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Well 2016 has rolled around and one of the first articles I saw was about George Hotz and his home-brew self driving car. He is claiming that his car is not programmed by rules to drive, but rather was taught to drive by watching him drive. If this is true, then we need to chat. First, every Freeper should read this article in it's entirety. http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2015-george-hotz-self-driving-car/ Second, we really need to think about what this will mean to us in a future that is coming a lot faster than any of you all might think. What will it mean when...

From the army of machines that work in Amazon warehouses to automatons that milk cows, the job-taking robots of the future are among us. Now the lettuce in your salad of the future might be grown by robots too. Oh, by “future,” we mean 2017. That’s the hope of Spread, a company in Kyoto, Japan, that plans to begin constructing the world’s first large-scale lettuce factory next spring. Once it’s fully operational, the entire process of growing a head of lettuce—from seeding to harvest—will be automated and run by robots. The efficiency of machines will enable the factory to produce...

So question du jour (and I'm asking it in several places today: it was set off by the attached link and its' discussion here on FR. . ) Replacing low-skilled workers with automation, and now robots, has been an accellerating trend for over a century now, and really looks like we're soon going to hit the point where the curve goes hyperbolic. (especially with the push for $15/hour for minimum wage. . .) Given that, as more and more skilled jobs are automated out of existence. . . .what do we do about the now-unemployed, and likely permanently unemployable? So...

"I believe that anyone who has a job and works full time, they should be able to pay the things that sustain life: food, shelter and clothing. I can't even do that."That rather depressing quote is from 61-year old Rebecca Cornick. She’s a grandmother and a 9-year Wendy’s veteran who spoke to CBS News. Rebecca makes $9 an hour and her plight is representative of fast food workers across the country who are campaigning for higher pay. The fast food worker pay debate is part of a larger discussion as "states and cities across the country [wrestle] with the idea of...

A Chinese firm specialising in precision technology has set up the first unmanned factory at Dongguan city where all the processes are operated by robots, regarded as futuristic solution to tide over China's looming demographic crisis and dependence on manual workers. In the plant, all the processes are operated by computer- controlled robots, computer numerical control machining equipment, unmanned transport trucks and automated warehouse equipment. The technical staff just sits at the computer and monitors through a central control system. At the workshop of Changying Precision Technology Company in Dongguan, known as the "world factory", which manufactures cell phone modules,...

1. Youngstown, U.S.A. The end of work is still just a futuristic concept for most of the United States, but it is something like a moment in history for Youngstown, Ohio, one its residents can cite with precision: September 19, 1977. For much of the 20th century, Youngstown’s steel mills delivered such great prosperity that the city was a model of the American dream, boasting a median income and a homeownership rate that were among the nation’s highest. But as manufacturing shifted abroad after World War II, Youngstown steel suffered, and on that gray September afternoon in 1977, Youngstown Sheet...

Ever heard of the Luddites, who took their name from Ned Ludd? They were English textile workers who protested, from 1811 to 1816, against the development and implementation of labor-saving technologies....... .... Robots are causing a new Industrial Revolution..... [SNIP] ....Liberals are even proposing the regulation of technological advancement..... .........One aspect of the massive agrarian job loss in America was that the unemployed farm workers did not sit idle. Instead of lamenting their fate, waiting for government to do something and/or take care of them, they took advantage of the fact that new technology created hundreds of millions of jobs...

Self-driving cars are taking to the streets in California this summer, but the Golden State isn't the only one opening its roads to autonomous cars.Virginia just announced that 70 miles of highway in the Commonwealth would be open to self-driving cars, like the cars in Google's fleet. Any autonomous vehicle wanting to travel those routes, called the Virginia Automated Corridors, will be overseen by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute, which helped the state government plan the project.As the Richmond Times-Dispatchreports the plan is for companies to test how their cars react in real-world situations on highways packed with human drivers....

A different cluetrain By Charlie Stross Right now, I'm chewing over the final edits on a rather political book. And I think, as it's a near future setting, I should jot down some axioms about politics ... 1. We're living in an era of increasing automation. And it's trivially clear that the adoption of automation privileges capital over labour (because capital can be substituted for labour, and the profit from its deployment thereby accrues to capital rather than being shared evenly across society). 2. A side-effect of the rise of capital is the financialization of everything—capital flows towards profit centres...

