VIDEO: Robot keeps itself from falling over
2008.Mar.18. Tuesday - by lvhrdThere is something deeply unsettling about watching this robot walk around. Its electric gait is normal enough, but as soon as you see it keep itself from slipping on ice, getting knocked over, and delicately moving over a pile of cinder blocks - essentially doing all it can to keep from being hurt - things get a little too human.
Watching it avoid peril, watching it struggle evokes a sense of sympathy. Sympathy. A very human emotion evoked by a four-legged toaster.
Last week we watched Usual Suspects in a blog post, now we’ve got this thing to deal with, what next, American Apparel models coming to the defense of Dov?
Kottke had it first, as always.
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Mar.18.2008 : 1:21 pm
It tries to keep itself up, which suggests that it wants to keep itself from getting damaged, which suggests it is concerned for itself, which suggests it is self-aware.
Now, while this stagger-stepping might just be the result of a gyroscope and some programming, the fact that a machine APPEARS to be concerned for its well-being is eerie.
Why do we gleefully rush towards constructing machines that are smarter, stronger and faster than we are?
Hubris. Pride or familiarity….we have predicted the endgame dozens of times and yet we rush to embrace it by engineering our own obsolescence .