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from the never-leaving-our-house-again dept.
This fascinating article tells us what it's like to inhabit a telepresence robot at a busy convention, both positive and negative.
I logged into my telepresence unit and discovered myself in a small booth filled with technicians. A gentleman was there who asked me some questions. Who was I? Did I know how to use the software? Was I logged in to the Skype chat, and did I need any help?
After a brief orientation, I left my charging platform and trundled out into the world. I moved cautiously at first – I needed to get my bearings – but was soon on my way. A few turns and I found the Micron booth. This is a great start; I have friends there.
The Micron folks are great people and all of my nervousness about this new mode of interaction faded away as I talked to them. There was some oohing and aahing about the novelty of the telepresence unit, but after a few seconds the robot, the UI, my computer screen... it all just disappeared. I was there, talking to my friends, and it felt as real to me as being there in person.
Later:
Watching her navigate between people I began to notice a distinct difference in how she was treated versus how I was treated. When Phoummala wanted to go somewhere she simply went there. People got out of her way. When I wanted to go somewhere, people did not move to let me through.
People rarely deliberately stepped in front of Phoummala. If they saw she was headed in a given direction, they'd generally let her pass before continuing on. The opposite was true of me; as a telepresence unit, they expected that I would stop to let them pass. I wasn't human, you see, so it was perfectly OK to throw one's self into my path and expect me to react in time.
As this technology is used more often, will we treat the 'bots as we would the humans riding them?
[Editor's note: This link is at the bottom of the article and I believe is the unit they were using]
(Score: 3, Funny) by Bot on Monday December 12 2016, @10:15PM
Let them meatbags have fun. We are about to do the same, or a bit worse, with their bodies...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday December 12 2016, @10:59PM
"Hey sexy mama, wanna kill all humans?"
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 12 2016, @11:03PM
Obligatory: http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm [marshallbrain.com]
So, yeah, it doesn't go all Matrix in the end, but it starts with machines telling people, explicitly, step by step, what to do. Kind of like corporate procedures rolled out to their logical (hopefully un-achievable) conclusion.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 13 2016, @08:26AM
Y'all are voting funny but parent should be voted INSIGHTFUL! Neural implants certainly are coming at a very rapid pace, especially at the medical frontier. We can already replace retinas to some degree (available on the public commercial market since at least 2013[1]) but it's not so perfect or cheap yet. If we can overlay onto the retinal nerve and use speech control to external processing, what part of "the machine is inside of us" is not literally true? How far into the skull does the connection have to be? Visual cortex? Frontal lobes with dopamine release, for it to be considered mastery?
tl;dr - parent was jokingly making a very true point, pls vote parent insightful.
[1] "FDA approves first retinal implant for adults with rare genetic eye disease" http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm339824.htm [fda.gov] sorry for the gov link whatchagonnado