NAGASAKI – A hotel with robot staff and face recognition instead of room keys will open this summer in Huis Ten Bosch in Nagasaki Prefecture, the operator of the theme park said Tuesday. The two-story Henn na Hotel is scheduled to open July 17. It will be promoted with the slogan “A Commitment for Evolution,” Huis Ten Bosch Co. said. The name reflects how the hotel will “change with cutting-edge technology,” a company official said. This is a play on words: “Henn” is also part of the Japanese word for change. Robots will provide porter service, room cleaning, front desk...

Too many computers and not enough “hands-on” flying mean most pilots would have fallen victim to the weather that brought down AirAsia 8501. As searchers close in on what appears to be the main wreckage of AirAsia Flight 8501 the retrieval of the airplane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders should soon follow. The wreckage lies no more than around 100 feet down in the Java Sea. Although there are strong currents and poor visibility, compounded by the high seas generated by stormy weather, divers should be able to locate the rear end of the fuselage where the flight data...

The technologies of the past, by replacing human muscle, increased the value of human effort – and in the process drove rapid economic progress. Those of the future, by substituting for man’s senses and brain, will accelerate that process – but at the risk of creating millions of citizens who are simply unable to contribute economically, and with greater damage to an already declining middle class. Estimates of general rates of technological progress are always imprecise, but it is fair to say that, in the past, progress came more slowly. Henry Adams, the historian, measured technological progress by the power...

A new report looks at the state of the legal profession in 2030, and it doesn't look too pretty as far as employment is concerned, io9 reports. "It is no longer unrealistic to consider that workplace robots and their AI processing systems could reach the point of general production by 2030," the report, by Jomati Consultants, says. And those robots could eventually "do the work of a dozen low-level associates. They would not get tired. They would not seek advancement (or) pay rises." A firm's upper echelons would still be populated by actual human lawyers, but the need for associates...

There was something pathetically nostalgic at the specter earlier this month of fast-food workers demanding compensation to the tune of $15 an hour for performing jobs that require almost no skills beyond not being in a coma. It recalled a halcyon age very long ago when management depended on menial labor, when a general strike of unskilled workers could bring bosses to their knees. But now a company called Momentum Machines is touting a device that can allegedly shoot out 360 custom-ordered and fully wrapped burgers per hour, rendering the very idea of an exploited and undercompensated “fast-food worker” a...

DETROIT (Reuters) - An Acura RLX sedan demonstrated an unusual way to tow another car this week: the vehicles were not physically attached. The second car drove itself, following instructions beamed over by the first in a feat of technology that indicates a new stage in automation is happening faster than many expected. An Acura RLX sedan brakes to avoid a mannequin "pedestrian"  

Researchers based in Norway believe that in around 10 years time cargo ships will have the technology to sail the seas without the need of a captain or crew. Marintek, part of the SINTEF group based in Norway, is one of a number of partners working on developing systems which can operate without the need for humans. The "Seatonomy" project is looking to have ships sailing without human crews in the next 10 to 20 years. The 12 million kroner ($1.9 million) research investment by SINTEF could actually improve ship safety as human error causes more than 75 percent of...

Progress in robotics, from drones to medical applications, is starting to come at a fast clip. Do you want your robot to cook your food, or just deliver it?The days of drones filling the sky and robots roaming in our streets are not far removed from reality anymore, and scenes from movies like Star Wars, Minority Report and I, Robot will be common soon. Just consider some of the ways that robots have started to permeate our lives. Start with Amazon, which is taking to drones in a big way. The online shopping giant started a new phase in high-tech...

Look out Rosie the Robot, Starwood Hotels' Aloft brand has a taskmaster of its own. His (or her?) name; A.L.O. pronounced "el-oh", the hotels' first Botlr (short of robotic butler.) Standing just under 3 feet tall, A.L.O. comes dressed in a vinyl-collared butler uniform and will soon be on call all day and night to fulfill requests from guests. Forget your toothpaste? Need more towels? How about a late-night chocolate bar? All guests of the hotel have to do is call the front desk, where staff will load up the Botlr with requested items, punch in the guest's room number...

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers revived a debate I’d had with futurist Ray Kurzweil in 2012 about the jobless future. He echoed the words of Peter Diamandis, who says that we are moving from a history of scarcity to an era of abundance. Then he noted that the technologies that make such abundance possible are allowing production of far more output using far fewer people. On all this, Summers is right. Within two decades, we will have almost unlimited energy, food, and clean water; advances in medicine will allow us to live...

The touch screens will only accept debit or credit cards, adding to the slow death knell of cash and coins. This all goes along with an overall revamp of McDonald's restaurants worldwide aimed at projecting a modern image as opposed to the old-fashioned golden arches with a slightly creepy (to my taste anyway) clown guy hanging around the french fries.