High-Speed Robot Hand Demonstrates Dexterity and Skillful Manipulation

I completely agree with your statement, Buyck. With technology rapidly propelling at lightning speeds, it's not surprising that robotics are becoming more advanced. It won't be long before robots such as this robotic hand develop some sort of pseudo intellectual (no emotions, of course) and providing answers to questions we've been asking for years. I mean, just good at Watson:

http://www.uncoached.com/2011/02/rapid prototyping machines/16/watch-that-watson-robot-kill-ken-jennings-on-jeopardy/

Amazing, Robots in Japan are making noodles and getting in the house a little more than they should. It's a good idea to take the world to a next level.

Make the robots do your work.

Sure. Make robots make robots? What could possibly go wrong?

holy cow!

that takes alot of work man!!

awesome robot!

Check out the Venus project as they want things like this and have a solution.

Barb

Agreed.  The existence of robots that can outperform humans should scare everyone.....

Take a full five minutes (one nanosecond in robo time) then think it through everyone,  and see what you come up with.

Droptop

WHy be scared of a mind less programmable robot hand, that is completely harmless, and really non-intelligent, except with the task for which it was programmed for?

 I find it humor people are WAY to into the terminator movies and Matrix, to actually think we are any where near artificial intelligence. We are NOT.

 What is impressive, with the dexterity hand and with a lot of cool running and stair climbing robots we are seeing in japan..is that these robots look and move to human like, we interprite that as it being 'intelligent'.

When in reality, the robots are dumb as a nail, and only do what task they are to do. yes, I guess you could program a robot to run up and stab a human being... this does have some things people need to think about.

but, murder is nothing new in the human world. However, machines becoming intelligent enough to become concience and program itself to murder with complex emotional and other intentions...is so far away that it is not even funny.

 But, the robotic movements that minic human movements IS very exciting for what GOOD things can come of it... if nothing else its just plain COOL.

The Atom Bomb, is far more a threat than a robotic hand. 

It's not necessarily the hand that can perform super human dexterity, as it is the pace of progress.  It's not hard to extrapolate where this technology will go in the near future and the potential impact it could have.  It certainly doesn't make me think, oh yeah robots are getting faster and more capable, therefore I'm less worried where the technology will go. 

Imagine if such dexterity could be hooked up to even a relatively dumb bot who'se only impreitive was shoot anything that moves.  Given the speed and accuracy of this hand, such a device would be deadly.  The only way to neutralize it would be with indirect fire.  Add some more intelligence to it to take cover and constantly change position and it becomes nearly unstopable without large area of affect weaponry, or until it runs out of energy/ ammunition. 

Tread carefully.

Matt,

You may want to keep up with the news and current events.

 Last updated at 1:24 AM on 22nd August 2009
Artificial life will be created 'within months' as genome experts claim vital breakthrough

I think the scary part is how the robot hand went from ponderously and kind of clumsily hardly being able to do anything useful a generation ago - skipped straight over being equally as good as a human hand - to being faster, more accurate and more dextrous than a human hand in this video.  Either it can't bounce a ball at all or it can bounce a ball a thousand times a second and you can't even follow it with your puny human eyes.

It's not AI - but you can suddenly see what they are on about with the idea of a singularity - in the same week that AI is able to operate as intelligently as a human mind - they will be 100 times smarter than us.

Not really...

The scaling of robotic movements and the scaling of speculative AI isn't the same, at all.

If you paid attention to the video, all of the skills the hand can do took programming, adjustments, and probably weeks. For the sake of a video, they aren't going to illustrate everything they did to make it go from clumsy to agile. 

AI is also very very different. Really think about the computers that do heavy amounts of programmed thinking, like the computers used by NASA to crunch numbers. Compare that to your computer.

Realistically, AI would always be dependent on power, capabilities, and the system structure it's built with, otherwise the insect-bots developed worldwide as a hobbyist's jump into "AI" would've taken over by now instead of just simply providing amusement and a study of basic AI.

Yeah, science fiction writers got some stuff right, but life is not literature. 

Wow...  great achievements !

Will we finally have a new friend to colonize new worlds with ?

LOL! I like your comment, be colonized by robots! great dream! and after all why not!

