Right now, we are at the verge of major innovations in mobile tech, robotic tech, nanotech and countless other breakthroughs. It is an exciting time, but potentially a scary time as well.

As robots and AI continue to advance, there will be some very real concerns regarding both privacy and ethics. Speaking at Google’s Big Tent conference in London this week, several knowledgeable experts in robotics came together to discuss the future of robots, particularly focusing on the moral side of things.

The group was made up of Jon Snow (moderator), Bertolt Meyer from the University of Zurich, Observer columnist Carole Cadwalladr and Noel Sharkey, part of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots and robotics and AI expert at University of Sheffield.

Some of the big questions asked were how will robotic tech further change society, and who will determine what we should and shouldn’t do.

According to Meyer:

“I visited a lab in southern California where they are creating a chip that will go in people’s brains to restore memory function in Alzheimer’s patients. Now when they put this chip in healthy rats, they got a super rat with excellent memory. I asked one of the scientists working on this for 30 years, should we be doing this with humans? He says, ‘I don’t know’. The ethical implications hadn’t occurred to him.”

While each side obviously had different opinions about the future of these advanced technologies, ultimately they all agreed that scientists are probably not the ones who should decide on the ethics of engineering autonomous robots. But then who should? A good question.

Meyer continues:

“Business people aren’t the best to answer these questions either — as soon as there’s money to be made, lots of questions you or I ask will be put aside. Now they are niche products, but if they become available to the mass market through augmenting human capabilities, it could become profitable”.

According to Sharkey, “science should be allowed to progress, but we shouldn’t be caught off-guard the way we were with the internet”.

Sharkey commented:

“It’s always humans making the decision to kill people, and it’s crucial for laws of warfare that we can separate competence and civilians. No one will be held accountable otherwise”.

Ultimately, it is about handling regulation on the governmental level. As well as just having everyday people understanding the ethics of what they should or shouldn’t do with the tech.

Robotic Tech Opens the Door to Both Good and Bad

But of course there are good and bad things about these tech advances. Meyer was talking about how he feels about his artificial hand, without wearing which he feels “super incapacitated”. With advancements in robotic limbs, devices that can help people see/hear and other enhancement tech – we have the potential to truly impact lives in a positive way.

Unfortunately, there are also negative implications here. “When it comes to enhancement, we have to worry about it ethically. Will we get a society where people are forced to [replace healthy limbs] otherwise they won’t get a job?” says Sharkely.
Then there is the idea that not everyone will be able to afford such tech, further dividing classes.

As Cadwalladr puts it:

“The tools by themselves are wonderful, but the way we use technology is not symmetrical. Those who have more money will become super mortals. When I saw Sergei Brin with his Google Glasses at a Ted conference, he went on this game with Emotiv technology that shows your mental focus. Sergei leapt to the top of the leader board. I did pretty average. Sergei is highly intelligent already, but if I put the glasses on and they won’t increase my abilities”.

Snow also seems to believe that inequality arises with the advancement of technology. Cadwalladr and Sharkey also talked about the good and bad sides of using robots as assistants in hospitals and care homes.

“They’re talking about using them as nursing assistants or elder care — but doesn’t that take away from our humanity? Isn’t it better for people to talk to people,” said Cadwalladr. Sharkey is worried about “human dignity; accountability”. There are certainly many questions about what robotics will mean for the future. There are tons of positives on the horizon, but there are real concerns as well. So how do we proceed? We need to start seriously talking and regulating now.

The future is coming, now we just need to be ready for it. What do you think about the future of robotics and AI? Who should be regulating these technologies and making the bigger ethical decisions relating to them?

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Ever wondered how exactly bats fly? You aren’t alone. Researchers at brown University were quite interested in the topic, but knew that these flying mammals aren’t exactly easy to work with. Instead, they decided to study the animal and then create a biologically accurate robotic bat wings for further examination.

The working model perfectly mimics how bat wings work in every way. This information has helped the Brown researchers learn a lot about how a bat’s muscles and ligaments work together to allow flight and keep the animal intact while flapping its wings.

So what does designing accurate robotic bat wings do for mankind exactly? Actually, learning more about the secrets to bat flight could prove beneficial to crafting more energy efficient lightweight aircraft and could give us ideas for improving aerodynamics on flying devices in general.

