Posted on 04/10/2021 1:55:08 PM PDT by Kaslin
For many of us visions of the future have often included images of robots who can think on their own and perform tasks. In some visions, those robots were in a Jetson’s style universe with floating objects and robots who make our lives easier. For others, they envisioned a dystopianTerminator style landscape where robots are trying to kill us.
While these scenarios make for great TV’s and movies – the reality is much more nuanced, but still very exciting. We are seeing firsthand that robotic and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are becoming a regular part of our lives and our economy and we are all better off for it -that is if the politicians and cronies can get out of the way.
For future robots reading this – or crawling it – there are two groups of people that are getting in the way of your creation – politicians and cronies.
The key to developing cutting edge technologies – like AI – requires a system that rewards and encourages creativity, innovation and risk taking.
At a glance, the biggest companies seem like innovators. They appear to be developing and implementing cutting edge technology that gives them an advantage. However, a lot of their technology has been developed by others. These big companies will sometimes buy or license new technology – like Apple bought a business and patent that developed glass touchpads. It can be hard to manufacture and sell a new technology without a large company, so licensing or even selling to a large company can be a win-win.
Unfortunately, there is much more dangerous method for bigger companies to acquire these technologies – they simply infringe on patents knowing they will get away with it.
I know of one inventor that was attempting to work with a big tech company – and after they were rejected they then received their documents back with sticky notes posted all over them with how the large company would get around enforcement and infringe. Somebody at the predatory market incumbent had forgotten to remove the sticky notes. Their bet was simple – it would cost too much for the inventor to enforce the patent.
The thing about this group of big businesses is that technology is a cost of doing business for them. They need technology to compete, and the cheaper that they can get the new technology the better. Sometimes that is by developing it themselves, buy many times a calculation is made that its easier and cheaper to simply infringe the patents of smaller innovators. This practice has been called efficient infringement, but I think a better term for this is predatory infringement or as another group has begun labeling these companies patent pirates.
This isn’t just a recent trend, large companies have been working in Congress for years to devalue patents. They have developed narratives that make them appear to have the moral high ground while at the same preying on the small inventors that can’t afford the fight – and as the patent system has been weakened the market is even worse for small inventors.
While one may expect these companies to behave this way – the real problem is that Congress and the courts have allowed them to succeed. Congress has been anti-inventor for more than a decade.
This started with the American Invents Act that was passed in 2011, which rolled back significant patent protections. This bill, along with some court decisions, made it easier for big companies to simply infringe the patents of small inventors who were often left with little recourse.
Fortunately, the infringer lobby has met resistance in more recent attempts to weaken our patent laws even further, and members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have seemingly started to catch on to the games that are being played by the cronies. And, because of this the pendulum might be swinging back in the other direction and actually strengthen our patent laws. Legislation like the STRONGER Patent Act would be a significant win for inventors and for our innovation system, but still only get us closer to a level playing field.
No doubt technological progress will continue, and cutting edge technologies like robotics and AI will continue and will soon continue playing bigger and bigger roles in our lives. Of course, we are a long – long – way from an AI dominated world, but in the meantime what we need is a strong innovation landscape that can help us keep progressing towards that goal.
We just need the cronies to stay out of the way of the small inventors.
and they are not even breathing hard.....
Remember the cabal looks at us as the feeders. When we’re no use to them....
I had one last night with Fava beans. Please don’t let the overlords know.
As the video progresses, the vocalist is further and further transformed. She's got GREAT abs for a girl, too!
No, humanity is not better off because of robotics and AI.
It's exactly the opposite.
We just need the cronies to stay out of the way of the small inventors.
Is he serious? “Small inventors” don’t even show on the radar. Stories are made up about the little guy(s) inventing something or starting a company from the bootstraps. Bull. Inventions and technology largely come out of - and have always - government, military and intelligence (see DARPA). Like the internet!
Border patrol robots, Antifa ass-beating robots, election security robots.
Bring them.
That’s getting to be pretty much the case now.
It didn’t use to be. Hewlett-Packard started in a garage with an Air Force (I think I remember it being Air Force.) contract.
I attended a recent Air Force SBIR\STTR workshop where the AF rep said if you’re a guy in a garage or you have a result in a university lab don’t bother. It has to be at least a TRL 4 of development before we would consider. Someone asked him so then no more “Hewlett-Packards” and he said yes. I got the AF rep into a sidebar conversation and got him to admit they really mean TRL 5.
The more folks are screaming for a minimum $15/hr salary, the more I think the fast food industries are training robots to flip burgers, fry chicken, cook hot dogs, make sandwiches, coffee, etc etc etc.
Once robots start flipping burgers and they can get rid of all that expensive labor, I expect their prices to dramatically decrease.
Once robots start flipping burgers and they can get rid of all that expensive labor ...Will there be enough useless eaters around for it to be profitable to sell them hamburgers?
I use to work for the water department. At first they educated, then supplied water conservation devices, once the water consumption started to fall, they jacked up the water rates.
Worked at Turkey point nuclear power house. We had 5K men on the payroll and payroll was 6M a week. FPL went to the public utilities commission and begged for a rate increase. They didn’t get what they asked for, however, once they got it we got laid off.
If they cost of labor goes down prices will remain the same.
Sure. Not long back when I was in CA, while they were rolling out the red carpet for millions of water consuming illegals, at the same time told everyone to conserve on water. When everyone cut back about 10%, they simply jacked up the water rates.
Hard to believe people just keep taking this bull s**t.
When Westinghouse was making incandescent lightbulbs in the Midwest, Indiana i think, Jeffrey Ismelt closed the factory, killed 1400 jobs, built a plant in China making florescents bulbs, prices never went down.
He did however get a big raise from Westinghouse and Clinton made him the job czar. Crazy I know.
Here are some trained robots.:)
https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw
You just hit upon the reason corporations are in favor of progressive policies like welfare. They sell products to food stamp and welfare recipients. Those recipients get government money to pay for the products. Corporations also sell to government agencies at all levels. Corporations support progressive programs that spend money to solve problems, like data processing, office supplies, and weapons.
The government gets the money from future taxpayers. As long as there is a future with taxpayers who haven’t been born yet the government will be able to borrow money. Why do we have a national debt of over 20 trillion dollars?
No they’re not
Let me know when a robot can do any part of my job
1- Tie two 30 foot ladders onto my truck
2- Drive to my job site
3- Take ladders off truck put up on house tire them to house
4- Go up ladders and assess roof and put in roof anchors
5- All solar panels racking wiring. Etc. onto roof. Up those ladders
6- Take electrical panel off the wall ; take all the wires out for the new panel; put the new one in ; and put all the wires back rewire the entire electrical panel
7- Finish project; meet inspector and pass inspection
OK genius
Let me know when you find a robot that can do any of. 1-7. Ok ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.