got school'd

i realize that title is desperately lame, but i'm tired and i exceeded my 1 drink maximum because the conversation was good. my bad.

but hey, check it: robotic fish that can communicate and form schools.



apparently, this is potentially very useful for tracking oceanic pollution or marine life, but the most important part of this video comes when the aussie calls them, "fishy robots" entirely unironically.

it's not that impressive, though. at my parent's house, they had robotic fish that could form schools. and these were so cool, someone made an ad for them. here they are:


and then, while i was looking for something to illustrate my point, i found something fairly entertaining, albeit with nothing robotic (except perhaps these kids' acting -snap!):

this is pretty (and so small)

Courtesy of Scientific American: a robot dragonfly that flies for 3 minutes at about 5m/second and carries an onboard camera. someday soon it will be able to hover like a hummingbird and fly backwards. in the movies, robotic insects that have cameras are usually sort of sinister and creepy and climbing all over things to expose the hero to his nemesis - but this one seems so delicate and elegant that surely it will come solely to its programmer to put it to evil ends... sigh.

Mea Culpa in Miami

Sorry, have not been blogging responsibly.

I was in Miami for a few days for a conference. Some interesting topics, some terrific speakers. Some real duds, as all conferences have, of course. Maybe the thing that stood out most to me was how much we have known for years but we willfully ignore because it seems that there MUST be something new out there. The truth seems to be - there just isn't.

The thing that stood out a little bit, too, was how much people want to talk about 'the business.' Some may take the point of view of insiders and pros, others the perspective of rebels and outsiders. But we all want to talk about our jobs, our companies, our skills, our clients, our experiences. The after-parties were people talking about the job, bitching about the job, looking for a new job, proclaiming what they know about the job that others do not. How I longed for a conversation about robots.

In fairness, I did have a very interesting conversation with a friend in which we - slightly buzzed, in party attire, and under the stars - took each other through a laddering exercise that takes you to your personal, persistent 'theme' - usually a falsehood - that gets in the way of being a whole person. It turns out I think I'm a fraud and this is the source of my writer's block, dissatisfaction, fear, and anger. We then practiced saying our little themes in funny voices until you got a good belly laugh going. Hearing how ridiculous the notion that I'm a fraud, say, or you're unloveable, or he's too much, is incredibly useful in parking it and moving on. I suspect that this is a 'lather, rinse, repeat' exercise - one time is not enough, because the lies we've been telling ourselves the longest, the ones we really believe, are hard to untell ourselves, to take back, to erase.

Levity was in order. I could tell you about the Furries conversation - but that's not really my story to tell. Instead, I'll tell you what happened when I told my dinner companions that I blog about robots. It seemed like a safe space for such things, as half the table were obsessively fondling their iPhones and Blackjacks. I'm not exempt - my iPhone is my personal assistant, my font of knowledge, my sherpa. Oh, iPhone... (soaring romantic music as we pan away)

My friend John suggested that his partner, Rault, would perhaps know a thing or two about robots. Rault demurred. He wasn't in to robots, but had I seen the video of the robotic jellyfish, or the robot baby white tiger? I hadn't. They're fascinating. And here they are:

Jellyfish, via New Scientist These apparently have no use at the moment - they're just cool and stuff.




White Tiger Cub, courtesy of Gizmodo


I think the White Tiger Cub begins to tip into the Uncanny Valley. Maybe if after years of docile obedience the White Tiger Cub eventually mauls you, ending your Vegas career, then it will hit the proper level of realism. Let's wait and see, shall we?

and monkeys shall have dominion over robots

Mmmm... foooooood...

Look at that monkey, feeding itself what looks to be some delicious pastry with a robotic arm that it controls WITH ITS MIND. To wit, from the BBC:

With the probes inserted into the monkeys' motor cortices, computer software was used to interpret the brain's electrical impulses and translate them into movement through the robotic arm.

With a bit of training, the monkeys could change speed and direction. The scientists speculate the monkeys began to regard the prosthetic limb as their own, after first observing the movement and then, by observing, activating brain cells that send the appropriate signal.

There are two aspects of this I find fascinating - first, the potential application for those with spinal cord injuries or for amputees. The second was this observation from the same article:

However, this important paper confirms that the brain controls movement just by planning where to go, rather than by directing individual muscles how to make the limb get there.

This calls to mind some arguments made by psychologists and sociologists - and of course amateurs of both who make their livings in the ad business - that we decide before we know that we've decided, and that we typically act in simple mimicry of others. Perhaps I just can't give up the free will ghost, but it seems to me that this robot monkey experiment actually shows that there are multiple, yet nearly instantaneous, aspects of decision-making. Planning and directing and acting can all happen so simultaneously as to be nearly impossible to disentangle. But, arguably, the 'true' decision happens at the moment just before we plan.