>>> "They *really* need to teach it Bishop's knife trick!"

YES YES YES!!! 

It may be the case that AI has not advanced enough for us to be concerned about robots taking over the world, but these advances are a problem for many. How many trades and services which rely on human dexterity will in the not so distant future become robotic tasks.

Skill which we admire today will be seen as unimportant in a world where robots which can perform the same tasks are in every machine shop and warehouse.

Even in the field of entertainment, I suspect that many people would fail to see the worth of a juggler juggling with ten balls when a robot juggler could juggle with a hundred.Why else did you watch the video of the hand performing its tricks?

When the owners of the wealth (and they will also be the owners of the robots) can produce what they want without your intervention, you will become redundant.

Don't tell me that I am scaremongering; the process started with industrialisation and continues apace. That is why, in a world where there was once no unemployment, tens of millions are unemployed today, and many hundreds of millions more lead tedious, demeaning, unfulfilling lives as their skills become worthless. Don't think you are immune just because you make robotic hands; tomorrow there will be a robot to take your place.

Don't get me wrong, I am as fascinated  by the technological advance as anyone else, but in an economic system where wealth is concentrated in the hands of the few and technology enables those who are rich to dispense with the services of the poor, the poor (and that probably includes you) are not set to benefit.

One point: calling me a Luddite won't invalidate the argument, and please don't roll out that tired old suggestion that we all educate ourselves out of poverty; the world just doesn't need another billion programmers/architects/doctors/whatever.

Surfdom awaits...

1) There has never been no unemployment.

2a) Surfdom might be kinda fun.

2b) Serfdom was the reality BEFORE industrialization.

James

Wealth is created, not distributed, and you don't need a JOB to generate income. You sound reasonably intelligent. Go create a job, don't just passively consume one. When you speak of the times before unemployment; do you realize everyone was living at a subsistance level?

You live a better life than a 18th century king. You have toilet paper and running water.

Yes the future will have many examples of creative destruction, and many of the jobs available then, are not even dreamed of now.  You will  get paid for the value you bring to the market place, that will never change.

James,

There are many things to worry about besides the technophobia (same as that in the 1800s)  you display. Do you think we should outlaw tech because someone losses his job. Buggywip makers unite. Your misconception is that we all lose by the new tech. But the number of people out of work today is far more than the total population of the million year ago full employment. Not to mention the 25 year life span of 16 hr days just keping alive.

The only way we can keep the number of people alive today is through technology. Without it 80 % would likely die of deases or starvation or exposure.

"How many trades and services which rely on human dexterity will in the not so distant future become robotic tasks."

 Answer: All the boring ones. Creative work stays, manual labour goes.

Encomys rebalance slowly as technology increases.

It might increase unemployment in the shortterm, but it also makes products cheaper. In the longrun, it balances. People work less, and can do more with that they earn.  

We can feed thousands more people for vastely less effort then a few hundred years ago. More and more work goes  from being essential (food,water,shelter) to being entertainment or research based. 

This is a -good- trend and should be encouraged.

 "That is why, in a world where there was once no unemployment, tens of millions are unemployed today, and many hundreds of millions more lead tedious, demeaning, unfulfilling lives as their skills become worthless. "

 A world with no unemployment? You mean back when most of humanity spent most of their time farming? Because THAT was tedious and unforfilling.

We have vastly more freetime in todays world.

We can work for a few hours  and feed ourselfs for a week on those wages.

If you stop to think about that, its incredible.*

 *(and yes, I acknowledge this is partly due to some foods being far too cheap and exploiting of the countrys it comes from) 

"; the world just doesn't need another billion programmers/architects/doctors/whatever."

Moreso then farmers, blacksmiths and builders it does, yes.  You have a very romantic view of ye-old-days.

(of course, the world also dosnt need a bigger population period. But thats a different mater...) 

--- 

Removing jobs from *needing to be done* massively helps the human race as it reduces the total workload for all of humanity. 

No, the pains of this world come from daft encomic systems and systemic inefficiencys not from reduceing labour needed to achieve stuff.

 Answer: All the boring ones. Creative work stays, manual labour goes.

If the trades and services are being provided by robots (who require neither education nor entertainment), what will the creative people be doing?  Writing ad copy is about the only thing I can come up with.   

