Robotics:
Robots that aid in the performance of day-to-day tasks have
always been a major goal of research, but until recently the costs of robots
made them prohibitively expensive to the general public. However the price of
robots keeps falling as they become easier to design and produce, and the
market has seen an increase in the amount of small robots for domestic use.
Some of these robots are still outside of the price range of the average
consumer—such as a robot that mows your lawn, for a price of $1,100 to $2,000—but
others are well worth the amount of money that the consumer would spend on it,
such as a robot which rocks a baby to sleep for $180. However, these robots
still do need a certain amount of human intervention to perform their tasks. As
Kevin Saldivar said, “The machines and
robots we have now are capable of completing the tasks that any human may
instruct it to do, but it may require constant attention and correction by the
human in control.”
As robots get smarter this issue may be resolved but for the time being in many
areas it is more efficient to have a human perform the task rather than develop
and program a robot to do it.
AI:
As robots become more intelligent and perform more and more
tasks, it comes to the point where robots will be required to make ethical
decisions on par with a human’s morality. A good example of this already in
prototype stage is a driverless car, which has to make decisions about driving
in which there is no good choice, such as preventing an accident. Scientists
are optimistic that robots will be able to have the morality required to make
these sorts of decisions.
3d Printing:
Last year the field of 3D printing has become more mainstream
as more and more items have been printed that previously would not have been
printed. For example, recently a dress was assembled using parts that were
designed in a computer and printed using a 3D printer. One of the biggest
challenges faced by the team was developing a 3D printed fabric that behaved
like fabric though its folds and flowing behavior.
Future:
These subjects are all important for uses beyond the almost
trivial uses that they are currently used for as explored in the articles. The
developments from these articles can be used on more important uses in the
future, once the issues are worked out and the cost of these technologies makes
them more accessible to the general public.
I find it interesting that you use the word moral when dealing with the decision making tactics of autonomously driving cars. I believe that implementing "moral decision-making" into an AI is something that will be beyond our lifetime however the speed in which AI can make risk minimizing decisions is something that scientist should be working on first.
ReplyDelete