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The Left is no longer keeping their love for communism a secret. They conveniently overlook the many millions that system has murdered and its consistent economic failures and now now promote it as something very desireable. The latest shtick in communism promotion is via the device of science fiction to look at a future of robot communism or "Fully Automated Luxury Communism" (FALC) in which people no longer need to work because robots take care of their needs. Ironically, such a future could never be attained under communism because the most advanced technology has always been developed under capitalism so perhaps...

“IT’S CHEATING.” That’s the response you’ll hear from self-proclaimed music purists talking about technological innovation in song creation. Sampling, synthesizers, drum machines, Auto-Tune—all have been derided as lazy ways to make chart-topping hits because they take away the human element. (With apologies to Vanilla Ice, Gary Numan, Prince, and T-Pain.) The new argument among fans and musicians will be about the use of artificial intelligence in songwriting. According to several estimates, in the next decade, between 20% and 30% of the top 40 singles will be written partially or totally with machine-learning software. Today, recording pros can use A.I.-powered programs...

Amazon warehouse workers are monitored by tracking systems that measure each employee’s productivity, issue warnings for workers that lag and fire those consistently behind, according to documents obtained by The Verge. Amazon offers a base $15 an hour wage and its warehouses, called fulfillment centers, are often competitive to work at. The company is continuously replacing slow performing employees with new hires. An automated system tracks employees and gives pink slips to consistent underperformers, The Verge reported. An Amazon spokesperson told The Daily Caller News Foundation that no employee is fired without meeting with a supervisor.

Corey Booker and some of his Senate colleagues would like to introduce a new area of government regulation in the tech industry. We need to be keeping a closer eye on the development of Artificial Intelligence, but not because of the coming robot revolution. The problem, you see, is that the computer algorithms are (wait for it)… racist. And that justifies some sort of government oversight of the tech sector beyond what we already have in place today. (Associated Press) Congress is starting to show interest in prying open the “black box” of tech companies’ artificial intelligence with oversight that...

Japan's space agency wants to create a moon base with the help of robots that can work autonomously, with little human supervision. The project, which has racked up three years of research so far, is a collaboration between the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the construction company Kajima Corp., and three Japanese universities: Shibaura Institute of Technology, The University of Electro-Communications and Kyoto University. Recently, the collaboration did an experiment on automated construction at the Kajima Seisho Experiment Site in Odawara (central Japan). A 7-ton autonomous backhoe went through its paces at the site, going through procedures such as driving...

Nanofabbed bots are small enough to be delivered via syringe, raising all sorts of fantastic voyage possibilities. Nick Carne reports. How do you build a very big army of very small robots? Start with a 10-centimetre silicon wafer. That’s what engineers from the University of Pennsylvania in the US did to create a million of them in just a few weeks using nanofabrication techniques borrowed from the semiconductor industry. Each robot is wirelessly powered, able to walk and survive harsh environments, and tiny enough to be injected through an ordinary hypodermic needle, which opens up all manner of possibilities. "When...

The Navy is bulking up its fleet of autonomous robot vessels with the purchase of a cadre of four of Boeing's extremely large and incredibly grandiose unmanned Orca submarines. On Feb. 13, the Navy awarded Boeing a $43 million contract to produce four of the 51-foot Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicles (XLUUVs) that are capable of traveling some 6,500 nautical miles unaided, the US Naval Institute reported. According to USNI, the Navy could potentially deploy the Orcas from existing vessels to conduct "mine countermeasures, anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, electronic warfare and strike missions." But as Popular Mechanics points out,...

As journalists face increased layoffs despite the growing appetite for up-to-the-minute, timely news, a new trend has quietly been disrupting the news industry. Enter the automated reporter. News organizations are increasingly turning toward artificial intelligence (AI) for production, using a variety of new automated systems to pump out content with minimal need for direct human input. According to a report by The New York Times, Bloomberg News relies on a system called Cyborg to produce about a third of its articles. Most of Cyborg’s output takes the form of company earnings reports that are rife with percentages, charts, and other...

It's the not-so-far-away future in San Francisco. One-Wheels and e-scooters litter the road. Your self-driving car has just deposited you at Union Square, and you've instructed it to return in an hour, after you've purchased the latest it-smartphone, the iPhone Z. Your autonomous vehicle, intelligent as it is, knows finding a parking spot downtown is nearly impossible at this hour, plus parking lots are known to charge flat rates of $15 and up. Instead of parking, your car decides to cruise...

Walmart announced on Monday that it plans to deploy 360 autonomous custodial robots by the end of January that will mop the floors of some of its stores. The retailer said in a joint statement with developer Brain Corp. that the machines will be able to scrub floors even with customers around. The robots will feature multiple sensors that allow them to scan for people and obstacles. "BrainOS technology allows robots to effectively and safely function in complex, crowded environments, ensuring increased productivity and efficiency across applications," Brain Corp. CEO Eugene Izhikevich said in a statement. "We look forward to...