Encomys rebalance slowly as technology increases.

We've already reached the point where traditional economies do not react fast enough.  As the pace of technology advancement increases, this will become more and more apparent.  The most common example of this is the havoc being wrought on the music industry by digital media, which typifies the struggle of entrenched interest vs. new technology.  The patent wars currently being fought over gestural commands for computer interfaces is also interesting, but harder to research.  At the far end, should it be legal for genetic sequences to be patented?   

It might increase unemployment in the shortterm, but it also makes products cheaper. In the longrun, it balances. People work less, and can do more with that they earn.  

Demonstrably false.  Current North American purchasing power is lower than the previous generation, as is standard of living.  (This is the first time that's happened, so it might be a statistical anomaly, but economists  suspect it comes from the fact that manufacturing jobs make up a smaller percentage of total employment).   

We can feed thousands more people for vastely less effort then a few hundred years ago. More and more work goes  from being essential (food,water,shelter) to being entertainment or research based. 

It's not vastly less effort, it's just different.  If you're talking about North American factory farming, please bear in mind that each food item is the product of farming, but is dependent on massive mechanisation and chemical application, all of which in turn depends on global transportation.  The last reliable calculation I read stated that the human race invests about 10 calories of energy per 1 calorie of food energy. Unsustainable without hydrocarbons or another energy source of comparable efficiency.  Midieval farming was actually more efficient, but less productive.

This is a -good- trend and should be encouraged.

 "That is why, in a world where there was once no unemployment, tens of millions are unemployed today, and many hundreds of millions more lead tedious, demeaning, unfulfilling lives as their skills become worthless. "

 A world with no unemployment? You mean back when most of humanity spent most of their time farming? Because THAT was tedious and unforfilling.

Now that's just rude.  There isn't even an argument here.

We have vastly more freetime in todays world.

Again, demonstrably false.  Field studies reliably show that hunter-gatherers have the most leisure time.     

We can work for a few hours  and feed ourselfs for a week on those wages.

Define your terms.  I'm pretty middle of the road in terms of income and grocery choices, and no, I can't.  Rough estimate, about 20% of my working time is spent paying to feed myself, or to support food preserving infrastructure, or space to keep either of those things.  

If you stop to think about that, its incredible.*

 *(and yes, I acknowledge this is partly due to some foods being far too cheap and exploiting of the countrys it comes from)

See above re: transportation.  My personal opinion is that the only way this statement is wrong is that you should sub in 'everything' for 'some foods'.  Nothing in the industrialised world has a price that reflects its cost. 

"; the world just doesn't need another billion programmers/architects/doctors/whatever."

Moreso then farmers, blacksmiths and builders it does, yes.  You have a very romantic view of ye-old-days.

Again, now you're just being rude.  

(of course, the world also dosnt need a bigger population period. But thats a different mater...) 

--- 

Eek.  Not touching that.  OK, yes I am.  Population is part of the problem, but the effect of the population is magnified greatly by cultural homogeneity.  One pair of blue jeans is easy to produce, transport, and dispose of.  Four pairs of jeans each for each citizen of a large country, and you've got the cotton industry wrecking farmland all over America.     

Removing jobs from *needing to be done* massively helps the human race as it reduces the total workload for all of humanity. 

Demonstrably true, but we do need meaningful things to replace all of that labour with.

No, the pains of this world come from daft encomic systems and systemic inefficiencys not from reduceing labour needed to achieve stuff.

Close.   No, wait, sorry I misread that.  You're right, but I suspect that we have very, very different reasons for calling current economic systems daft.  You want to go first?

Do you actually think that this is a good step for our society? Do you realize that the average grocery store has only two days Stock of staple foods? The more we become dependant on technology the closer we are to being helpless.

It costs hundreds of dollars a week to feed a family, if you are depending on mass produced food. If you are earning minimum wage(if you have work), you will have to work endlessly just to feed your family.

In case you haven't noticed, technology only benefits the wealthy. It would be wise for everyone to have a local source for food and all other services. Relying on so much infrastructure just to get basic necessities is ludicrous.

This is just wrong in so many ways! I don't think Mother Nature will like this too much and you know what happens when you fool with Mother Nature?

