On Cyborgs, Singularities, and the 2045 Initiative

Oh, you vodka-soaked Russian bastards, what madness are you cooking up this time?

Dmitry Itskov, a mad Russian billionaire, has decided its high time humans cast off their mortal shells in favor of a sleeker, digital form. He believes its time we push our technology to the limits to create a method of immortality for the personality, a freeing of consciousness from the fleshy sac it’s currently attached to.

Itskov’s baby is the 2045 Initiative, a grand plan to create machines complex enough to house a human personality, paving the way for the technological singularity (rise of superintelligence through technology).

It’s like he’s never read his O.C. Bible. “Thou shalt not make a machine in the likeness of a human mind.” That ringing any bells, buddy?

The 2045 Initiative is comprised of four phases (avatars):

Avatar A (2020)

Using a brain-machine interface, a human will control a robotic human replica. While it’s not as impressive as killing someone with your brain, I suppose it’s something.

Avatar B (2025)

Okay, here’s where things start to get freaky. The second phase of Itskov’s plan involves planting a human mind into a machine at the end of his/her life, effectively granting him/her immortality. But this immortality will come at a terrible price- at this stage, emotions and personality will be lost in the transfer.

I’ve seen this before. Now, where was it…

OH YEAH. They’ve already done this shit on Doctor Who:

You will be upgraded.

A recurring baddie on the long-running British show are the Cybermen, machines who take humans and “upgrade” them by making them into emotionless robotic beings.

And Itskov wants to start them up here on Earth? WAY TO GO… wait, if it means a certain blue police box is going to appear on a street somewhere, I say fucking go for it. Robotize the masses, Itskov. I’d love to meet The Doctor.

Avatar C (2035)

At this point, Itskov figures we’ll have successfully created a computer model of human consciousness, so we’ll now be able to move a human personality (emotions, memories, and all) into a machine.

Oh yeah, that’s never ended badly:

Oh… it’s you.

Avatar D (2045)

The final stage of Itskov’s master plan is to free humanity completely from physical forms. Humans will be digital creatures, living online in a kind of hive mind, with individual personalities surfacing as holographic avatars to interact with the physical world.

…

…

Why?

I guess that’s my main question here. While I (like many people) have always been fascinated by the idea of downloading a human personality into a machine (along with the ethical quandaries surrounding such a notion), this final stage just seems ridiculous to me. Something you read about in a good (or utterly awful) sci-fi novel, ponder for a bit, then promptly dismiss.

Then again, if all this goes down, I could be a digital Kerrigan. And all you bitches can be my zerglings. Mwa ha ha.

…Mine is an evil laugh.

To be completely honest, I guess the final stage of the 2045 Initiative is so repulsive to me because it seems utterly impossible to create an internet-based “hive mind” scenario that still maintains the individuality of the personalities within it. There’s a reason every goddamn swarm/hive mind of sci-fi is comprised of unemotional, non-individualistic creatures- group/hive consciousnesses are essentially one consciousness. There can be no real individuality because every unit within the hive is just a piece of the same whole, a cog in the same machine. Personalities get in the way of this kind of collective consciousness, impeding the group (by daring to dissent or have new ideas) and never achieving the snap decisions and power of many individuals acting as one singular unit.

There is a power in collective consciousness, but it’s a power that comes at the cost of individuality. We see this scenario play out time and time again in the sci-fi world. Halo’s flood, Starcraft’s Zerg, Star Trek’s Borg, Doctor Who’s Ood… The list goes on.

Now, in fiction, we see a handful of these group conscious that allow for the retention of some individuality. But could such a thing occur in a digital world? When we are all electric signals, bytes of memory, moving around the globe through the same channels, exchanging information and interacting at unbelievable speeds… would there be any real way to preserve individual consciousnesses? Or would we all eventually merge into one collective, global consciousness, humanity becoming one massive superintelligence?