SALINAS, Calif. — As a boy, Abel Montoya remembers his father arriving home from the lettuce fields each evening, the picture of exhaustion, mud caked knee-high on his trousers. “Dad wanted me to stay away from manual labor. He was keen for me to stick to the books,” Mr. Montoya said. So he did, and went to college. Yet Mr. Montoya, a 28-year-old immigrant’s son, recently took a job at a lettuce-packing facility, where it is wet, loud, freezing — and much of the work is physically taxing, even mind-numbing. Now, though, he can delegate some of the worst work...

The ABC is being slammed, yet again. This time for their most recent episode of Q&A, where sexologist Nikki Goldstein suggested socially inept people could benefit from sex bots. “I feel like there are people who really do struggle to have these intimate connections,” Goldstein said. “I’ve interviewed people before that go to brothels, and they feel that the only way they can have this girlfriend experience is to be paying for it. They don’t necessarily want to be there.” “Now when I think of sex robots and where we’re going with A.I. technology, I feel like that’s the perfect...

The staff at John & Tony’s Steakhouse in West Chicago know the couple well: There’s 54-year-old John – a genial man with a big, partially toothless smile who works in truck deliveries – and his wife, Jackie, a petite, dark-haired beauty in a wheelchair whose favorite dish is bacon-wrapped dates. The inseparable pair are staples at John & Tony’s, and it’s their annual dining spot for celebrating Valentine’s Day – but the wait staff are accustomed to taking other reservation calls, too, from people who simply want to sit near them to observe John’s doting love. Because Jackie is no...

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — The security force of the future is already patrolling several neighborhoods in the Tri-State Area. The robotic protectors can see what you’re doing and even talk back to you, but the machines created by a New Yorker have prompted serious privacy concerns, CBS2’s Clark Fouraker reported Tuesday. One of the models, named “Rosie,” uses the same technology as a self-driving car to patrol the sidewalks at the Lefrak City Apartments in Queens.

I was falsely accused of having an affair and fathering a child with a woman I never met. A WOMAN I NEVER MET. I am a reasonably locally-prominent person. I had the misfortune of being on the front page of a local paper one day when a lady I'd never met gave birth. I gave a lot of money to a school. She saw me on the paper. She saw I was wealthy and reasonably important. So when the clerk came in with the birth certificate form to fill out, she put my name. She went on welfare and concocted...

Human sex workers are fighting back against sex robots, claiming they are dehumanizing and could turn users into predators. Three women who work at Sheila's Ranch in Nevada toldThe Sun they were firmly against the new technology, which has created dolls that look like humans, used for sex acts. They say the dolls are dehumanizing, encourage violence against women and promote a lack of empathy in sexual scenarios.

Robots can develop prejudices like “racism and sexism” all on their own, a shocking new study has found. Artificial intelligence experts performed thousands of simulations on robot brains, revealing how they split off into groups and treat “outsiders” differently. Computer scientists and psychologists from Cardiff University and MIT teamed up to test how robots identify each other.

... the pilots cited cases where, they argued, the action of pilots had saved an airplane and its passengers when the computers could not have. In at least two of those cases they had a point. In January 2009 Captain “Sully” Sullenberger saved the lives of 150 passengers by making an emergency landing on the Hudson River. And in November, 2010 what would have been one of the world’s worst air disasters was averted when Captain Richard de Crespigny of the Australian airline Qantas managed to get a giant Airbus A380 that had been badly crippled by an exploding engine...

There could be a future where robots will do most of your grocery shopping for you. And for some Walmart shoppers, that future is getting even closer. Walmart (WMT), the world’s largest seller of groceries, will begin piloting a robotics system for its fast-growing online grocery pickup (OGP) service in one of its stores. The retailer has teamed up with Massachusetts-based Alert Innovation to deploy its Alphabot, a first-of-its-kind technology, in its supercenter store in Salem, New Hampshire just off of Interstate 93. “This is about the evolution of retail,” Alert Innovation CEO John Lert told Yahoo Finance. “So, we...

As the advancement of technology continues to replace the need for human labor, American History X director Tony Kaye is undertaking a new — and maybe controversial — step in filmmaking by employing an Artificial Intelligent (A.I.) actor as the lead in his next film, 2nd Born. Unlike Robin Williams’ 1999 film Bicentennial Man or the Steven Spielberg-directed A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Kaye is aiming to cast a real robot, who will be trained in different acting methods and techniques. The idea, which originated from Kaye and producer Sam Khoze, is to forgo the use of computer-generated effects in favor of...