Sci-Fi becoming Real Life

So many of us carry globally-networked computers in our pockets and purses that we're practically all cyborgs now. Space exploration and genetic engineering is reality. Logically, the next step is to welcome our new robot companions. Here are a few from the current DARPA robotics challenge:

How soon until robot AI catches up and the machines become our overlords? ;)

Yep we're in the sci-fi future alright, just too bad it couldn't have been golden age instead of cyberpunk.

I clicked on the link, but didn't go any deeper than that. I see that for this DARPA challenge the robots have to autonomously traverse obstacles/terrain simulating a disaster site. Is there anything that says they have to be humanoid robots? Seems like either the rules require them to resemble humans or the human designers haven't thought very far outside the box on their designs.

http://www.darpa.mil/our_work/tto/programs/darpa_robotics_challenge.aspx

I see the robots have to be able to use common tools and operate vehicles, so I guess it would be tough to design a robot that could drive a truck that had a form that did not resemble a human.

When you step back and look at things now vs. 20 years ago, it's amazing how much sci-fi has simply integrated into "normal" life.

I mean, life 20 years ago wasn't radically different, minus the technology. A lot of people still dress like it's the mid-90's.

The smartphone is exactly what sci-fi predicted. We can literally speak into this device and it will navigate us somewhere, it will answer any question possible via google, it can video conference via facetime/skype... it's amazing.

I had a "Communications Technology" class in 1993, where the professor said "one day soon, you'll be able to order a pizza over your computer!!!" My first reaction was "Yeah, right--BS." Now, we lose internet for 5 minutes and it's a crisis.

Look at the BMW i8. That would have been an outlandish concept car 20 years ago and it happened.

I love seeing this stuff come to fruition.

I was just having this conversation with my nephew last night. He called me asking about a History paper on the Battle of Midway that he was working on, and I immediately got transported back to when I was 17 and doing the same thing. Back then, there was still the internet, but it's nowhere near where it is now. As I was telling him, I realized that he could probably ask his smartphone the same question and have an answer quicker than asking me.

I had to step back and think about that for a second.

I remember watching episodes of Inspector Gadget when I was a kid and wanting that notebook Penny used to run around with. It did everything: it calculated equations, it had info that she could access at any time, and she could communicate with Brain, her dog, with it and transmit information. You can do all of that with even the cheapest smartphone now, and it's a fraction of the size as her notebook was!

nderwater wrote: How soon until robot AI catches up and the machines become our overlords? ;)

Read the arguably original science fiction story, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester. We've long been living that stories future.

You can download a free copy here: http://manybooks.net/titles/forstereother07machine_stops.html

foxtrapper wrote: Read the arguably original science fiction story, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester. We've long been living that stories future. You can download a free copy here: http://manybooks.net/titles/forstereother07machine_stops.html

I have on a few occasions when reading news aggregator sites (sites where links to important, funny, etc. news stories/articles/whatever) are posted thought about the discussion groups in that story- where they have no interest in discussing the actual original work but instead discuss someone else's commentary on a work. Often the threads are composed of people who have never read the original link and are just responding to each other's comments. Thankfully in many other ways we're a long ways from the 'future' in the story- but we're certainly WAY closer than when it was written...

foxtrapper wrote: Read the arguably original science fiction story, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester. We've long been living that stories future. You can download a free copy here: http://manybooks.net/titles/forstereother07machine_stops.html

I'll have to do this.

I should add, I think the phenomenon of looking around in a public place and seeing everyone buried in their phones is a pretty dystopian vision.

gamby wrote:

foxtrapper wrote: Read the arguably original science fiction story, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester. We've long been living that stories future. You can download a free copy here: http://manybooks.net/titles/forstereother07machine_stops.html

I'll have to do this. I should add, I think the phenomenon of looking around in a public place and seeing everyone buried in their phones is a pretty dystopian vision.

Though a VERY bizarre movie overall, "Her" is an interesting near-future look at this taken even further- there's very little actual interaction between people in the 'crowd' scenes, almost everyone is in their own world talking to their voice-controlled mobile devices.

I really liked that movie. My wife complained that it was "all talking".

I like it.

http://www.dreamworksstudios.com/films/real-steel

gamby wrote:

foxtrapper wrote: Read the arguably original science fiction story, The Machine Stops by E.M. Forester. We've long been living that stories future. You can download a free copy here: http://manybooks.net/titles/forstereother07machine_stops.html

I'll have to do this. I should add, I think the phenomenon of looking around in a public place and seeing everyone buried in their phones is a pretty dystopian vision.

I was in the restroom at work yesterday before leaving.. guy at the urinal next to me was more involved with his phone than peeing

Wife was the one who really wanted to see it, and probably enjoyed it less than I did (being far more the tech geek than she is)- we both agreed it was one of the most bizarre movies we'd seen in a while (probably since "This Is The End") but that it was also really good and thought-provoking.

Pity I'm not likely to get her to go see "Chappie" with me. Though I may be able to guilt her into it after her dragging me to "50 Shades of Grey" a few weeks ago...

something to consider: if you took an iPhone back to the sixties as just a prop for Star Trek, nobody would have believed it

What a time to be alive.

I was in College in the early 90s when Timothy Leary and G. Gordon Liddy came to our campus on a speaking tour. (University of Illinois) Most of the show was them recalling how Liddy busted Leary and his "acid dropping" clan. It was actually really funny and interesting.

Towards the end Leary addressed the crowd and told us we were on the precipice of something that would change human existence. Everything in our lives would change....and soon. We had all heard about the internet at that point, and some of us had sent emails, but it was nothing like it would become. Even at 70 years old, he was spry, incredibly intelligent, and a visionary. Still---- we had no idea of what lay in store--- positive and negative.

mad_machine wrote: something to consider: if you took an iPhone back to the sixties as just a prop for Star Trek, nobody would have believed it

It does more than the damn communicator!

Frakking toasters.

gamby wrote:

mad_machine wrote: something to consider: if you took an iPhone back to the sixties as just a prop for Star Trek, nobody would have believed it

It does more than the damn communicator!

yup... communicator, tricorder, and library computer all rolled into one.. not to mention navigation

GameboyRMH wrote: Yep we're in the sci-fi future alright, just too bad it couldn't have been golden age instead of cyberpunk.

That sums up my feelings pretty well too.