Of course, Itskov faces a great many obstacles on this path. Technology is currently not progressing at the rate he would like, and it’s going to take more than just his billions to fund this venture. Personally, I don’t think he’ll ever raise the necessary monies to push this plan along according to his timeline. But if the money is found and that major hurdle is no longer standing in his way…

I ask you, galleons, to think about this idea. What kind of man would even put forth such an idea? This man would:

Look at him, galleons. I’m pretty sure this guy’s a goddamn robot already. He’s a Cyberman in disguise, trying to make us all a crazy, digital consciousness to suit his alien creators. Look at those dead, soulless eyes.

DON’T LET HIM GET YOUR DELICIOUS HUMAN MEATS, WORLD.

Just Because Robots Are Cool

And also a little scary, but I think it’s important to stay abreast of all advances in robot technology. Just so I know how advanced they’re getting (and so I’ll know when to start building my bunker and stocking it full of the size 10 cans of dried foods available in the “Emergency Preparedness” section of the local grocery stores- I shit you not, that’s totally a thing here).

But despite what I think is a very reasonable fear of my future robot overlords, I am utterly fascinated by robotics.

Scientists (despite all the sci-fi books and films depicting humanoid robots rising up and taking over the world) have been trying for a very long time to creating human-sized robots capable of doing tasks like make a bed, prepare a meal, or dig a ditch. One of the biggest problems they run into, though, is that current robots do not function well on soft or shifting (like sand or loose dirt) surfaces. Hard, flat surfaces? No problem. Carpet, grass, or the beach? Well… that’s another story.

And so, being thwarted by nature, scientists have decided to study their enemy to find a clue as to how to overcome it. And lo, they came across an idea- while watching lizards run across the ground.

Folks at the Georgia Institute of Technology have come up with some exciting new predictive algorithms that help compensate for ground shift/flow. They then built a six-legged “lizardbot” using a 3-D printer to test these predictions. The little robots was able to scamper across sand just like a real lizard:

“It was our first attempt [at building a robot based the new algorithms] and we’re happy it works,” said biophysicist Daniel Goldman.

Like most advances in robotics, this is a small achievement that will (hopefully) pave the way for further advancements and research. Bit by bit, scientists are figuring out how to mimic the movement of a variety of animals. This is opening the door to more complex robotic creatures in the future.

In fact, Goldman and his team hope the lizardbot’s predictive models will serve as a big step toward putting legged robots on Mars.

That’s good- Curiosity and Opportunity could use some company.

YOU’RE JUST AFTER MY ROBOT CATERPILLAR, AREN’T YOU?

Steampunk (which, I’m sorry, I still think is really cool but hate to admit to because it’s FUCKING EVERYWHERE and I am, apparently, a giant hipster tool who only likes things “before they were popular” and now I have to go shoot myself or drink some PBR to either end or finish the hipster-douche transformation) loves it some clockwork mechs. Hell, slap some gears on something and steampunkers jizz themselves over it.

But if you really want one of the most awesome clockwork pieces of all, you don’t have to go to a convention- you need to go to a museum.

Henri Maillardet was a Swiss watchmaker and mechanician of the late 18th/early 19th centuries. Besides producing more ordinary clocks, Maillardet also made various automata. His most famous set depict magicians, while others could write in French and English as well as draw pictures.¹

But while those larger automata are more famous, I don’t think they are nearly as lovely as some of his smaller creations. Of particular note are his delicate, bejeweled caterpillars:

[vimeo 16128282 w=400 h=225]

Created in 1820, the Ethiopian Caterpillar (as Maillardet called it) was first shown at an exhibition of Maillardet’s miniature clockwork robots in London. Only six caterpillars are still known to exist, five of which are in Europe (some at museums, others in private collections).

The 200-year-old clockwork robot is really a marvel. Remember, there’s not a damn thing electronic about it. The little guy is made entirely of clockwork parts… and he’s just so pretty. The caterpillar has 11 jointed ring segments and is studded with studded overall with gold-set rubies, turquoise, emeralds, seed pearls, and diamonds.