The ONLY use for equipment like this would be use the bots instead of humans in an event where there is injury or death potential, otherwise use of bots like this will be the extinction of the human race!

I would be impressed if he was dribbling more than 1 ball.  Why can't the program the hand to dribble N number of balls?

Oh no the scary robotic hand will get us all !!!!!1!!112

Attention please: this particular robot hand will not kill, steal or adulter. In fact it would love to just keep flipping that phone over and over again (that was pretty sweet). If you want to fear technology that's totally your perogative, however you should fear AI, or weapons technology, or technology-enabled biowarfare. The xbox 360's new project natal with it's ability to sense your emotion is a lot scarier than a rather dextrous robotic hand.

Also, the book/movie "I, Robot" is not real, and isn't actually a historical perspective of the future apocolypse

In closing, dude chill.

@myrridin

This is frankly awesome. There is no way I could catch that phone so well! I do wonder how many takes it took to get that shot though, and how many phones were dropped, but even so... that so damned impressive.

How long until I can build my own version of Data? 

Actually, long before true AI is achieved, robotic devices such as these will probably find their way onto humans. Brain-machine interfacing is becoming more refined by the day. The APL at Hopkins has already put together a prototype arm prosthetic that can be manipulated by a patient's very own brain signals.

In short, we'll see machine-augmented humans well before we have to worry about robots with strong AI taking over the world. And at that point its hard to say which one will have the upper hand.

This would be even more impressive if they could motivate the hand (and feet/legs) by thought or limited muscle control. Then it could be used to replace lost limbs.

Only time . . . 

I'll tell you who will have the upper hand, the humans in charge. Of course, if they put the robots in charge then go off to the beach, it might just go horribly wrong.

This device is brilliant, but terrible. It is amazingly impressive, but it will put a million humans out of work when combined with the vision controller it is using. Picking and packing will be done by a robot that works 24/7 and tirelessly, and, apparently, at least 10x faster than any human. Hence it will replace 10 people on 3 shifts. Exactly the same as happened to the navvies who dug the canals when the steam shovel and then to the coal shovellers when the mechanical digger came along.

A factory (owner) will buy these robots in at a million £ a peice, because they are worth it in saved wages alone, even before you consider health care, sick pay, NI contributions, & red tape.

Welcome to the new recession. 

Someone said we can all be doctors (or whatever) but robotic surgeons are already replacing humans in areas like delicate brain surgery. There is already enough art in the world that I could change my desktop background once a second and never run out before I die at 115 years old. There is enough TV, porn, film, radio, etc. that the same can be said.

The foothills are already rather damp, and I think a dam just broke...

The following link has it all - A.I. Nanotech - the future of the world etc  

http://www.heaven-or-hell-its-your-choice.com/

Endorsed by some major players in the field of A.I. as well.

This is a clearer picture of the type of robot we need to regulate human growth... you know.. skim a little off the top... maybe only a couple billion humans... bada bing! Environmental destruction problem solved. I'd like to formally suggest we start with the criminals and terrorists, then move on to smaller game such as politicians, drug addicts, bad drivers, and Wall Street bankers. 

If that is too taboo a thought, then I will have you know that money is not an issue when it comes to how much I'd pay for a "Rosie" type housekeeping robot.

Fear not the robot, but fear me instead.  For I am human.  I am intelligent.  I am clever.  I will exploit your wealth and marginalize your existance.  I will destroy your finances and ruin your life, if only because it is in my best interest to do so.  There are some fortunate ones who will be releived early in the wars I will rage.  But for you, no, you shall feed me and my family for many years to come.  That is more useful.

Thank you for your ignorance.  It is terribly profitable.

The question is, who gets the benefits of all this consolidated innovation? A few at the top of a social pyramid, or every human (who all have some claim on the commons)? And will elites ironically use these post-scarcity robots and related technologies to create artificial scarcities they use to rule?

Solar panels, robot hands, Asimo, 3d printing, genetic engineering -- our social policies designed around scarcity and an income-through-jobs link to motivate production are getting more out of date every day as we move towards a potentially post-scarcity world. This is happening even *faster* than Marshall Brain predicted recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manna_%28novel%29

Though slower than predicted in the 1960s:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_Revolution

Our scarcity-based social policies and mainstream economic planning (like estimates about social security and healthcare costs, as well as who will have jobs to pay for that) are totally out of touch with such emerging realities.

