Category: Robotics

I have an expectation that machine consciousness will emerge unexpected, unsought, and perhaps undetected.

Mining has had an impact on many Aboriginal communities in Australia. As we move to a mining sector where dump trucks, underground excavators, loaders, and conveyor systems are transformed into partial or fully autonomous systems, there is little or no human labor required other than to maintain equipment or provide oversight using a range of distant surveillance technologies.

Philosopher-ethicist Jai Galliott and cybersecurity-engineer-computer scientist Benjamin Turnbull from the University of New South Wales join Andrew Maynard and Heather…  Read More

Many stroke survivors retain some degree of paralysis and thus have limited use of their body. According to published surveys,…  Read More

A bot (short for robot) performs highly repetitive tasks by automatically gathering or posting information based on a set of…  Read More

Aerial drones are increasingly being repurposed for domestic use and legislated for public and commercial purposes around the world. Japan,…  Read More

These remarks were delivered at the close of the 9th Workshop on the Social Implications of National Security (SINS16), Melbourne,…  Read More

Heather M. Roff and Peter W. Singer [1] strikingly identify a problem for the next American president in the form…  Read More

Te use of unmanned aircraft also known as drones is increasing in U.S. national airspace and the numbers will rise…  Read More

Historically, the evolution of research in the areas of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) has always been related, although with…  Read More

Computers tell us what to do, every day, all the time. Is this a problem? I may get irritated when…  Read More

In his new book, The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower Mind, theoretical physicist…  Read More

I have long pondered the issue of dehumanization through automation. I think the old adage: “no one is irreplaceable” now…  Read More

Autonomous weapons systems (AWS) are already here. Although some of the colloquial names for AWS may suggest science fiction (killer…  Read More

The desire to create a sentient Artificial Intelligence (Al) as complex as a human intelligence, or one that even surpasses…  Read More

The robot Bina48 is funny, and melancholy, and at times, uncannily profound. Like a human, she is complicated and contradictory,…  Read More

I have often wondered what it would be like to rid myself of a keyboard for data entry, and a…  Read More

A set of technologies, loosely referred to as “artificial agents,” is becoming more pervasive and more powerful in the current…  Read More

Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future. By Martin Ford. Basic Books, 2015, 224 pp….  Read More

By Jai Galliott. Surrey, U.K.: Ashgate, 2015, 266 pp. Reviewed by Tim McFarland Perhaps the most well-known, and controversial, development…  Read More