Not only were Maillardet’s little caterpillars a wonder of pre-electronic robotics, they are also fucking exquisite. Can’t help but wish some of our (admittedly) more functional modern bots could have half the style and panache of this little clockwork caterpillar.

I mean, come on- you can’t help but be impressed by this. Good show, Maillardet, my old bean.

1 An amusing little anecdote about these latter automatons: One was given to the Franklin Institute in 1928, but no one knew who created it. When the automaton was restored to working order, however, it told them itself by writing “written by the automaton of Maillardet”. Good job, clockwork robot. Good job.

Beat-Bots

A few months ago, dear galleons, we talked about artificial jellyfish created using rat heart muscle tissue. Some real Frankstein-y cyborg shit.

But of course, those jellies were just the beginning. Behold the latest in rat heart robotics:

 

That odd little guy is a little biological robot that walks. Well, okay, he doesn’t so much walk as he inches along as the rat heart muscle powering him causes his little body to flex.

Bio-bots like this guy were created at the University of Illinois. The 7mm long bots were printed on 3D printers using hydrogel (a biological substance frequently used in tissue engineering). After the bot was created, the underside of it was coated with a layer of living cardiac tissue. Rat heart tissue, to be precise.

As the heart tissue “‘beats”, the board-like protrusion on the bot contracts and curls under, pushing the little bot just the teeniest bit forward. Slowly, it can inch its way across a surface.

And I do mean slowly. The top speed one of these little bots has been clocked at is 1mm every 4 seconds (1.5cm per minute).

So… why make them?

The Illinois researchers hope the bots could (with many modifications) eventually work as toxin sensors, going into various environments and ferreting out toxins, then (possibly) neutralizing them.

Until then, they plan on trying to create bots in different shapes, as well as seeding the bots with different types of cells (like nerve cells or light-sensitive cells) to give them new capabilities.

The future is coming for us, galleons.

…It’s just inching along really, really slowly.

Three Paths to Recumbent Robotic Rapture

Galleons, the world right now is suffering from future priapism. And by that, I mean we have had a collective, raging boner for the tech and advancements promised to us by science fiction authors for decades. We all want cars that can drive themselves and holographic computers we can interact with more organically, computers that will anticipate our whims.

And so, we’ve started a smart tech revolution. Smart phones, smart cars, smart boards. We have QR codes and 3D televisions and motion/voice activated game systems. Siri is everyone’s new best friend.

So, it really shouldn’t come as a surprise that smart tech has found its way into slightly more naughty arenas as well. Turns out sex toys are getting an intelligence boost as well.

If letting Skynet near your genitals is your bag, oh boy, you’re going to love this.

For the Ladies

First up is Siri’s slutty cousin, SaSi. SaSi is a fairly innocuous looking little vibrator:

In fact, it barely looks like a sex toy at all. However, this little thing is one of the smartest sex toys on the market.

So… what the hell does it do?

Those buttons on the top there are the controls for SaSi. Which, if you are familiar with vibrators at all (if not, you’ll just have to trust an expert here), already seem a bit complex. Most vibes have a simple wheel or set of buttons that control the intensity/pattern of the vibration. SaSi, on the other hand, lets you do a hell of a lot more.

On the underside of SaSi is a little nubbin (for your little nubbin… jesus, never let me call a clit that again, galleons). HINT: This is where the magic happens.

Not only does SaSi vibrate, that little ball on her belly also manipulates the clit and labial region. The ball moves in 11 patterns- U’s, J’s, and a variety of arcs. So, SaSi requires 5 buttons to run her… as well as a 22-page instruction manual.

But while SaSi’s variety of choices certainly makes her an interesting addition to one’s sexual toy chest, that’s not what makes her smart. See, SaSi can learn.

You can actually program the device to learn your favorite combinations of moves to make a personalized masturbatory experience. So, if you have $150 lying around (the future isn’t cheap, you know), apparently this is the vibe to own.

…If only I could also program it to growl physics at me during the act. Then it would be perfect.

