UPDATED 13:33 EDT / NOVEMBER 27 2012

NEWS

AI On The Rise: Robots Conquer Working Class and Corporate World

It’s a robot-filled week for artificial intelligence. From manufacturing and labor to stock exchanges, robots are being introduced as men’s accomplices at work.

Working Class-Robot Invasion

The world’s food consumption will double by 2050. This will burden the farming industry to supply the increasing demand; farmers will have to multiply their usual pace and technology. That is if there are still those who are interested in farming by that time. To not only alleviate the scarcity of workforce, but to also assist farmers in meeting global food security challenge, Farmerbots are being developed.

These Farmerbots are designed to take care of the hard labor and plant seeds in a field. This industrial revolution is headed by David Dorhout and colleagues from Dorhout R&D. But he explained that there is no complete “robots replacing human” scenario that will transpire with the existence of these machines.

“There’s no long-term memory, there’s no centralised command and control: robots just follow simple rules from which complex behaviour arises,” says Dorhout.

The military is also tapping robotics to carry out complex tasks. Robo-soldiers are a commonplace in sci-fi action movies. In reality, militaries are already exploring this option for cost and life-saving alike. In April, the U.S. Navy revealed their plans of coming up with the underwater robot, Knifefish. The main purpose of this marine robot is to roam around open waters and search for mines underneath. Dolphins are the ones doing this job at the moment. While the U.S. Military has admitted that it is not an easy thing to replace the capabilities of animals to perform intricate tasks, it could be an alternative.

Their main reason of eliminating the use of dolphins to hunt for mines is cost. Dolphins must travel via specialized vessel with a portable but complete veterinary staff with it.

Corporate Robots

Robots are also expected to invade corporate offices. From adopting the BYOD trend, the workplaces may also be walking towards the Bring Your Own Robots sooner or later. According to Intel’s chief evangelist once people tried using these personal data agents for their personal lives, they would be enticed to bring them into the corporate environment. Of course, everyone wants their job to be a lot easier than it is.

But if you think that these office robots will just settle for the assistant position, think again. A Forex trading robot has just recently landed on the desk of financial experts. This one is poised to revolutionize the way money is moved and played within the foreign exchange market.

“The Forex Striker development team has just released Forex Striker to the public and everyone involved in Forex trading is talking about this monumental new technology,” reports WealthSpringMarketing’s Tiffany Hendricks. “Over 300 beta testers have already traded profitably using Forex Striker to quickly rack up over $450,000 in net profits from small-scale accounts.”

Teaching Aide for Autism

At the Topcliffe Primary School at the United Kingdom, robots have been helping in teaching children with autism. Surprisingly, the knee-high robots that mimic the moves a normal child, are making the kids respond more compared to actual human teachers.

Head Teacher Ian Lowe said, “They are really cute looking. Children with autism struggle with communicating with adults and with other children, but for some reason they engage with these robots.

“Children who first come into school unable to make eye contact with humans start to communicate through the robots.”

According to the researchers Birmingham University which has been conducting studies using robotics for autism concluded that the key to making this technology work better is programming. This is why they are focusing now on how to creatively program these robots to enhance the children’s social interaction and communication skills.

The movement to using artificial intelligent machines just like with any other changes is preceded by great demand that human powers are unlikely to fulfill efficiently. Furthermore, AI developments of today are geared towards making our lives easy, and not necessarily to replace us. I am just not sure with Eric Schmidt, who would like to swallow a robot and have a robot doppelganger attend a part for him.


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