Oh robot monkeys, you have so much to teach us.

We Only Want to Save the Cute Animal Robots

I grew up in the 80s. In the 80s we were concerned about the following:

• The eruption of Mt. St. Helens - this was the first time we turned to powdered milk and face masks
  
• The Chernobyl disaster - that was the second time... Mmmm... Tang
  
• The Spaceshuttle Challenger disaster - no powdered milk, just a classroom full of shocked 4th graders
  
• The Iran/Contra Hearing - interrupting summer programming and tearing us away from whatever Bo & Hope were doing on Days
  
• AIDS
  
• The hole in the ozone layer - this seemed to be caused by Aquanet, the refrigerator and the air conditioner
  
• Just saying "No" to drugs
  
• Not talking to strangers - this means you, latch-key kids!
  
• Whether there would be a booth in the non-smoking section, and whether you'd have to walk through the smoking section to get to it
  
• When your cable provider would finally carry MTV so you could actually watch videos
  
• Drunks driving oil tankers
  
• And one of the more disgusting worries: baby seals being clubbed to death for their skins
  

I grew up in Oregon. For those who don't know where it is on the map, you can find it on the Pacific Ocean, between Washington and California. You'd be surprised how many people I meet that aren't quite sure where Oregon is, though they seem to at least correctly assume it's "West". Oregon is regarded as being both a place for redneck, fishermen and lumberjacks who don't like gays, the watershed or the spotted owl; and as a place full of damn dirty hippies who voted for Mondale.

But Oregon is also the home of the Oregon Coast, the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the Seaside Aquarium, the Washington Park Zoo (now called the Oregon Zoo), the Oregon Wildlife Safari, and a town called Seal Beach. What I mean to say is, I saw a fair number of seals in my time. They seemed like slightly pushy, aquatic dogs. Barking at you and clapping water in your direction if you didn't toss that sardine. Swimming right up to the glass to eyeball you and then show off a bit. So to think that someone could club and then skin a baby seal was truly appalling. And, for some reason, oft-discussed in elementary school circles. I don't really remember why.

But, we set to work protecting baby seals, whales, and all the rest of our beloved ocean mammals. They even made a Star Trek movie about it.



(Alright, enough of that!)

So now, baby seals are available to you, in robotic form, to fill the empty void in your soul where love, affection and loyalty ought to be.



From NPR:

It's been available in Japan for several years, but now the company has created a Florida-based unit, Paro Robots U.S. Inc., to sell the fuzzy creature to places like nursing homes and hospitals. The robot, named Paro, is marketed as a therapeutic device that can help comfort people who have dementia, autism or other problems that can lead to social isolation.

Apparently, the robot seal can 'feel' pleasure - when you pet him, he makes the pleased, squealing sound of a real baby seal. It also shivers when you first hold it, until you begin to soothe it - which no doubt contributes to the bond people feel to the 'pet.'

But the article also makes this fascinating observation - because most people don't ever interact with or see a seal in real life, they have low expectations for the look and feel of, and interaction with a robotic seal. We do know what cats and dogs are like, so it's harder to bond with a robotic one of those.

Case in point:


Which seems like an apt observation of humanity in general - while we might fear the unknown, we can also very easily adore the unfamiliar, the untouchable, the out of reach. We yearn from afar. We fall in love at first sight. We link eyes across a crowded room. We covet thy neighbor's wife, or husband. We take snippets of information about complete strangers to us and begin to feel that we have a relationship with them (it's called being a 'fan'). Only when we discover that the object of our arm's-length affections is not quite as we imagined, do we begin to sour on it or him or her. Real relationships are hard - they take care, feeding, shelter, warmth, safety, nurturing, acceptance, struggle, compromise, disagreement, and even punishment in order to be successful. They are long-term propositions. It's no different for owning a 'real' pet - a living, breathing dog or cat requires our affection, and gives back positive reinforcement (well, dogs do, anyway). But it also requires boundaries, training, a sense of belonging, and someone to take on the responsibilities of the administrative aspects of the relationship.

What I'm saying is this: batteries and soft fake fur, long eyelashes and pre-recorded sounds of baby harp seals mewling at their mothers make for a nice 'fake' pet. Still, Paro the baby seal robot is 'real' enough to be loved. And for some, enough really is enough.

Let's bring it back to the robotic, shall we? I find myself fascinated and repulsed by the notion that we're going to give a shivering, squealing animatronic seal to people who are already a few sandwiches short of a picnic. But why would that be? Why am I being a hater of robot pets? Turns out, there is a theory about robotics and animation that is referred to as the Uncanny Valley.

The uncanny valley is a hypothesis that when robots and other facsimiles of humans look and act almost, but not entirely, like actual humans, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers.

For the best explanation of this phenomenon, watch this clip: