Lugh

Unitree has a much cheaper ($2,300) consumer version of this quadruped robot - the Unitree Go2. At first examination, the disparity in prices might seem quite shocking. But consider, once social security and health costs are factored in, the industrial robot comes in at only 18 months' pay for an average worker. It's "free" work for robot employers after that. Looking at it that way, it starts to seem much more reasonably priced.

Every interaction of these quadruped robots makes them more capable. With the right human supervision, a team of these robots could do the work of several people. It's interesting to wonder what the B3, and B4 versions will be capable of.

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Yet again, renewables prove the naysayers wrong. This time last year people worried Germany couldn't cope without Russian gas. Vladimir Putin lost that bet. Instead, efficiency measures and renewables mean Germany will never need Russian gas again.

Some people lament German decisions on nuclear power. Even France, Europe's nuclear leader, can't build new nuclear on time, or on budget. Their flagship new nuclear project, Hinkley Point C in England, is years late and has doubled in cost. Meanwhile, Germany is just over ten years away from being 100% renewables powered, and never needing nuclear again either. I still see plenty of people arguing that 100% renewable powered grids are impossible - yet here it is happening, right in front of our eyes.

Vactrains (or vacuum tube trains) are a surprisingly old idea. The first one, the Dalkey Atmospheric Railway, was built in Dublin in 1843. Perhaps Hyperloop was doomed from the start. It was aiming for near 100% vacuums. These are exceptionally hard to maintain. Partial vacuums, where 98-99% of the air is removed, are much more feasible.

That's the approach the Chinese are taking. They are also pairing this with maglev technology, something they are world leaders in. Furthermore, they have the economic incentives to succeed. The Chinese government pours hundreds of billions into large-scale infrastructure projects, so the technology could get the huge economic support it needs. My guess is that this technology will work, but it will happen first in China.

OP is a sci-fi writer himself, so he's in a good position to comment. The TLDR of this piece is that most sci-fi is produced by commercial writers trying to earn a living by producing relatively formulaic work that follows genre conventions. The problem is some of today's tech-billionaires are acting as if these books are bibles of future prediction.

Oddly, people seem less influenced by the positive, utopian sci-fi visions. 'Star Trek' depicted a humanity that moved beyond money, and where society was devoted to exploration and the advancement of knowledge. You rarely see billionaires go on about making the world like it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as there were no billionaires (or any need for them) in 'Star Trek'.

The people behind this, Miso Robotics, have been in the business for a while, and other people have used earlier models of their Flippy robot. From the video, it looks like humans are only involved now at putting the cooked food together on a tray, and handing it to customers.

Robot trade fairs around the world have other examples of tech like this. How soon will its deployment be widespread? The current AI boom is also rapidly developing robotics. In particular, lots of people are using AI to make relatively simple, inexpensive robotic components do complex things.

I wonder will a robot model soon do what the first iPhone did for smartphones in 2007? That is, make a product breakthrough that suddenly makes a technology go mainstream. If/When that happens will it be something like one of the simple, but powerful robots suddenly advancing rapidly in usefulness and capabilities thanks to AI?

Bridgewater is not just the US's biggest hedge fund, it's the world's. As such, its research is indicative of mainstream economic thinking. That makes reading through their thoughts on AI & robots replacing human workers scary. Our governments and societies are guided by economist's planning. If this level of cluelessness is mainstream economic thinking, we're in big trouble.

The TLDR is that replacing all human workers will be great for investors and profits, and lead to economic boom times, as things getting cheaper will increase demand. No Nobel Prize in Economics for spotting the flaw with this line of thought. If no one has jobs, how do they buy stuff?

Jeremy Rifkin's book 'Zero Marginal Cost Society' is a far more economically literate take on the effects of AI & robotics reducing the cost of production to near zero.

I'm surprised we aren't seeing more Level 4 services now the tech has got to that level. In particular why aren't more people talking about Level 4 bus services? It's such an obvious fit for public transport.

Civox, the company behind this service, is ensuring the AI discloses that it is AI to callers. They've also said they won't take VC money to ensure their board's ethics values aren't diluted. It won't be long before less high-minded people are doing what they are doing.

The EU's Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) will ban people from using tech like this to lie or deceive people, but few people anywhere else in the world have such protections yet. Disinformation has become the norm on social media already, it is almost inevitable people will use this technology for it. I suspect the kind of people who are already most vulnerable to disinformation, will be the easiest to be fooled by thinking AI's calling them are real humans, if the AI says it's human.

Yes, but there are several groups around the world looking at solutions. It's a solvable problem.

These robots might look simple; they're just arms on wheels, but this technique is powerful. Robots don't need to be super-complex humanoids to be useful. Arms on wheels could get a lot done if you could train them to work as easily as demonstrated here. People often wonder when robots will be developed enough to serve as "maids" in domestic settings - this is starting to look a lot like that.

They have a simple way of making these so small and yet self-powered. The researchers used a robotically controlled rotating magnetic field to control the millirobots wirelessly. With an X-ray machine, they were able to localize the millirobot while steering through the aorta. They were also 3D printed, another step in simplification.

However, as with every proof of concept demonstration, widespread adoption is some way off - the question is when.

The COP Summits are more than a talking shop. What gets agreed there goes to shape laws and policies around the world. The fossil fuel industry can see its own demise ahead; all it's doing now is negotiating the terms of its surrender. As recently as COP26 in Glasgow fossil fuels weren't even mentioned by name in the final summit agreement. So, it has scored a minor victory here. The language about its demise has softened, but it won't change the final outcome.

Politics matter, but maybe technological development matters more. What's really coming for fossil fuels is the spread of renewable energy tied to batteries. EV's are already 25% of new car sales in China, the world's largest car market - by 2030 how many new petrol cars will be sold there, or anywhere else?