For the Gents

This is a toy that’s been around for a while, and might not seem all that smart when compared to the others, but I’ll include it mostly because the guys (who already get shafted when it comes to sex toys) don’t really have a good smart sex toy option. Which is odd, seeing as everyone always touts males as being the ones who want all teh tech gadgetz.

Sure, there are some toys out there that are clever (and some computer programs and robotic love dolls that range from the weird to the sad to what-the-ever-loving-fuck), but none that really scream FUTURE SEXIN’. The closest you poor bastards get is the Autoblow Blast! (a name which necessitates an exclamation point after it in my book), an automated blowjob mechanism.

If it looks like a Fleshlight with a remote attached, that’s because that’s essentially what it is. Within that dark cylinder is a set of spring-loaded beads (always with the beads and balls, these sex toys) covered by a silicone sleeve. So, you stick your cock in that thing and let the little balls massage your dong while the thing also applies some suction.

Sounds about right to me.

…

What? Don’t most people perform blowjobs while simultaneously gargling marbles?

Anyway, it’s just a vaguely robotic blowjob in a can.

Sorry, guys. Your future looks really, really sad (perhaps you will be too busy banging sexy aliens to have to worry about this kind of thing, yes?).

For Couples

Video chat isn’t the only thing helping long distance couples keep the passion alive.

…Actually, that’s fairly close (and does, in fact, exist). But we want something that isn’t fit for prime time television. We want something a bit more intimate.

In short, we want the LovePalz:

LovePalz features two toys- the pink “Hera” for ladies (aka The Shaft) and the blue “Zeus” for gents (aka The Sheath). The devices are wi-fi enabled and communicate with each other while in use through the LovePalz app (which also allows for video chat, so you can watch your lover as you’re giving them a hawt robot dicking). So, The Sheath senses how fast the dude’s pumping and transmits that info to The Shaft, which matches said speed. The Shaft, meanwhile, sense how tightly the lady’s inner muscles are clenching and sends that info over to The Sheath, which configures its own tightness to match.

Interesting, to be sure. What’s more interesting is the fact that the “Zeus” toy is described as having an “automatic piston.” I’m sorry, but if I were a guy, I’d be hesitant to stick my cock into something that sounds like it belongs beneath the hood of my car.

Just sayin’.

Imma Comin’ For Ya, Curiosity

Galleons, do you remember when you were a kid and you got your first bike? Oh, the freedom. Oh, the speed. Oh, the places you’d go on that shiny white bicycle. At least, that’s what you thought. The reality was far more limited in scope. While you might have that lovely new bike capable of taking you all over the neighborhood, you were made to ride circles around your block (safe from the perils of oh-so-dangerous street crossing, but not from your asshat brother throwing rocks at you as you rode by your front lawn).

Sometimes, though, you’d get to the backside of the block and stop. You’d look around, as if expecting your mother to be standing behind you, watching your every move for signs of deviancy. You’d see the coast was, in fact, clear. And you’d see that stop sign across the street. A simple thing, the stop sign. But it became this beacon. You had to get over there. You had to just touch the thing. You had to prove that you were old enough and responsible enough and just plain badass enough to cross that fucking street.

And so, you did. You darted across the street, little legs pumping furiously. And you stood on that corner for a moment, your hand sliding down the warm metal signpost, your heart racing, a huge grin plastered on your face. A small thing, but an important one. You’d cross that street again with a new confidence, ride lazily to your backyard, park your bike, pet the dog, and ignore your brother as he whines about never getting to leave the yard. You don’t care. You are the master of the road.

When we went to the moon, it was like darting across that road all over again. It was the first taste of that freedom, that adventure, that we’d been yearning for as we built our first shuttles. But we never went any further than that. Instead, we endlessly circle our cosmic block in our space station, looking out across that metaphorical road and yearning to visit the other side, to see what’s beyond

Right now, robots (even ones I have completely anthropomorphized to be something like an SUV-sized WALL-E) are the lone colonists of our red neighbor. It’s like the 7-11 two blocks away that we don’t dare to visit but want to because we desperately want a Slurpee. Oh, we say we’re going to go. We keep promising we’ll try. Russia’s even locking astronauts away for months at a time to study how the prolonged isolation of such a trip would affect people.