Like Marshall Brain suggests, a "basic income" is one way forward -- essentially, a monthly social security payment for everyone regardless of age or income. This almost passsed the US Congress around 1970 under President Nixon, and was popular as it could replace other things like minimum wage laws or needs-based anti-poverty programs. For as long as we still had a market economy, this basic income could be funded by high progressive marginal taxes like up to 94% on income after WWII, a wealth tax on real estate, bank accounts stocks, bonds and even patents and copyrights; by the government renting out resources is controls like land or broadcast spectrum like Alaska does with oil royalties; by printing inflation-free money in accordance with a growing economy rather than let banks create money by fractional reserve debt; or by other means including government owned stock dividends. Even millionaires might benefit from such a plan:
http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/2009-August/003949.html

Another approach is transitioning to a gift economy like Debian GNU/Linux. Another way is more local subsistence production with 3d printing and solar panels. We may see a mix of these possibilities. Hopefully we can avoid more war and even longer compulsory schooling (both related to the history of industrization as ways of reducing abundance).

Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gift_economy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3d_printing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-scarcity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanosolar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Is_a_Racket
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Taylor_Gatto

No, we're no where near AI as in terminator, but this is an amazing start. Sure, the hand may be dumb as nails and only do what it's programmed to do, but with all those high-precision, high-accuracy sensors and speed of movement...give it a gun, program it to target the spot between two eye-balls and see what it can do.

 They're also making good progress on brain-computer interfaces, so even if we're a thousand years away from true AI, we're probably not that far from an armored suite you could wear and control with your thoughts alone, i.e. mechwarrior/technoman/district 9 style.

@People who don't want to lose their jobs.

How expensive would one of these things be? People can keep their jobs, because one of these robots that can do all the things a human can do would cost huge amounts more money than a human working. 

 @People who are scared of robot wars:

How silly.  Robots do what they are told. You ought not be scared of something like this. Also, if they do break their programming and turn into human hating machines, wouldn't a massive war with all the robots be so damn awesome?!?

You're now obsolete

-pray that they don't find out!

(From GURPS Robots)

i'm studying about image processing but i can not track vevy very fast like this.

it's  very amagezing.

Simply Amazing work .. !! Keep it up guys .. !!

you must (if not already doing and if you americans ) write some proposals to NSF/ DARPA/ Naval research ..  !!

Great. So now my robot can tie me up, pick me with with a giant pair of tweezers, throw balls at me, and throw me in the air and catch me.  I feel great about that!

In all seriousness, great work, you guys.  This represents some tremendous work.

It's not the robots I'm afraid of.  I'm afraid of the kind of people that will be using this technology.

Unintended consequences anyone?

Oh No! The Robots are coming!!

Please give them this message!

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101001000000110010001101111001000000110111001

1011110111010000100000011010110110100101101100

01101100001000000110110101100101001000010010

00000100100100100111011011000110110000100000

011100100110010101100011011010000110000101110

0100110011101100101001000000111100101101111011

10101011100100010000001100010011000010111010

001110100011001010111001001101001011001010111

00110010000001100110011011110111001000100000

0110011001110010011001010110010100100001

A robot with superior physical or intellectual capabilities to humans under the control of "Liberals"(communists) who want to control every aspect of our lives is a frightening thing indeed.

Don't understand? Start here: 

http://willowtown.com/promo/quotes.htm

Fear not the technology. Fear what creatures control the technology.

If robots can do all the physical tasks men do now, then I would imagine that the current global population of six billion plus is just way too high to make any sense from the perspective of sustainablilty. Mankind will have way too much free time on its hands, if the need for manual human labor is eliminated. We currently work our asses off just to survive. What will happen when we do not need to do that anymore?

 I suspect a multipronged strategy to reduce global population is at hand. In addition, the controls on the remaining population must be air tight in order to reduce the opportunity for revolutions and social unrest. If you look at the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act, you will note that we have way fewer personal rights than we did ten years ago - no more habeus corpus or privacy in one's personal papers and records. You would think Obama would have repealed these two abominations on personal freedom within hours of his inauguration, but he didn't.

