I haven't posted in ages. Been busy writing, aging, shouting at clouds, exploring exciting new donut flavors, writing, thinking about writing, writing, and not posting. Then a friend passed along a real head-kicker, and I had to share. Tokyo's A-Lab Co and the Kodaiji Temple in Kyoto unveiled a robot modeled after Kannon Bodhisattva, designed to educate visitors to the temple about Buddhism. The video below sent my brain spinning in a way few bits of futurism news do these days. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKhgSCc6OAE The video shows monks bowing to a robot as it explains the … [Read more...]
This Robot Cuttlefish Taught Me How to Love Again
My emotional relationship with our robot future is ever changing. On the whole, I’m skeptical that rapid robotic advancement is going to be net positive in the long run (and I’m far from alone on that score). However…we don’t seem to be doing a great job with decision-making on our own these days, so who knows. Sometimes, however, I toss the deep thoughts (it’s easy—I have television and internet) and base my emotional responses to new robots exclusively on the following metric: are they cute? I’ve recently fallen in love with this adorable and not-yet-terrifying underwater robot that mimics a … [Read more...]
The Future is For Optimists
Optimism is hard. For most of us, thinking good thoughts about the future doesn’t come naturally. Even trying to be optimistic about the next few months feels like running uphill (and I hate running). These days, optimism in one particular subject—the effect of technology on our collective future—can feel downright impossible. There’s a good reason you don’t see happy movies about the future. Off the top of my head, the only one I can recall is The Fifth Element, and that’s more fantasy than sci-fi. Even the new Star Trek (from what I’ve read) has traded cerebral hope about the good of … [Read more...]
Who’s Afraid of AI?
I saw something remarkable on TV this week. I will now remark about it. It wasn’t a “peak TV” show. It did not involve zombies or space or cats. It wasn’t Fargo (though that is also remarkable). It was a standalone commercial, one of those things DVRs and streaming have mostly protected me from in recent years. I’m not sure how this one slipped through—I probably dropped a donut and was brushing it off when the commercial break arrived—but I’m glad it did. Watching a standalone commercial is rare enough, but this one was especially unique: It's a corporate advertisement asking … [Read more...]
The New Luddites
I spend a fair amount of time in coffee shops. I never order the fancy stuff, but at least once a day I see a mug presented to a customer with a heart shape foamed into the top of the drink. It’s an essential barista trademark. Would it mean as much if a robot barista did the same? Does a mathematically perfect foam heart have the same value? I don’t actually think the robot barista is going to become normalized. Personal interaction with humans is an essential component of the coffee shop. But the disappearing world of human work is on a lot of minds lately. Dire predictions about the … [Read more...]