Out of Work Robots Turn to Art

The wold of robotics came full circle this month as Audi plants in Europe were shuttered and the robots laid off. Like most workers getting the pink slip in the automotive industry, these bots had to reassess their life situation, and a few have decided to follow their lifelong dream of becoming a famous artist.

Next month as part of the London Design Festival an installation will be performed by a octet of dancing artistic arms of commerce. Both visitors to the square, as well as a global web audience can interact with the installation via www.outrace.org. The designers responsible for bringing this to London are Clemens Weisshaar and Reed Kram.

So if you're going to be in London from September 16-23, 2010 get out and support this endeavor. We don't want a bunch of disgruntled laid off autoworker bots rampaging through Europe.

via Fast Company's Co.Design

Some Recent News

AI Evolution is alive and in action at a virtual zoo:
http://www.newscientisttech.com/article.ns?id=mg19426096.100&feedId=robots_rss20

A congressional Caucus for Robotics has been launched giving robots and their makers more power than you and me:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20070620/pl_usnw/congressmen_doyle_and_wamp_launch_congressional_caucus_on_robotics

A San Diego company is working on a pair of robots to replace migrant farm workers:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/06/robo_picker
And there has been one well publicized advance in brain computer interface:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2007/06/22/brainmachine_tec.html?category=technology&guid=20070622100000&dcitc=w19-502-ak-0000

That's 3 for the robots, 1 for humanity.

Lying Little Robots and the Robots That Love Them

In a move that insures the future existence of Jerry SpringerBot researchers in Switzerland have put a rudimentary genetics-driven swarm intelligence system to work at hunting and gathering food. The result were groups of "families" which shared genetic information and learned to help "their own kind". One side effect, however was that they also learned how to deceive competing families into thinking the food was somewhere else.

Cue the Klu Klux Klan Bots and folding chair throwing bots. The trailer park calleth.

Thanks to MIT Technology Review

Happy Anniversary R.U.R. We're Glad You Haven't Come True...Yet

Thanks to Wired for pointing out to us that on this day in 1921 Karel Čapek's "Rossum's Universal Robots" premiered at the National Theater in Prague. This play in one fell swoop introduced both the term Robot, and the assumption that they will kill us all.

From the play:

HELENA: ...why don’t you make them happier?

HALLEMEIER: We couldn’t do that, they’re only robots after all. They’ve got no will of their own. No passions. No hopes. No soul.

HELENA: And no love and no courage?

HALLEMEIER: Well of course they don’t feel love. Robots don’t love anything, not even themselves. And courage? I’m not so sure about that; a couple of times, not very often, mind, they have shown some resistance ...

And so it begins. By the end of the play all humans save one have been killed, and the robots rediscover love.

Read the full play here at WikiSource.