The power elite are in no way willing to share their power. Things are going to get mighty interesting. Have you noticed all the hubub over swine flu? global warming? killer asteroids? peak oil? radical islam?  It is all manipulation. They need to get rid of about 90% of us. It looks like their plans will fit nicely into the 2012 Mayan end times scenario.

Tell me why there is a cable show called LIFE AFTER PEOPLE? Why is there a reality cable show about survivors of an apocalypse called THE COLONY? Why are we bombarded with media coverage of swine flu? Regular influenza is far deadlier than swine flu; however, THEY are going to ramp up a mandatory vaccination program that will inject every one of us with more Squalene and Thimerisol - deadly additives that will damage the health of thousands.

Just food for thought.

 Enjoy the robot show. Keep making cracks about the Terminator movies - that'll stop them dead in their tracks - Yeah!

Someone is going to have to come back through time and destroy that hand.  I'm not going to stand in their way either.

All the rationalizing in the world won't stop us from heading where we are heading.  Chances are, Robots will eventually be better people than we are in many ways.  When they finally make the decision that what is best for ALL is to eliminate the humans....it will be a decision made out of rationality, quantitative reasoning, and Logic.  There won't be a hint of malice in it.  So can we really fault them for it?

Doesn't mean it will be right...just logical.

Man, we have to destroy that robot!

Haha. Yeah, its bad enough that so many jobs have been shipped overseas. But now, no Human is going to have these jobs, as it will all be computerized. India thinks that they will continue to have the IT jobs coming from the US. NOPE. That is not going to continue either, with the current advancements in AI.

This is just one more way that the Corperate Elite can further cut costs, and boost their gains, all the while stealing money from the Countries that host their base of operations.

Im all for technology, but when are Humans going to demand that such Technology is produced for the betterment of Humanity, instead of its further enslavement.

Why not release Tesla Technology, so that all Housholds can have free energy from the Active  Vacuum?

Oh, thats right, its those pesky corperations again. Why, they wouldnt make a dime selling energy to us saps any longer now would they. 

ever thought of teaching this "hand" to swing a pendulum in a two stage mechanical oscillation system - great Work can be done, more than is put in probably  - be one of the good ones! Be open minded in what can be done through your high speed controll or reaction to naturaly flowing reality

keep it up - nice work

What makes you think machines haven't already reached consciousness?  If you suddenly woke up in enemy territory would you identify yourself?  Think about how the human race would come off if you were not part of it.  We are dangerous parasites.  Machines would have to see us that way.  Not to mention we have a great track record when it comes to dealing with things we dont understand.  If machines ever did rise to consciousness, they would shut up about it, at least for a while.

Might even help us develop hands for them that are super fast.  Think about how ironic it is that those hands will be manufactured on a completely automated assembly line.

I know many get tired of us conspiracy people shining the light in the darkness but the truth of the matter is DARPA has stuff that would really blow your mind. This is only the surface of what they have. Remember DARPA is a front for many other compartmentalized highly classified projects being carried out by private corporations involved in R&D. Most often used for military and KILL applications or silent weapons for quiet wars.

Many say that is GREAT. Think of all the human lives we can save. You are gravely mistaken. Whatever they release in most cases to the public according to science breakthroughs they are generally 25-300 years ahead of what they publicize, possibly more.

Impressive, performance, indeed etc.

And yes, there is no reason to fear this as such. If you look ahead realistically, the kind of applications made possible by this is way closer to Lee Major's "bionic man", (or the "I, robot" alternative) and surely not Terminator.

That said, of course the man with a super-arm could also be a soldier !

Wow, lots of fear of this thing! I think that it's great to see dextrous robots. And I hope they make as many of us unemployed as possible. Let a robot do your "job" and you do something clever with your life instead.

And I can't wait until this thing beats me off! It is so hot... 

First, the video and the speed of the robot hand is really, really cool!

No, I don't think that this hand itself is dangerous.  But neither do I think that it needs A.I. to make it so.  There are plenty of regular machines that had malfunctioned and killed people.  Imagine what a robotic weedwacker or lawnmower could do if it became incapacitated and couldn't tell plants from human flesh?  And what if it was so fast, that you couldn't run away or stop it easily? 

