Twenty or thirty years ago, “machines that kill by their own decision” were a matter of science fiction… Five years ago, the military use of complex algorithms (called “artificial intelligence”…) …
Cop with a low center of gravity
If you think that this tractor-like-rubber object among the (Chinese) policemen has been arrested, you are mistaken. It is their newest tech-colleague! The police robot (built by Zhejiang University) was …
drones versus drones: automation of war?
The (flying) drones, or otherwise UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle), became internationally known as an American invention, at the beginning of the NATO invasion of Afghanistan. Against lightly armed insurgents: a …
It cares for me, therefore I feel attached
You may not have a home robot yet (vacuum cleaner?) – but 20 years ago you didn’t have a “smart phone” either; you didn’t even know such a remote control …
The “Immaculate Conception of Data”
When a farmer buys a tractor from the agricultural machinery company John Deere, they receive a license to operate the vehicle. Nowadays, tractors are not like the old vehicles of …
Restructuring
While in the western world the so-called “artificial intelligence” is presented mainly as a linguistic achievement (with the purpose of accumulating data from its “interlocutors”), in the far east its …
Two discussions on the digitalization of the food system
The following dialogues are transcribed text from the first two episodes of a podcast series by the ETC group (www.etcgroup.org), which began in the summer of 2023, titled “Who Will …
In the wing…
If they knew how to eat them in the industrial slums of Liverpool and Manchester in the 19th century, they would have passed out. And Engels wouldn’t have written that …
Attention to competitors
While in Western capitalist societies “artificial intelligence” appeared in the sphere of consumption (e.g. chatGPT…) with the immediate aim of looting personal data and, in the near future, applications in …
robot wars: the empire of the USA and geopolitics in the robotic age
Robots fascinate humans. Whether it is dystopian stories of cyborg warriors or growing concerns about mass unemployment, the robot is a science fiction archetype that haunts our cultural unconscious. But …
Automations
Although the UN (a creation of the winners of World War II) long ago went bankrupt as a peacemaker, at least its bureaucrats, now in the “final” phase of the …
Robotic megastructures
So far, three-dimensional printers have been associated with the construction of small-sized objects; although such techniques are also being developed for house construction. Quite “ahead” in the field of robotics, …