The following is a very interesting survey results conducted by Zogby International
For the full coverage on the survey results, please visit Cyborg Status – Forbes.com (August 5th, 2009).

–If you could have the Internet wired directly into your brain, would you do so?
Yes: 13%
No: 82%
Not sure: 5%.
(We asked the same question in October 2007, and found 11% said yes.)
–Would you agree to have a computer chip implanted in your brain if it would make you immune to disease?
Yes: 25%
No: 54%
Not sure: 21%
–Would you agree to have a computer …

The Year in Robotics from www.technologyreview.com highlights robotics research highlights from year 2009.
Happy New Year Everyone!

Two days ago, I went to watch the movie Avatar.
I thought the plot was quite blend, but that was soon forgotten when I started to see the linkage between the idea of singularity and the movie’s storyline.
For those of you who are new to the idea of singularity the following paragraph is my attempt to describe it to you using my limited knowledge of the topic:
Key promoters of the theory/science – also called apocalyptic AI – are Ray Kurzweil and Hans Moravec. Their singularity argument is that machine intelligence will …

The following suggested reading was passed on to me by a good friend of mine, Francisco Grajales (@Ciscogiii).
This New York Time book review summarizes some interesting content from Michael Belfiore’s book ‘The Department of Mad Scientists’.
The following excerpts introduce a few interesting roboethics questions from the NYT book review: Book Review – History of Darpa – ‘The Department of Mad Scientists,’ by Michael Belfiore – Review – NYTimes.com.
So maybe we’ll let robots drive our cars. But would you let a robot cut you open? That’s Darpa’s next project. In minimally invasive surgery, doctors insert …

The following link is just another general editorial raising questions/concerns about various roboethics issues – not much is new.
But the article alludes to the possibility that virtual sex and our relationship with online avatars may help us in answering some of the questions regarding sex robots.
A woman in Britain broke up with her husband because she found his avatar (a computerized alter ego) having virtual sex online with someone else’s avatar.
Original Article: Smart robots are on the way.

The Singularity Hub has released their second annual roundup of the best robots of the year. It’s always so convenient to have a summary of what was developed throughout the year in one webpage.
Go to the Singularity Hub to watch and read about the best robots of 2009:
A Review Of The Best Robots of 2009 | Singularity Hub.

NBC Coverage on Largest Drone Attack

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones – Wall Street Journal

On December 17th (Tuesday last week), our sister blog Moral Machines (a really informative and active blog run by the authors of the book Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong) made two posts about US drones.
One was the news about the largest drone attack by the US military (the first embed above), which happened that day – and I quote Moral Machines:
NBC is reporting that more than …

Peter Singer, a bioethicist at Princeton University, and Agata Sagan, a Warsaw based ethicist [REF: Accelerating Future], discussed roboethics at the Project Syndicate website.
I wouldn’t say the contents of the article is terribly new, but still worth blogging about – for those Peter Singer readers.
Access Full Article Here: Project Syndicate-Rights for Robots?.
For the moment, a more realistic concern is not that robots will harm us, but that we will harm them. At present, robots are mere items of property. But what if they become sufficiently complex to have …

Last post for today.
Unfortunately, or fortunately?, this post is also relevant to the theme of military robotics.  The video is self explanatory, and explains how the beetle is remotely controlled via human – and of course Pentagon seems to be behind this kind of research. There has been similar research done on rats and dolphins, and UBC’s yourViews survey on roboethics covered the topic as well. If you haven’t taken the survey, please visit http://www.yourviews.ubc.ca/ to take it.
As you will see when taking the survey, there are some interesting reasons why …

I’ve been posting more military roboethics entries than any other topics. The tag cloud at the bottom of the side bar definitely reflects it. It might be to your surprise to know that this was not done intentionally.
When I am in blogging mode I read up on the RSS’s I have on the side bar (I hope you find them useful) first. Then I move onto Google Readers and skim through almost everything that contains the word ‘robot’. As a result, my posts tend to reflect what is being most …