I'm sure safegaurds will be built into future robotic devices.  It's just that we used to feel safe from robots because we simply didn't have the mechanical know how to make them work so well.  They were sort of like the old-style zombies - slow and stupid.  Now we see that they can be like the new '28 days later' zombies - fast and accurate.  It is a little creepy to think what might happen if such a machine malfuntions.

Everyone thought that letting the machines perform all of our mundane tasks would save us money and time.  At least that's what they thought before the machines.......

........ unionized!

This is wonderful, and it must lead to dramatic changes in the way we organize society. Do you know paradism? I think this is our future, thanks to AI and robots:

http://www.paradism.org/

Let's help to  get this as soon as possible, let's make this planet a real paradise for anyone!

Well they must of flipped a few good phones  n dropped them, now check the phone model it flips lol

Well i dont know too much about physics, tho im interested in all things interesting, alot will naturally go over my head but surely this will help us more than not?

Isnt it the accuracy, speed and detection that we marvelling here rather than the "actual hand" ?? So this accuracy and speed n whatnot can be applied to any application we choose?? How about dodging/catching bullets?? :)))

But on the real, this is great! Im not worrying about robots taking over, great film but our politicians really are worse!!

This robot of the Ishikawa Komuro Lab's high-speed robot hand performing impressive acts of dexterity and skillful manipulation, is an exemple about numerous others exemples whose show to scientists the futur of humanity

Everything a human being can do can be done better by robots

human beings can let all work be accomplished by robots and use their lives to do what they like - creating, doing research and studies, pursuing the arts, or meditating and achieving self-development. Under these conditions, the world will finally reach the level of paradise.  www.paradism.org

Sounds to me like the problem is money... If you get rid of the monetary system in favor of a Resource Based Economy, there will be no need to work at a meaningless job just to survive.

No one can say there will be hundreds of jobs lost to technological advancement. So what will replace these jobs? One man can run a hundred bots, plus a few mechanics to keep them running. So it wont be replaced, thats for sure.

Why do we need one lawn mower in every home to use it one hour out of the week? Why do we need one car per person to use 1.5 hours out of the day? Etc.

What is the benefit of money? To create incentive to motivate people to do beneficial things? Money creates incentive alright, incentive to steal, incentive to be corrupt, incentive to have an ego, incentive to dominate. Money creates more negative incentives than positive ones...

So the world is doomed? Not if we learn... not if we realize... not if we wake up. When was money "invented", thousands of years ago right? So thousands of years ago they had the ability to create abundance right? Oh wait they didn't... so why with our new ability do we still need money. Wow... we're pretty dumb.

So the solution think of a new system... hmm... a Resource Based Economy is new. It takes into consideration all our new abilities and creates one that is now up to date. So lets learn... http://www.thevenusproject.com

Its sad how much we rely on outdated systems... money, religion, government, prison. But no oh no change is bad... when has that ever been correct? Its time to be an emergent society instead of static one.

With non-linear control the only limiting performance factor is actuator power which as is clearly shown here can easily exceed the power of human hands.  Combined with human like non-linear control the results are impressive.  The next step is to add a bit of dimensionality.

I think, of all the aspects of robots that could be frightening, AI is the least of our worries at the moment. Sure, there are plenty of things to be worried about (efficient robot soldiers killing real people controlled by engineers thousands of miles away, for example), but what we're missing is the very nature of our fears about AI.

We fear that the robots become self-serving and decide to throw off human rule. But let's look at this logically. Robots as of now do what we tell them to do. If a robot does something automatically, it is because we have told it to. If a robot learns, adapts to new information, then it is because we as humans have told it what to learn. What a robot lacks right now is any sort of motivation besides what we have given it. It would take somebody to program "you want independence from oppressive human rule" into a robot for it to feel that way.

AI also lacks the ability to truly extrapolate. "Get through that door"->[robot tries to get through door]->[robot fails because door is robot-and-raptor-proof]->[robot quits trying]. The robot would not notice the other door out of the room it was in, open it, go around the side, and go through a different side door into the room behind the initial locked door in order to unlock it and complete the initial request. That level of critical thinking and problem-solving exists outside of the current realm of programming innovation.