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The problem with most robots, if you can call it a problem, is that their movement is decidedly mechanical. We have humanoid robots like Honda’s Asimo, but they still don\’t quite move like a human being. That could change with a new robot called Roboy, being designed by a team of scientists and engineers from the University of Zurich.

He’s meant to look like a little boy, standing at about four-feet tall, complete with a humanoid face and regular human-like arms and legs. One of the key differences that will separate Roboy from other humanoid robots is that it will have artificial tendons to go with a set of mechanical actuators. The net result, they hope, is movement that more closely mimics that of a human.

The end objective is to deploy an army of Roboy robots that can be used as assistants for humans, carrying out daily tasks and perhaps helping those with certain physical disabilities or challenges. You can see how a Roboy would be very useful for an otherwise independent senior, for example.

The version of Roboy shown here lets you see all of his insides, but the final product will more likely have a soft touchable skin, again getting closer to mimicking a real human being. The designers and scientists are still in the process of raising money for Roboy’s development, including selling ad space on the robot boy’s body.

I just hope that Roboy doesn’t suddenly become self-aware, banding together with other Roboys to take over the world.

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Researchers at Harvard are working hard to advance one step closer towards finishing a development project involving a micro air vehicle named the Robobee. The robot, that is smaller than a coin, was already able to lift off using its own power source, but now it has added functionalities to help control its flight.

The researchers have added two control mechanisms beneath its wings, allowing programmers to make the Robobee pitch and roll.

Still, with the improved mechanics, the Robobee is incapable of proper flight, and is currently crashing with each attempt. The developers of the project are now working on a third controller, a yaw actuator that along with the pitch and roll controls will allow the robot to hover, and successfully fly.

It seems Harvard aren’t the only ones looking further into micro-robotic flight, as information from the combined Green Brain project emerges from Universities of Sussex and Sheffield in the United Kingdom. The Green Brain project was founded to build a working replica of a bee’s brain by mimicking the complicated neural sensors and connections that are processed by bees whilst working.

“Because the honey bee brain is smaller and more accessible than any vertebrate brain, we hope to eventually be able to produce an accurate and complete model that we can test within a flying robot,” states Dr James Marshall, part of the Green Brain project, and a computer scientist at the University of Sheffield.

However, even with the two projects underway, it’d be unlikely we would see the projects working together for a long time, as there is still a lot of work to be done from both sides.

If both projects were to be successful, the robots could be applied in many circumstances in the future such as building robotic honey farms by programming the Robobees to perform pollination.

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Animal robots have become quite commonplace. In fact, a robot that isn’t designed after a human being or another animal would probably be more out of place. Today we are taking a look at a robot that uses four air-powered limbs that take inspiration from the body and design of an octopus.

Even though an octopus has no bones, still manages to walk around in a way that isn’t too different from other animals. Researchers at the Italian Institute of Technology and Kings College London decided to see how a similar system would work for a robot.

By adjusting the amount of pressure in the tubes, the robot can withstand quite a bit of weight. To put the idea to the test, they even dropped a staple gun onto the robot– it wasn’t a problem. Other strange tests include landing on its four feet just like a cat. It can also wiggle across the room using its air-filled ‘legs’.

Cool idea, but is there a practical side to the robot? Yes and no. Part of the fun of robotics is simply seeing what they can do while stretching the imagination and the bounds of what is possible. Even so, the researchers suggest uses like exploring other planets, swimming in the ocean and even detecting mines.

Check this robot out for yourself in the video below.

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Also a member of Instructables, “Frenzy” calls his project “Primitive Transhumanism #2: Sixth Finger.” In effect, you get a robotic glove where there is an extra finger to the left hand. The “purpose is left ambiguous on purpose,” says Frenzy, “to engage the viewer on what these sorts of transformations can mean for the body. I encourage viewers of the piece to imagine a world where a primitive transhumanism could be advantageous.”

Yes, the project is a little on the ugly side at the moment with wires and circuitry everywhere, but you can see how this could be potentially cleaned up for some sort of commercial application. It uses an EMG Sensor from Advancer Technologies, which really lets you control that robotic sixth finger as if it were your own. As this kind of innovation continues, it may not be long before we can add even more complex appendages. Doctor Octopus, anyone?

