Bench Talk

Can we understand the implications of what we build?

Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Traffic Management (UTM) trials are designed to test multiple UAS in the same airspace in order to create safe commercial drone flights.

If you plan to use a drone for anything related to work or commercial ventures, you need to do more than register.

Some people see Artificial Superintelligence (ASI) ultimately bringing into play human immortality—making it possible to enable a variety of human or technological enhancements that counteract the aging process. Doing so will increase human life expectancy, possibly very significantly. However, if ASI is ultimately realized and becomes part of the human condition, what is the potential for human extinction based upon the actions of an ASI? It is conceivable that an ASI may one day view human life as unacceptably inefficient and without significant purpose in relationship to any programmed goals.

Having worked on many different types of industrial robots—SCARA, cylindrical, Cartesian, Articulated—used in semiconductor manufacturing, I can attest to the importance of choosing the right robot motors and ensuring that their speed and torque are optimized. Otherwise, the overall efficiency and productivity of the robot will be compromised.

How would you feel about driving down the highway at 65mph when suddenly you realize that the car that just passed you did not have a driver! No driver, only passengers – a group of seniors running late to their next Bingo game! How accepting would you be to the idea of sharing the highways with throngs of “driverless” cars? And what would be some of the “what ifs” or “ethical issues” you would have with this scenario?

Houses are getting smarter. Intelligent houses are called "domotics," a name created in 1984 by journalist Bruno Latour. Lots of smart interconnected things are now rapidly appearing in houses, and interconnected on the internet, the so-called Internet of Things. IPv6 will finally become routine as IPv4 runs out of IP addresses. (What? Your ISP doesn't provide IPv6 yet? Check out Hurricane Electric's IPv6 tunnelbroker site; reference below.)

Current household robots are largely one trick ponies. Sure it’s nice to have a dog bowl on wheels quietly move around the room, sucking up whatever the kids brought in on their shoes, but what else can it do? The market is flooded with robots that can vacuum the carpet, mow the lawn or remember to water your plants. Recently, I came across a robot to change your cat litter which would be useless… unless you made the mistake of owning a cat in the first place. Relax… I’m kidding! But I know what you’re thinking, “How long until I get to turn on a humanoid protocol droid that can handle complex tasks, speak my language, and help out around the ole’ moisture farm?” The good news is, sooner than you thought.

I finally, finally learned to knit well. Following a book to learn knitting is nearly impossible. (Bear with me, I will get to the roaches soon, you power-hungry roach-overlord-in-training.) Such things used to be taught from mother to daughter in the far distant past. Now we can learn nearly anything from anybody online. Next time you hear some wonk on TV complaining about how over-stimulated we all are with too much data, just remember that technology offers choices, and we experience small miracles every day through technology. We take technology for granted because we were born into it.

The Microrobotics Lab at Harvard University is working on microbots that might be able to help, if not totally reshape, fields including agriculture, medicine and police work. These innovative microbots are being developed with the overall goal of making tasks more efficient and less expensive.