A big barrier to space travel beyond our own moon is that space is just so… vast. As we all learned from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:

Space is big. You just won’t believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it’s a long way down the road to the chemist’s, but that’s just peanuts to space.

And because space is so goddamn big, it makes travel through it a bit of a knotty issue. It just takes too damn long to get anywhere. Hell, it would take 6-8 months alone to get to Mars. Fucking Mars. The planet right the fuck next to us.

But what if I told you we’re currently developing an engine that would cut that down to just three month? An engine that ran on, oh, motherfucking dilithium crystals.

I’m not even kidding, dear galleons. Right now,  a team at the University of Hunstville, working in collaboration with Boeing, NASA and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, are developing a fusion engine that would use deuterium and lithium-6 (okay, so it’s not quite dilithium, but it’s close) in a crystalline structure as fuel.

The Charger-1 Pulsed Power Generator, as they’re calling it, would pass millions of amps through thin lithium wires to generate up to three terawatts of power. The wires would then vaporize into plasma, which would be collapsed into the deuterium/lithium-6 core. Under such high pressures, deuterium and lithium-6 undergo a fusion reaction.

And BAM! An engine twice as fast as what we’re currently working with. An engine that could hurtle us through space at 100,000 km/h (about how fast the Earth travels around the sun).

Of course, this is still in the early stages. In fact, fusion isn’t even a fully viable fuel source quite yet, though we’re making some enormous strides in that arena. Maybe we’ll soon be able to send people to Mars.

You know, so the robots aren’t so lonely.

In Which I Decide to Build Professor Ballard a Lovebot

Galleons, I figured out why my fish hates me: he’s lonely. I am terrible company, and I feel like he might desire a little fishy tête-à-tête. Some quality time with another betta. You know, a little conversation, some playful flirting, and then BAM! Wild aquatic relations against the glass wall of the tank.

The Professor’s probably got mad game.

And while fish are all about the “lay some eggs and fertilize them” bit and less about naughty underwater shenanigans, bettas actually have a bizarrely intimate portion of their mating ritual. In order for the female to release her eggs, the male betta has to embrace her and squeeze them out.

Which can end horribly if the male is a bit too enthusiastic.

Now, much as I’d like the Professor to get some, I really have no need for little Professor spawnlets with some frilly tart. So, I think it’s time to get him a robot companion.

After all, Henrik Christensen of the European Robotics Research Network said that, “in five years time people would be having sex with functional robots.” I feel it’s only fair we give fish the same option.

***

All joking aside, scientists really are making robotic fishes. Of course, these robofish aren’t tiny sex aids. No, the robofish have been created to increase understanding of collective fish behavior.

Essentially, we’re creating tiny, fishie overlords.

Over at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, engineers and researchers worked to create biomimetic fish in the hope to create a robot believable enough to be accepted among schools of fish, a robot that could be used to steer schools away from environmental disasters, preserving their populations.

Their robot design was very simple:

It doesn’t seem like this little guy could fool a fish, but it’s less about looks among fish-kind and more about… tail movement.

An interesting thing about schools of fish is that their tail beat frequencies (yeah, we’ve measured that) vary depending on their position within the school. The leader fish has a greater tail beat frequency, and fish further back in the school have slower and slower tail beat frequencies. Essentially, the rest of the school is drafting the leader.

Knowing this, the NYU-Poly engineers worked to create a fishbot that accurately mimicked tail propulsion of a swimming fish. Having done this, they dropped their little robofish into a group of golden shiners. When the robot was just floating about, the fish didn’t pay it any heed. However, when they made the little robot’s tail mimic the tail beat frequency of a leader fish, the school moved behind the leaderbot, slowing their own tail beat frequencies and behaving just like they do in the wild.

Using little biomimetic fish as school leaders could allow us to lead schools of fish away from hazardous things like oil spills or dams. And fish could just be the beginning- researchers are now excited to try creating other types of robocreatures, something that would help conservationist efforts and help us learn more about animal group behavior.