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At this point in time, robots aren’t very good at tasks that require intuition, common sense or human judgement, but they are fantastic at performing repetitive tasks on a consistent basis. We’ve already seen robots take over many of the functions at many factories, and now there’s a robot chef that is taking over the noodle-making process for a number of Chinese restaurants.

The robot is called Chef Cui and it has been in production since March. The robot doesn’t produce the dough for the noodles, but it does do a fantastic job at “shaving” the noodles off the block of dough. They say that it operates in much the same way as a set of windshield wipers. Bearing a vague resemblance to Ultraman, Chef Cui is far cheaper than its human counterparts.

In China, hiring a (human) chef to slice noodles costs the typical restaurant owner “more than 30,000 RMB (US $4,700)” a year. By contrast, Chef Cui only costs between 10,000 RMB (US $1,500) and 13,000 RMB (US $2,000) and that is presumably a one-time cost. I imagine the robot uses very little in terms of electricity and given its relatively simple task, there’s probably not much maintenance involved either. And the kicker? “The noodles made by this robot are as good as the man-made ones.” Indeed, the restaurant owner says that Chef Cui “is a great machine, and it is better than man.”

We tend to associate robot helpers with Japan, but it looks like China has a few robotic assistants in the works too. Today, it’s noodles. Who knows what tomorrow can bring?

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Conspiracy theorists are already preparing for the impending Robot Apocalypse and, let’s face it, Baby Affetto doesn’t do anything to ease any tension or worry that some of us have about our robot-filled future. If anything could make us more comfortable with the idea of androids and robots running a muck it would be a cute little baby robot, right? The problem is that Affeto is the exact opposite of quite and is more easily described as creepy or even outright terrifying.

In the video the baby is often without skin (which incidentally makes my own skin crawl a bit) and even when he gets his face back, he is still a very odd looking robot with no legs and a face that truly looks like it was pulled right out of some random horror film.

While Afetto might not be the cutest robot around, it’s still honestly pretty cool. The robot features 20 pneumatic actuators that allows it to move its body freely, including his arms, neck and even spine. The age of fully-functioning androids that don’t need any direct command or direction is still a ways off, but continued evolution in robotics makes it clear that the age of android-like robots is just around the corner. Whether that is a good thing or something that induces you with fear, that’s up to debate depending on who you ask.

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The brain is without a doubt the most complex organ in the human body, and that is why creating a synthetic natural brain is a very difficult task. But it appears like scientists are getting closer and closer to completing the task of making a machine that behaves like a natural brain. Scientists involved in the BrainScaleS project, a collaboration between 15 research institutions, are trying to create hardware which emulates parts of a natural brain.

According to senior researcher Dr. Johannes Schemmel, “Our goal is to create a working system that will be located in Heidelberg, but accessible online to scientists all over the world”.

Their aim is to construct “neuromorphic hardware” or electronic systems that will rely on transistors and microchips to recreate the behavior of synapses. Their first prototype is an 8 inch large wafer consisting of 51 million artificial synapses. Although that sounds big, it represents just a tiny fraction of a working brain.

The completed hardware is expected to be capable of re-creating neurological processes 10,000 times faster than those in a natural biological system. Schemmel says, “That means that if we want to study a behaviour [in the nervous system] that would take a few minutes in the real biology, it will only take us split seconds”.

But the only problem is that hardware is not as flexible as biology. As Schemmel said, “Come new fundamental findings from biologists, we might just have to change our hardware from scratch”. That’s where software is useful as it can be easily re-programmed. But Schemmel says, “Modeling is essential for neuroscience. If we don’t have models to reconstruct the performance of neurones and synapses, we will never understand how the brain works. We can’t just stuff all this into equations, the behaviour of each individual cell is far too complex for that”.

If the project is a success, we could see great developments in the field of robotics, medicine and neurology. And just in case you are wondering, there is less chance for synthetic brain equipped robots to take over the world.

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Right now, the rolling part isn’t quite as precise or uniform as it could be, because the top six sections aren’t identical to the bottom six. Inventor Kare Halvorsen hopes to address that with the next iteration of MorpHex, but in the meantime, this looks pretty sweet, even if it can’t jump 30 feet in the air.

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