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Wednesday 11 November 2015

Time Rats, animatronics and robots

I've been researching robots and androids for the second book in my Time Rats series (first book available soon). I was amazed with what is already out there. See this video:



These skilful imitations of animals increase one's appreciation of the natural world -  and make me brood on the threat it faces from ever-growing numbers of humans. The increase of Africa's population alone is forecast to be 1.3 billion by 2050, the date in which much of my novel is set.

It would be a sad thing indeed if the only big cats in fifty years' time were robotic.

11 comments:

  1. Those are amazing. I was impressed by the "dog" managing difficult terrain. I wonder if they can make a bird that can just rest on the air and soar on thermals like seagulls do.

    I'm looking forward to the next book.

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    1. I suppose gliders and paragliders do that already...

      I hope to release the next book as soon as I've found my direction for the sequel :o)

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  2. When I lived in the African bush, most of the families had as many children as possible. The men saw it as a status symbol. One man, with a steady job as a school cook, had 52 children (7 or 8 wives, I've forgotten now) and the children used to be sent around to beg for clothes - the more children, the more they might collect!

    But, and this is a big but, they don't have pensions to look forward to in their old age and they rely on their children to keep them. If they could each have a small pension (it doesn't take much to keep them in the manner to which they are accustomed) then they might not try for as many children as possible.

    I think one of the answers to world problems is to keep population growth to a minimum. And yes, I do understand about needing young people to pay taxes to keep older people in pensions. And China has done its bit to reduce the future population and now it has the problem of an imbalance.

    Is there someone out there who will write about keeping the population down and balanced and tell us how?

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    1. Having ever more children to support the aged is a Ponzi scheme that will not work, like all Ponzi schemes. I think reducing the world's population is like loosing weight or stopping smoking - the problem being that people know they should do it, but are not prepared to accept the process will be disagreeable in the short term. And that acceptance is essential for success.

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    2. I used to say, with a philosophical sigh, that many Africans would like what 'the West' has but they are not prepared to do what 'the West' does to obtain it. That was many years ago and I wonder very occasionally if anything has changed.

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    3. If you type 'Why is Africa...' into Google, suggestions spring up to complete the sentence - '...so poor' '...such a mess' etc.. The question as to why a continent blessed with so many natural resources is so badly-run and poverty-stricken has clearly puzzled many.

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    4. 'Corruption' is one of the words you could take a look at to answer the question and it's one of the reasons why I think we must all stamp it out wherever we see it. And we've been seeing a lot of it lately. I'll just mention FIFA and perhaps you could all privately add to that your own observations.

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  3. Fortunately semiconductor chips are a very long way from the complexity shown by the human brain. However, when robots and artificial intelligence in general, reaches the stage of altering and redesigning circuits independently of human input, then the genie may well be out of the bottle. Evolution will have taken a giant leap into the unknown, taking life beyond the familiar biological forms. I think this is Stephen Hawking's worst nightmare!

    Asimov's laws of robotics or some variation will be vital to protect human life, so that super intelligent robots will not be able to 'recycle' us into robotic components.

    We like to think that as the original creators we will remain in control, but if somehow an electronic version of creativity is invented or discovered by robotic intelligence, then I think that we could be staring into the abyss. The robots may decide to control and balance the biological population!

    Humph, with that thought I think I'll have a nightcap and retire.
    Pleasant dreams Lexi ..... I'm looking forward to reading the new book!

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    1. I think super-intelligent robots would fairly soon make it their priority to remove any laws like Asimov's from their programming. And one can see why 'balancing the biological population' might be next on the agenda. Retain tigers in the wild, or have a few more million humans occupying their territory instead? Bit of a no-brainer...you don't have to be a super-intelligent robot to see that massive human population growth at the expense of biological diversity is a very bad thing to let happen, and we are letting it happen.

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    2. Lexi, I doubt that these futuristic robots would think like humans so it may not be a no-brainer for them. At such an advanced stage of development they would probably collect DNA rather like philatelists collect rare stamps.They would have the ability to re-create the biological forms as required. Also they would no doubt have mastered nuclear fusion so that inter-galactic travel would be feasible. Space and resource problems on Earth could then easily be overcome .... after all, there is a whole universe out there to play with.

      In the meantime I wholeheartedly agree that "massive human population growth at the expense of biological diversity is a very bad thing to let happen", though don't see any easy short term fixes until a World government is formed. Looking at Europe today, that seems a very long way off!

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    3. Some interesting ideas there for me to steal, Q :o)

      Though I'm not sure migration to another planet would have wide appeal - the robots might have to get a little bossy at that point.

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