The Robots are Coming!
Robot Blog, my trepidation
I started this blog several times, then deleted it, then created it again. Here's why. I am very unnerved by how fast humanity is bringing full functioning robots into the world. It's not just robots it's the humanoid robots that have me unnerved. Then this past week I saw 'Clone' unveil their Torso 2 on X (formerly Twitter) and I must say to what end with these creations?
Firms releasing Full Humanoid Robots
The company 'Clone' created a very real humanoid robot called Torso 2, which has a fully articulating spine, elbows, muscles, fake skin, it moves as if human. So what exactly has Clone produced? In a nutshell, the world's first bipedal, musculoskeletal android with a skin covering!
The robot also has 910 artificial muscle fibers and 164 degrees of movement, which lets it move in ways that feel eerily human—like swaying or flexing its arms with a fluidity you don’t see in most robots. Clone has plans to make a total of 279 of the Torso 2 and sell for $2,800. The one downfall is articulating parts are all pneumatic driven. Making the robot very loud with hissing sounds, etc. which I hope they never overcome. I don't want that thing having the ability to sneak around undetected.
Snippets below are from Clone's X page - all rights remain. Very humanlike movements are hard to see in snippets.
Clone is not the only realistic robotic maker - Figure.ai makes a realistic robot too.
'FigureAI' has already raised $1.5B earlier in Feb. of this year which is a 15x valuation, their robot is under the 'Helix name', it has a hard exoskeleton vs Clone's skin. They claim theirs was the first general humanoid that was brought to life. Not only that these are learning robots. Sure, I am all for having robots tackle dangerous jobs such as mining and labor intensive such as manufacturing or farming/crop harvesting. But, the entire 'self learning' thing has 'potential' to snowball and become and issue. Hear me out on this piece, because I saw a story where another vendor was teaching a robot to play chess and when it started to lose it started to cheat. Re-read that again. The robot started to cheat to prevent loss! Hello, any alarm bells ringing? Yeah I get the entire robotics do no harm edict, but what if the robot felt threatened (again learning) would it violate that edict? You tracking me on this?
As I was finishing writing this I see the following headline: AI ROBOT ATTACKS CROWD AT CHINESE FESTIVAL
A humanoid robot suddenly stopped, advanced toward attendees, and attempted to strike people before security intervened. Officials suspect a software glitch caused the erratic behavior, dismissing any intentional harm. Yeah, sure that's the cause. WHAT the Actual F are we allowing?
Summary
As I stated before pretty fascinating leap in robotics, blending creepy realism with some genuinely impressive engineering. I am concerned, it's only just begun!!!! Who else is with me on having reservations about these humanoid developments?
