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Tag Archives: Asimov
Perhaps We Shouldn’t Teach Robots After All
We all know the story: humans create robots, robots overthrow humans. It’s a trope almost as old as science fiction itself, first appearing in Karel Capek’s 1920 play R.U.R. (the first work to use the word “robot”), and then in … Continue reading
Posted in artificial intelligence, Could this Happen?, robot, technology
Tagged AGI, ai, artificial intelligence, Asimov, chatbot, deep learning, Elon Musk, Frankenstein, friendly AI, internet, machine learning, microsoft, programming, robot, Tay, terminator, twitter
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I, Snowbot
In science fiction, robots perform all kinds of tasks. Sometimes they dictate the fate of humanity, such as in Isaac Asimov’s “Reason,” in which Q-T, a robot with impressive and frustrating existential curiosity, keeps an energy beam steady during an … Continue reading
Pacific Rim’s Jaegers Reflect a Departure from Hollywood Norms
In addition to the question of whether it’s possible to create mecha robots, my Slate piece addresses a cultural “could this happen?” question–namely, could we accept robots as companions rather than competitors?
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged androids, anime, Asimov, Hollywood, jaeger, Japan, jobs, love plus, mecha, pacific rim, replacement, robots, slate
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Not Over the Moon
In 1902, Georges Melies wrote and produced the first science fiction film, Le Voyage dans la Lune (The Voyage to the Moon). This 14-minute silent film inspired by the stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells involves a group of … Continue reading
Posted in Could this Happen?
Tagged 3-d printing, Asimov, Behrokh Khoshnevis, burritobot, clarke, construction, contour crafting, crane, heinlein, Innovative Advanced Concepts, layering, lunar settlement, melies, moon colony, moon settlement, mooninite, NASA, university of southern california, usca, verne, voyage to the moon, wells
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A Head of Its Time
Battlestar Galactica, the Terminator, Star Trek: TNG, and works by Ray Bradbury, Philip K. Dick, and Isaac Asimov, among many others, feature humanoid robots that are indistinguishable from humans. Such robots are discussed in more detail here. This post explores … Continue reading