Adventure Ausrama Blog

technology Despite the advances in artificial intelligence, useful robots are a long way off. Humans can do limitless things, whereas robots can only do one thing well. They cannot have the broad perspective. So don't hope to have a "Maisy who washes the dishes and cleans the house anytime soon. Businesses want to profit from new technology. However, adapting quickly to advances in artificial intelligence is difficult. The business that shows the way will be the winner. Those who follow will have to pick up the scraps. The leading business will have moved on to something else. The time is approaching when the first damaging, even fatal, decision is made by a computer. It could be a major disaster. Artificial intelligence is not sentient: it does not feel any harm it does. Machines can now learn both good and bad. To a computer everything is equal. Give a robot a conscience - that will be a great leap forward! ◆ Technology by Ty Buchanan   ◆ Adventure Austral...

Get ready for the dole queue as technology puts more people out of work. Even traditional occupations such as law is to be taken over by computers doing routine work. Nearly half of the workforce is predicted to lose their jobs. This is frightening and will be devastating to the economy and society. It seems that efficient technology will take over menial tasks. While it is conceivable that routine work will be done by computers, it is questionable whether laboring tasks will. Even laboring takes a conscious mind to wield the shovel. We do not yet have human-sized robots smart enough to do this. Automated combine harvesters are one thing, but robotised fence repairers - I think not! Australia could make the mistake of hanging on to old ways of making money. Primary products have been the major source for earning foreign exchange for a couple of centuries. Primary products will always be needed. Australia must change, however, to accept new ways of doing things in a ...

For a century now people have been assuming that robots will arrive and become commonplace in the home.  Manufacturing has its industrial robots but helping robots in the home have not become reality.  The problem is not so much being able to construct the physical aspects of a robot, it is the intelligence, the "brain", that is the big issue. By doing 25,000 runs on a computer to build up experience, it was found that biological intelligence was structure into a network of modules.  This is a breakthrough finding for artificial intelligence.  Modules means alternatives can be chosen to meet a problem.  This is what makes humans and animals so difficult to understand. Apparently, all things evolve via modules.  Such networks have not solely appeared out of intellectual necessity.  Modules can be joined together with shorter network connections, using less to make more.  Evolution is not wasteful.  In the computer simulation, once a cost fo...

Mosquitoes are extremely robust. They can survive being hit by raindrops 50 times their size. The insect is knocked down a little by the raindrop travelling at 300 times normal gravity, but it recovers and flies on. This attribute was discovered by videoing insects actually being hit by raindrops from artificial rain. There was no improvement in stopping the spread of malaria. Better ways of designing tiny flying robots was enhanced, however, because rain tends to knock mechanical drones off course. Even aeroplanes are detrimentally affected by rain. The raindrops on mosquitoes tests were exciting to watch. As the rain hit them they dropped, then recovered and sheltered on the wall of the test area. They fell an average of 13 body lengths. Nearly all hits were glancing blows which made mosquitoes roll, pitch and yaw. A direct hit led to a fall of 20 body lengths. The theory is that mosquitoes are so small the speed of raindrops falling to earth is not affected, This means...