Could You Love A Robot?

David Levy is attracting a lot of attention in the media with the release of his new non-fiction book, Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships.

I’m reading it right now–it’s a fascinating look at the human obsession with automata throughout history, and even examines the factors involved in falling in love and how this will eventually extend to robots.

Levy starts an important dialogue about the ethics involved with creating robots meant for sex– but I feel that he takes for granted that human society is going to embrace these developments with open arms. I predict that sex with robots will be very popular, but I don’t believe that it’s going to be considered socially acceptable behavior. There will be a stigma attached to having sex with machines, much like the one that comes with owning a real doll or having sex with prostitutes. As for legislating the sale of robots built for sex and their rights as individuals…that will probably take even longer to decide. Just like any minority, robots will have to fight for their rights.

Check out the clip below and see Salon’s Farhad Manjoo, and get his take on Love and Sex with Robots.

Teaser Posters for Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

The teaser posters are out for the new tv Terminator spin-off, and I have to admit I’m pretty excited. The new show looks amazing so far– especially compared to that blasphemous Terminator 3.

Lena Headey stars as Sarah Connor, though she’s better known as the badass Spartan chick from 300 right now.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles debuts on Fox with a two-night premiere on January 13th and 14th. Looks like the future will be here in the new year!

Vote for your favorite poster at Fox.com And if you haven’t seen it already, you can check out the trailer for the show here.

Robot Theme Parks Coming Soon to South Korea

Forget Disneyland. South Korea hopes to draw interest to its burgeoning robotics industry with robot theme parks.

The Commerce Ministry announced a proposal Tuesday to build two parks by 2013 for $1.6 billion.
South Korea regards robotics — which includes software and hardware used mostly in manufacturing but also in some consumer appliances and other devices — as a key area for economic development. The young field has grown about 40 percent a year since 2003, according to the ministry.

Combining culture and entertainment with robot technology, they are to be built in Incheon, just west of Seoul, and the port city of Masan, about 242 miles south of Seoul, the ministry said in a statement.

Visitors will be able to interact with robots and test new products. The theme parks will be built in Incheon, which is about 25 miles west of Seoul, and Masan, a port city on the country’s southern coast.

“The two cities will be developed as meccas for the country’s robot industry, while having amusement park areas, exhibition halls and stadiums where robots can compete in various events,” the ministry said in the statement.

South Korea’s robotics industry ranks sixth in the world and is considered a key growth industry. Robotics research and manufacturing efforts in Korea focus on service robots that clean homes and provide entertainment.

The project still needs to be approved in a feasibility study next year before getting off the ground in 2009, the ministry said. The parks won’t be completed until 2013.

Meanwhile, the inevitable remake of Westworld is scheduled to hit theatres in 2009.

From AP and Computer World.

Rocket-Powered Bionic Arm

“Better, stronger, faster” bionic arms are being built using rockets.

It doesn’t have superhuman strength, but the new design is “closer in terms of function and power to a human arm than any previous prosthetic device that is self-powered and weighs about the same as a natural arm,” said researcher Michael Goldfarb, a roboticist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.

The new prototype arm can lift about 20 to 25 pounds—three to four times more than current commercial prosthetic arms—and can do so three to four times faster.

“It has about 10 times as much power as other [robotic] arms,” Goldfarb said.

The rocket-powered arm also has greater dexterity and freedom of movement than any other prosthetic to date with twenty-one moving joints. Conventional prosthetic arms have only two joints, at the elbow and the “claw.” The protype has a wrist that can twist and bend, and fingers that open and close independently.

The radical design is similar to rocket systems that help the space shuttle and satellites maneuver in orbit. It employs a miniature rocket about the size of a pencil, and burns pressurized liquid hydrogen peroxide using iridium-coated alumina granules as catalysts, generating pure steam that forces pistons up and down, generating motion. Steam gets vented out through a porous skin-like cover, where it evaporates like normal sweat. “The amount of water involved is about the same as a person would normally sweat from their arm on a warm day,” Goldfarb said.

And it does it all quietly.

“It’s much quieter than I would have ever thought,” Goldfarb told LiveScience. “You can be in a room where people are talking at very low levels and never hear it. You have to be very quiet to hear this thing operate.”

Research has been funded by DARPA, which aims to develop better prosthetic limbs. Improvements in body armor and battlefield medicine have reduced the number of casualties from conflicts, but the side effect is a significantly increasing number of amputees, as has become evident among veterans of the ongoing war with Iraq.

DARPA’s goal is to have an advanced, commercially available prosthetic arm in two years. Unfortunately, Goldfarb is concerned DARPA funding might dry up for his team’s research because of the arm’s novel power source, which will probably take a long time to get regulatory approval due to safety issues.

Click here to see video of the arm in action, along with barely related Star Wars footage.

From Live Science.

Face it: No Matter What You Say, Teens Won’t Stop Having Sex

In human sexuality news, abstinence only programs don’t work. Big shocker there.

A study released by the nonpartison group National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy says that teenage sexual behavior is completely unaffected by programs that focus exclusively on abstinence — although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal grants.

“At present there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence or reduces the number of sexual partners” among teenagers, the study concluded.

While abstinence-only efforts have proven futile, comprehensive sex ed programs have shown “positive outcomes” including teenagers “delaying the initiation of sex, reducing the frequency of sex, reducing the number of sexual partners and increasing condom or contraceptive use.”

“Two-thirds of the 48 comprehensive programs that supported both abstinence and the use of condoms and contraceptives for sexually active teens had positive behavior effect,” said the report.

A spending bill before Congress would provide $141 million in assistance for abstinence-only sex ed– that’s $4 million more than President Bush requested.

I don’t understand why it costs so much money for such an ineffective program. It seems like a class called “Don’t have sex” that doesn’t even have to pay for bananas & condoms would be pretty cheap.

A Sense of Touch Makes Robots Feel Real

On average, robots today can hold human interest for only about 10 hours, but in a new study, a humanoid robot dubbed QRIO (pronounced “curio”) was accepted by human toddlers as “one of them” for 5 months before it was taken away.

The secret? QRIO was programmed to have a crude sense of touch. Touch could be key to making robots accepted by humans as social peers, scientists say.

“We put in this simple contingency where if the children touched the robot, the robot would giggle,” said study leader Javier Movellan of the University of California, San Diego. “That completely changed everything.”

The study suggests that response to touch and simulated emotions are more crucial than humanoid appearance when it comes to human acceptance– but didn’t R2-D2 prove that a long time ago?

Via LiveScience.

New Terminator on TV

Take a look at the new Terminator played by Owain Yeoman on the upcoming Fox show The Sarah Connor Chronicles. It looks like they’re staying true to the franchise…for now. But he’s going to need a hat to cover that exposed CPU lid.

From ComingSoon.net