Lugh

joined 2 years ago
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It's hard to keep count of all the humanoid robots in development, but there seems to be about 20 different models. However, Samsung has more manufacturing heft than most, so its entry may be more significant.

It's announced a majority stake in Korean firm Rainbow Robotics, which was first spun off from a Korean academic institution. Rainbow have been around for a while, and their flagship humanoid model is the RB-Y1. It's wheeled, which marks it out from others, but that might be an advantage, as it simplifies the engineering of movement and locomotion. In terms of tasks and work with its arms it looks as capable as any other in development, and ahead of many.

Robot training in 2025 just got easier - the two leading training models are now open-sourced. This will level the playing field, but also give advantages to people like Samsung. Their expertise is in selling commercial products - maybe that is the breakthrough humanoid robotics needs now?

 

"Companies will have three months from when the guidance is finalised to carry out risk assessments and make relevant changes to safeguard users.........."Platforms are supposed to remove illegal content like promoting or facilitating suicide, self-harm, and child sexual abuse."

This is already impacting futurology.today - one of the Mods is British, and because of this law doesn't feel comfortable continuing. As they have back-end expertise with hosting, if they go, we may have to shut down the whole site.

How easy is it to block British IP addresses? Would that be enough to circumvent any legal issues, if no one else involved in running the site is British and it is hosted somewhere else in the world?

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submitted 8 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology
 

Blue Origin is just about to launch its reusable heavy-lift 'New Glenn' rocket in a few days. Are we about to see a version of Aesop's tale of 'The Hare & the Tortoise' play out, with SpaceX playing the role of the hare?

This Sabine Hossenfelder video does a good job of laying out the argument - Jeff Bezos’ Space Plans Make More Sense Than Elon Musk's.

In summary, Blue Origin's plans are built around space stations in near earth orbit, while SpaceX's plans are for Mars colonization. It's far more likely Blue Origin's plans can be realized in the 2030s and 2040s. Apart from China, no one else will have a space station by around 2030 when the ISS goes - there will be no other choice but to look to commercial providers.

Blue Origin's plans for space stations designed as O'Neill cylinders with artificial gravity are the obvious next step on from ISS-type space stations.

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submitted 8 months ago by Lugh to c/futurology
[–] Lugh 10 points 1 year ago

I'm fascinated by people's tendencies to anthropomorphize AI & robotics; it's hard to see how this is truly analogous to the human mind and depression.

[–] Lugh 4 points 1 year ago

Yes. I don't think enough people realise the significances of this fact. Unlike us, AI will never peak; it will always relentlessly get better.

[–] Lugh 5 points 1 year ago

One of the difficulties with ending the fossil fuel age is transitioning workers and economic activity. Geothermal energy like Fervo, apart from all its other benefits, might help solve that problem. There's a large cross-over in terms of skills between them and the oil and gas industry. They even sometimes use sites of former fossil fuel extraction for geothermal plants. Now they seem to have successfully demonstrated proof-of-concept it's frustrating things aren't moving faster with this energy source.

[–] Lugh 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It makes sense China dominates manufacturing standards; it's the world's biggest manufacturer. It seems an odd thing for the article writer to get worked up over.

[–] Lugh 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Robots-as-a-Service (RaaS) is very similar to human contractors getting paid by the hour.

[–] Lugh 3 points 1 year ago

As this allows for clearer image resolution of smaller planets around the nearest stars, I wonder will it do the same for their atmospheric composition? It seems that will be the key to first detecting alien life elsewhere in the universe. I've a sneaking suspicion that if any life (or its remains) are found on Mars or Europa, it will have been seeded from Earth, and not have arisen independently.

[–] Lugh 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The usual caveats apply to results from testing in mice; it might not be safe in humans, and it's generally years of clinical trials before any human treatment becomes available.

That said, I wonder why humanity doesn't put much more effort into research like this. The birth rate is rapidly diminishing in most Western countries. The 21st century will be, for the first time in human history, the century of the old. Historically that has meant burden, but it needn't be if research like this leads to the results it promises.

[–] Lugh 4 points 1 year ago

It's important to note that the only people arguing that solar energy and food production are incompatible are involved in disinformation campaigns against renewable energy. I see it being used a lot in talking points to muddy issues.

[–] Lugh 3 points 1 year ago

There are some interesting ideas in this essay, but I'm struck by how much it underestimates the effects of technology, and their implications on the economy.

[–] Lugh 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

Does it have to drop packages from 3 meters off the ground? I'd rather it landed and gently deposit them. Even so, this won't suit all users - what if you're not in, or in an apartment? Guess it works for people with fenced back gardens. Still, its the future of delivery. These things can get work arounds.

[–] Lugh 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Researchers from the University of Cambridge made a groundbreaking discovery: regulatory T cells, a type of white blood cell, form a unified large population that travels throughout the body to locate and mend damaged tissue. This challenges the conventional belief that these cells are divided into various specialized groups confined to specific areas of the body. The implications of this finding are significant for the treatment of numerous diseases, as nearly all illnesses and injuries activate the body's immune response.

It's also interesting they have tested a treatment based on this insight in mice and it has worked. That said, clinical trials can take years before human treatments become available.

[–] Lugh 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I'm fascinated to see how powerful open-source AI has become. The implications of its growth run counter to so many dystopian narratives for the future that imagine everything owned by corporations and people reduced to serfdom.

As robotics are essentially 3D AI, the implications hold true for this field too. Here we see more evidence of this in action. Stanford University is the 3rd major effort in as many months to announce an open-source humanoid robot. The other two are UBTech/Xiaomi, and the French grouping of HuggingFace/Pollen Robotics.

I think it is overwhelmingly more likely that future robots will be cheap, and widely available than the dystopian 'corporations own everything' scenario. Yet few people factor this in. Robots will be economic engines of production. What does it mean for ideas like UBI if robot ownership is decentralized and widely dispersed?

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