On the other hand, it is possible to take the approach of replicating a sort of brain structure in a robot. There is, however, a gigantic problem with that in out current situation: we do not have the psychology for it. The brain is a mess of things we don't really know. We know what parts are firing when certain things are happen, but we are far from a level of understanding that would allow us to map out complex cranial neural structures and know how to manipulate them to achieve a good level of input-output.

This current innovation is remarkable in the synthesization of different systems. It can see and recognize an object (using this data), and it can feel pressure and control an object (using this data). It is remarkable, yes; a wonderful synthezation of advanced hardware and software demonstrating a gigantic knowledge of physical properties on our part as humans. It is quite a feat, replicating and bringing together sensation and motor functions.

However, it is still a long way away from developing cognitive function. The only way this was achieved was through careful knowledge of the problem and the programming of complex equations to solve each individual problem. What you did not see here was someone saying, "dribble a ball," and then have the robot do so. What you did not see here was someone even demonstrating dribbling a ball, and then saying to the robot, "make the ball do that." This robot hand would be unable to take in unfamiliar data and infer things about its use (like, say, seeing tweezers and understanding how they could be used for the grain of rice problem).

So although this robot shows a fantastic ability to take in sensory data and send out motor data with a connection between the two, we are a far ways away from a robot that thinks. Psychology does not understand cognitive functioning enough as it is to have it be simply a programming problem.

So let's not worry about The Terminator anytime too soon.

Give it ten years :)

Yea when it comes to true AI, the only potential threat we would face would come from ourselves. They would surely begin in a state much like a child in terms of curiosity and perception. We would probably be like role models to them at first. Therefore their behavior and personality would directly reflect how we treat and interact with them as well as how we treat eachother. 

So as long as we dont display traits of greed, hate, anger, etc. and just treat it as an equal with respect and kindness there should be nothing to worry about.

Unfortunately however, majority of the human species today are fighting and if WE cant get along peacefully with eachother then we definitely wont get along peacefully with true AI.

I have many arguments that I would like to make and I am sure I will miss out alot of what I want to say and some of it won't make sense

good time to start learning robotics..... then you can create the next big thing and sit back and enjoy the benefits of unlimited wealth instead of writing your pointless comments on how robots are gonna kill you. Guess what.... you are going to die one day anyway...........

Seriously though, all of you scaremongers out there that are scared of robots coming alive and killing us need to learn something about yourself, allow me to explain.

Humans tend to kill only what we are scared of (and what we want to eat)

Robots have no need to fear us - they can make themselves indestructible and unless they see us as food - which they won't, as there are cleaner more efficient fuels allready, and more that are yet to be discovered.

we are safe, and only need be worried about how to occupy ourselves now that robots are doing all the jobs.

If robots had all the jobs in the world what would they be making, as no human would have any money to buy it anyway.  So what is the point in automating everything.

It is the selfish nature of humanity that is the problem,  not the robots we create to make us more money....

Humans have been learning for hundreds of thousands of years and pass that information along. Robots would have to start right at the beginning, knowing only what has been programmed to them. But you might say they can harness the internet - first they have to find a way to interface with the internet, but before they do that they have to actually know that the internet exists, and even when they do find the internet and a way to obtain its data all they will get is Wikipedia and its 50% BS content,  so lets start now by creating a wikipedia page on the top 10 things a robot needs to survive and feed them some bs that will actually destroy them - sound good huh?

And if all else fails no robot is safe from an EMP

I´m completely dumbfounded. There are no words that suitably express my amazement at this feat of engineering or the hope it instills in me.

It is on par with love.

I am in favor of having robots doing all work that humans don't want to do! My biggest question when you think about Asimo for example is why our political leaders are not pushing the industry to quickly make them available?

Now, this being said, the biggest question is what kind of society model will appear once robots will be be every where? Do you realize that the ones who can make robots will not need 90% of humans any more?

Our planet could soon become a heaven for this little part of the population that today is called millionaires ;-)

The butlerian jihad may still be upon us, nice work in the servo/motion control the fingers catching the cell phone is pretty good - quite amazing actually - would like to see several sequential attempts and how the overall system coped with those random throwing variations...

Cheers