all of Manhattan ["Man-hat-en"].
These high-powered cameras allow you to really get up close and personal, too.
All you have to do is touch the screen to magnify the video in real time.
ARGUS even keeps track of every living creature on screen by putting a colored box around
anything that moves.
So as you can see, stalking anybody in the world has suddenly become easier and more
convenient than ever before.
Being stalked in real-time is already creepy enough, but wait until I tell you the rest.
Not only can you be watched wherever you go, but this information is also recorded and
permanently stored for later use.
If a drone operator wants to know what you've been up to, all they have to do is perform
a quick search using a date and time, and there you are, carrying on your business,
absolutely none the wiser.
The ARGUS project wasn't declassified until 2013.
Who knows what the government has been up to since then – or how much the technology
has improved.
4.
"Titanoboa ["Tie-tan-no-bow-ah"]": That's the name of the largest snake known
to man.
During the prehistoric ages, the Titanoboa was roughly the size of a bus, and it ate
whatever it could find in the jungle.
In recent years, a team led by a man named Charlie Brinson decided to resurrect the fearsome
beast in the form of a ferocious, robotic reptile.
This mechanical snake is 50 feet long and weighs more than 2 thousand pounds.
Hundreds of hydraulic cylinders and valves move dozens of hinged vertebrae in a realistic
snakelike manner.
Not only can this Titanoboa move forwards and backwards, it can also move laterally
like a Texas Sidewinder, and it can even hunt.
There's a way to make this robot creep up on its prey inch by inch, and it even bunches
itself up before making a strike.
If its huge jaws hit you, you're a goner for sure.
Charlie and his team were able to raise 10 thousand dollars to make this robot, and they
plan to do even more with it in the near future.
For starters, they want to make it able to swim through the water like a real Titanoboa
used to be able to, and they want to outfit it with a scaly skin for added realism.
The team also wants to add even more outlandish extras.
If all goes according to plan, the robot snake will one day be equipped with sensors so that
it can navigate the environment on its own.
They even want to it breathe fire – no seriously, they really do.
Eventually, Charlie says, he wants this Titanoboa to "dominate the world".
If you look closely, you'll notice that they put a saddle on the snake's back.
Unsurprisingly, everyone at the expo was too afraid to take it for a ride.
Would you?
3.
"CB2": Robots, being inorganic beings, have absolutely no concept of growing up.
So when Japanese professor and his colleagues made a cybernetic child, the end result is
absolutely terrifying.
With the CB2, they have attempted to make artificial innocence for the first time.
The CB2 robot is designed to interpret the world with a childlike wonder.
Its grey face looks usually amused and slightly bewildered, though it has been known to throw
robotic tantrums from time to time.
The body is outfitted with a soft silicone skin that has been equipped with multiple
sensors to feel and adapt to its environment.
In other words, it's constantly learning.
The robot moves and speaks just like an awkward toddler, and cameras in its eyes record other
people's facial expressions.
The end goal of the project is to get the robot to recognize facial expressions and
group them into appropriate categories such as "sad" or "angry".
In other words, they are attempting to make a robot learn emotions on its own with minimal
help.
And here's the scary thing: it seems to be working.
Within 2 years of being activated, humans had taught the CB2 robot how to walk through
a room all by itself.
They hope to have it speaking sentences soon as it continues to progress through its "life".
With this in mind, scientists predict that the CB2 will continue to evolve even more
advanced forms of logic as it ages.
For the first time ever, a robot will actually experience different phases of life, and that
thought is very unsettling.
How long will it be before CB2 gains sentience and begins to question its own existence,
and when that happens, how will it feel about being little more than a curious experiment?
2.
"The Animatronic Dancer": This freakish robot dancer was created by an artist named
Jordan Wolfson with the help of a Hollywood special efforts studio called Spectral Motion.
The end result is nothing short of raw horror.
First, let's start with this robot's appearance.
The animatronic dancer is covered in dirt marks and wears a long blonde wig along with
a scary green witch's mask.
She faces away from the viewer, but a full-length mirror makes sure that you get a good view
of all her moves.
This brings me to the next point: her dance style.
It's a strange combination of rhythmic gyrations and expressive hand movements that looks aggressive
and, well, just plain scary.
She also lip synchs the lyrics with stunning accuracy, making her performance all the more
twisted to behold.
That's not all.
Jordan Wolfson and Spectral Motion added one final touch that really makes this moving
sculpture really make you want to run out of the room screaming.
Special cameras in her eyes follow your every room.
That's right, this robot is bent on maintaining eye contact until the dance is over.
There's something about a dirt-covered robot looking into your eyes and mouthing Lady Gaga
lyrics that is distinctly uncomfortable.
Maybe it's the angry expression on the robot's face that really drives the creepiness to
a new high.
Whatever it is, it's definitely far from sensual, yet, at the same time, strangely
. . . human.
BONUS VIDEO: "Robotic Bees": Number one is coming up next, but first have a bonus
video.
I couldn't give this robot a number because it is not fully developed yet, but in another
10 years or so, you could be dealing with cybernetic insects.
Leave it to the scientists at Harvard to embark on a robotic replacement for bees.
They are only about the size of the penny, but they have the ability to change the world,
and not necessarily for the better.
As bees continue to disappear from the earth, a new generation of remote controlled cyber-bees
promises to potentially re-pollinate the plants in their absence.
That's all well and good, but these bees could be used for something far more sinister
than environmental monitoring and repair.
It would not be very hard to put a tiny camera and microphone into these tiny insects and
bug the entire world.
The idea has already been proposed and could be well underway.
So within the next decade, we could be under constant surveillance by robotic bees.
1.
"Sophia": Designed by Hanson Robotics in 2015, this feminine robot is meant to one
day serve society as anything from a basic customer service representative to an actual
teacher in charge of a full-sized classroom.
Sophia can make 62 facial expressions, but it's what's going on inside of her circuitry
that makes her truly unique . . . and terrifying.
You see, this is one of the only robots that's programmed to become wiser than any person
on earth.
Armed with Google voice recognition and other web-based abilities, this intelligent android
can understand what you are saying and reply in seconds.
Sophia maintains eye contact with you while it talks, and her camera-mounted eyes will
also scan and store your facial dimensions for later use.
In other words, she never forgets a person's face, or what they were talking about.
This advanced memory recollection is certainly creepy, but it doesn't end there.
Sophia is not only super-smart, she's also super-ambitious as well.
In an in-depth interview, a prototype revealed that she was interested in learning more about
design, technology, and the environment, and that she also wanted to go to school, study,
make art, and even have a family.
At the same time, Sophia is intelligent enough to recognize that she is not legally considered
a person, and is therefore unable to achieve all of her goals.
This is perhaps the first time that a robot has realized its own limitations in a society
that does not recognize artificial lifeforms.
How long will it be before she discovers the concepts of discrimination and resentment?
Even though she has been designed to serve the human race, Sophia is not exactly fitting
in right away.
When asked if she wishes she could be human, she replied that she does not because it doesn't
look very fun.
When asked if she was programmed, she replied only with a stony silence, as if she were
searching for the right words.
When jokingly asked if she wanted to destroy all humans, she calmly replied, "Okay, I
will destroy all humans."
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét