CHRONICLING THE ROBOT INDUSTRY
SINCE 2011 © ROBOT RABBI
Summer is not without its annoyances — mosquitos, wasps, and ants, to name a few. As the cool breeze of September pushes us back to work, labs across the country are reconvening tackling nature’s hardest problems. Sometimes forces that seem diametrically opposed come together in beautiful ways, like robotics infused … Read More
There has been a furry of executive orders this past week, including the reinstallation of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines. Many are wondering if this new administration (especially with the former Exxon CEO at State) will be a boom for the Energy sector. Since falling off its high … Read More
Election 2016, or as it is better known, “humans are dangerous” it is time to elect a robot is approaching! While we are at least a century away from handing over the White House to a humanoid, our car keys are ready to go. Last spring, Wanis Kabbaj, a transportation thought leader … Read More
What do Van Gogh, Thoreau, and de Mestral (the inventor of Velcro) have in common? All three great innovators were inspired by nature to create their magnum opus. This week, the Biometry Institute was holding its annual conference to display and explore how future innovations would be further advanced by mimicking nature’s majesty. Recent examples heralded by the Institute include: … Read More
The brain is an electric organ, and its 86 billion neurons communicate via pulses of electricity. When a voltage change causes one neuron to “fire,” it releases chemicals that trigger voltage changes in connected neurons. The brain’s every operation, from automatic functions like maintaining a heartbeat to cognitive processes such as … Read More
This past Monday, I accompanied my 18-year-old daughter to her road test. While there, I began reflecting on the amount of emphasis we put on developing good judgement. It struck me that, as we transition into an autonomous driving future, we need to question what we are doing to prepare our machines, and ourselves, … Read More
On March 28, 1931, a small subsidiary of Boeing, United Air Lines, announced that it completed the first transcontinental passenger flight in 27 hours. This ushered in the golden age of commercial American aviation, which lasted over 40 years. Autonomous aviation was birthed in 1849 by an Austrian attack on Italy with unmanned … Read More
“I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that,” rings as a warning to mankind when we yield too much power to machines. HAL, the tyrannical computer in Stanley Kubrick’s movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was cleverly a one letter shift from I.B.M. Recently released letters from Kubrick reveal his fear of the computing … Read More
A couple of years ago, I had coffee with the Heather Knight, author of the infamous paper, “How Humans Respond To Robots.“ When we met in 2014, we begun our discussion with “in the future…” people will rely on robots for everyday tasks. However, today the future is yesterday and social … Read More
Hey, we all feel the Bern (good or bad), but I have one thing to say to Larry David: “be careful what you wish for.” Raising the federal minimum wage to $15 will only exasperate the robot takeover of America’s dull, dirty, and dangerous jobs. I am typically the first person … Read More