They’re probably not thinking about making sexbots, though. Sorry, Professor.

Build-a-Bot

What does this look like to you, galleons?

A lump of foam insulation with some random wires sticking out of it? A modern art sculpture?

I’ll tell you what it doesn’t look like- a goddamn robot.

And yet, that’s what it is. The Foambot is the brain child of a group at the University of Pennsylvania. It consists of what they call a “mothership” (a wheeled platform with sprayable reagents that combine to form a urethane foam) and a handful of little joint modules capable of bending and flexing.

The Foambot mothership arranges the little modules on the floor, then it sprays its foamy mixture on them in whatever configuration the controller wants. The foam hardens, and a crazy new robot is born, be it a quadruped

or a limbless snake

or whatever other configuration their little science minds can come up with.

After the foam hardens, the bot’s software then analyzes its wacky new shape and devises a “coordination scheme” based on the configuration of its movable joints to make the little robot go.

While not the prettiest robot in the world, the Pennsylvania team says that the versatility of their creation (creator?) means it could be extremely useful for things like space travel or reconnaissance, where the shape of the needed bot might not be known in advance. Different bot shapes could be useful in different situations. For example, the snake-shape might be best for slithering around rocks, while the crawling quadruped would have an easier time traversing open ground.

Regardless, I’m worried, dear galleons. Just how long will it take them to go from Foambot to T-1000?

TWSS (Now With Robots!)

That’s what she said.

The delightful little phrase that highlights the previous speaker’s (usually) unintentional double entendre. TWSS jokes are a staple of the young person’s vernacular (and that of NBC writers).

The double entendre as a figure of a speech has been around for ages (Shakespeare’s plays are absolutely loaded with them, such as this gem from one of my favorite plays of his, Twelfth Night, in which a character’s hair is described as such: “…it hangs like flax on a distaff; and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off”), and though the notoriously vulgar tone of most such phrases tend to paint these types of euphemisms as cheap and immature, they actually require a delicate understanding of language (particularly the multiple meanings of certain words and phrases).

It’s not as easy to understand euphemisms and double entendres as most people believe. For example, despite having a ready grasp on a second language’s grammar and vocabulary, it is extremely easy to miss subtle nuances when interacting with native speakers. Stories of unintentional double entendres/euphemisms in such situations are common.

With such a learning curve for this type of expression, it’s hard to imagine, say, a computer ever being able to grasp it. I mean, robots couldn’t have a translatable-to-humans sense of humor. That’s just preposterous:

And yet, in what is either the biggest waste of science and tech ever or is the most ingenious use of it, University of Washington computer sciences have developed a program that can recognize TWSS jokes.

You heard me right, galleons.

To achieve this, our scientists began by studying two texts, one containing 1.5 million erotic sentences and another with 57,000 from standard literature. They then evaluated nouns, adjectives, and verbs with a “sexiness” function. Words with a high sexiness function are prime TWSS fodder (examples would be things like ‘rod,’ ‘meat,’ ‘hot,’ and ‘wet’- those with multiple meanings).

The program they created, DEviaNT (Double Entendre via Noun Transfer), looks for those words with a “high sexiness function” and was trained by gathering jokes from twssstories.com and non-humorous text from sites like Wikiquote. DEviaNT has the difficult task of identifying, from this large sampling of text, sentences that contain potential euphemisms and follow a particular structure.

DEviaNT was about 70% accurate, but scientists believe that a more even data set for training purposes could result in a precision rate of 99.5%.

So… when the robot uprising finally happens, our mechanical masters will at least be able to make dirty jokes while they slaughter and subjugate us.

At least that’s something, right?

Nursebot 3000, Please Report to the O.R., Stat

At work last night, R.J. (the only coworker I can hold a moderately intelligent conversation with) and I were discussing robots/cyborgs, the current limitations of technology and cutting-edge robotics research, and the definition of humanity. And by “R.J. and I,” I mostly mean R.J. would say something, then I would explain why he was wrong or elaborate on the topic for him.

