I am becoming quite fond of RSA animations, and they are becoming more of my idea tinkering entertainment sources during dinner. If any of the roboethicists out there are a fan of either TED videos or RSA animations, please do watch the talk by Jeremy Rifkin.
Starting with the story of mirror neuron discovery, Jeremy Rifkin talks about how as empathic beings we can build an empathic civilisation at a global level and can really build a better world.
One of the issues of social robots is the unknown long-term social effects …

Yes, it’s the summer.
The beautiful weather in Vancouver for the past couple of months really hasn’t been very helpful keeping me posting for the blog.
But with the notion of that Summer should be filled with lots of fun, I’d like to share some robot-filled entertainment with you. Hardly a headline material, I agree. But the epic-ness of the music video you’re about to see may to justice to that.
So here is Dan Mangan, a local Canadian artist, with a song called Robots.

Reporter Amy Harmond interviews Bina48, a robot developed by David Hanson.
Follow the link below to watch the video interview.
Making Friends With a Robot Named Bina48

Somewhat unknowingly, I had been following a systematically devised set of rituals to prepare and eat all my meals.
After rushing back from my lab, located conveniently within 2 minutes of walking distance, I put my bagel in the toaster and open my laptop sitting beside it. A progress bar starts to move forward as the laptop wakes up from its ‘sleep’ mode.  A slice of bagel takes longer to toast than the time it takes for my laptop to wake up for me. Before the progress bar reaches the 50% …

Dr. Machiel Van der Loos forwarded me an article on Paro from the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago. Paro is a furry baby seal robot with the potential to impact people emotionally: it has two huge eyes that can stare at you adoringly and it can move its body parts like a real pup. Emotional bonds with artifacts, such as objects, etc, have been discussed for hundreds and thousands of years in literature. The question for today’s discussion is, ‘Would our emotional bonds with Paro lead to a happy ending, or an ethical ending?’

For the first time in the world a robot conducted a wedding for a cute Japanese couple, BBC reports.
BBC News – Tokyo couple married by robot in rooftop wedding.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, also known to us as UAVs, have already been in the centre of roboethics discussion for many years. But now, the discussion has expanded from voices of the academia and the public to the US government.
Brought to my attention by the Robot Ethics facebook group (Roger F. Gay), the following is a direct copy from the US Committee on Oversight and Government Reform website.
They provide links and documents, as well as webcasts of the first and second panel. (Link: Hearing on Rise of the Drones: Unmanned Systems and …

About a week ago from today was the 31st anniversary of the first ever recorded death by a robot.  Although it was an industrial accident, Wired asked Ronald Arkin for comments on the incident. It is also interesting how the author of the article uses the phrase ‘human spirit’ to describe Arkin’s current work in robotics.
Arkin is concerned more about the human spirit’s reaction to interacting with robots, especially as one goal of robotics is to create a personal companion to fulfill our daily needs, like the robot Rosie from The Jetsons.

Read …

Brought to my attention today from Dr. Veruggio’s facebook post is Honda’s short film on the development of ASIMO (embedded below).
The theme around the short 8 minute film is how robots are making a positive impact in human society, and how robots like ASIMO is helping us understand humans.
The Roboethics community’s beloved blogger Wendell Wallach(http://moralmachines.blogspot.com/) is featured in the documentary.

The Agenda with Steve Paikin (broadcasted by TVO) covered a special issue filmed at the Perimeter Institute, Waterloo, Ontario - I can’t believe they filmed it so close to where I did my undergrad (University of Waterloo).
The show frames the discussion around the question “How will robotics change our lives and our evolution?”, talks about what is currently considered ‘feasible’ in robotics and what it means to our future lives.
Guest speakers are (excepts from TVO below), and embed of the video is also provided for you below:
Michael Belfiore is a writer …