Which is funny, given that, when I got home today, I was browsing one of my science news sites and discovered an interesting article about robotics that relates directly to the world of health care.

Juan Pablo Wachs, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University, is working on a robotic scrub nurse.

That’s right… a nursebot.

While not the first robotic nurse to hit the hospital scene [Do hospitals even have scenes? In my experience, the answer is no. Latex gloves, sure. Irritating, beeping machines and oxygen hookups? Oh yes. A “scene?” Unless that scene involves disinfectant and intense periods of boredom, I’m gonna have to go with a no.], Wachs’ robonurse has something the others don’t- hand gesture recognition technology.

You know… like Tom Cruise uses in Minority Report:

What was once relegated solely to the land of science fiction films could now become a reality. But… why use this kind of tech to replace nurses?

The reasoning behind Wachs’ research centers around improving operating room efficiency. He’s hoping that the robotic scrub nurse could help speed up surgeries and, more importantly, lower the infection risk in the O.R.

In terms of potential infection risk, simply eliminating another germy human from the room isn’t the only benefit of the nurse-o-tron. Wachs’ nurse would not only be able to recognize hand gestures and be able to hand surgeons the proper tool, but it would also be able to display medical records and images. Currently, surgeons have to step away from the operating table and handle a keyboard and mouse to access these files. This both delays the surgery and increases the risk of spreading infectious bacteria. The robot nurse would be able to provide hands-free access to this information right at the operating table. Which, I’ll admit, would be terribly useful.

Of course, this technology isn’t quite ready yet. Anyone who has handled a Wii or Kinect or whatever-the-fuck-the-Playstation-version-of-this-shit-is knows about the limitations of commercial motion capture systems. And, while Wachs’ version is much more precise than the video game versions, it’s still imperfect. One of the biggest challenges he’s facing is in the development of “…the proper shapes of hand poses and the proper hand trajectory movements to reflect and express certain medical functions,” Wachs said. “You want to use intuitive and natural gestures for the surgeon, to express medical image navigation activities, but you also need to consider cultural and physical differences between surgeons. They may have different preferences regarding what gestures they may want to use.”

Not only that, but Wachs’ algorithms need to include a way for the computer to understand the context of the gestures, namely the ability to discriminate between purposeful and accidental gestures.

“Say the surgeon starts talking to another person in the operating room and makes conversational gestures,” Wachs said. “You don’t want the robot handing the surgeon a hemostat.”

He’s also working on giving the robot prediction abilities, so it would be able to anticipate what images or tools the surgeons would need next.

I’m torn on this issue. I’m a health care worker with a more menial job than a scrub nurse. If anyone is going to be replaced by a robot, I feel it would be me. To see them focusing on jobs more important than mine makes me feel like I should be starting the job hunt again soon, as there’s no hope my job will last much longer (not like I want to be in this damn job much longer, but that’s my choice, dammit, not some usurping robot’s).

As a tech geek, however, I think this is awesome.

On a practical note, however, this is tech that’s a long way from seeing completion. Without the anticipatory abilities of an actual human being, the robot nurse would only serve to slow down the surgical process. A good scrub nurse knows their shit and can accurately predict what a surgeon will need next probably 85% of the time (critical emergency situations aside). This actually speeds the surgery up, because the surgeon doesn’t have to waste time asking for the next implement.

And based on my recent readings on the subject of robotics and A.I. research (were I not so tired, this post would have expanded to include that information in a more in-depth fashion), while scientists are currently attempting to create a robot that has the capability to learn using a look-and-follow method all children use (a primary way children learn how to identify objects is to track the movements of their parents’ heads to determine objects they are referring to), they have yet to create a solid working model. Considering the anticipatory features of Wachs’ scrub bot are entangled in the same principles as this particular feature of A.I. research, I just don’t see this idea becoming a feasible, working nursebot for at least another year or two.

So… I guess my job’s probably safe for a while.

Yay?