Robot Smog chapter from Robot Futures

1. “But batteries naturally limit the lifespan of an electronic object or robot for that matter. Did you think about the cradle-to-grave issue when you chose solar power?”(Reza 20)

Comments: I think the power source is one of the most influential variables in the robot industry. In a lot of cases, it’s not about what functionality your robot has, it’s about being able to do with a certain duration. Try to imagine what if the battery is only enough about supporting a flying robot for one minute. Then its flying functionality will be totally useless. And just as the passage indicates, the revolution in this field doesn’t necessarily follow Moore’s law. Instead, it’s dependent on the scientific breakouts in the chemistry field. I would say it’s the revolution in the battery field that facilitates the popularity of smartphones and I believe a similar situation will also happen to the robot industry.

2. “Everyone is afraid of being spotted by one of your robots, and making eye contact with it. Because off they fly and start circling round and round. So everyone avoids eye contact with nearly everything since there can be a botigami jammed up anywhere—wherever it fell when the sun set the day before.” (Reza 22)

Comments: This reminds me of the situation when the web camera first came out and was so successful from a commercial perspective. Lots of people at that time will bring a laser pen with them while hanging out with friends. By aiming the laser at the camera, it will create something called a “blind spot” to prevent people from being watched. This reflects people’s concerns about the data privacy issue. It’s such a tough problem to solve since all the data will be transmitted to the big tech companies and it’s hard to supervise what they are actually doing. This will become even worse when robots gradually play increasing importance in our daily life.

3. “If you build something—any robot—it can be reverse-engineered by definition. Nothing is hackable or not hackable. Everything can be modified. They’re just built products, after all, not biological creatures.” (Reza 23)

Comments: New technology is always a double-edged sword. If used properly, the robotic industry will undoubtedly make the world a better place. Meanwhile, it’s always worth paying attention to the illegal or immoral application of the robot tech. Especially when the tech is “domesticated”, a subtle change in its behavior pattern will have a huge impact on society or even worse, on being a threat to our safety.

4. “In this robot future, personal opinions are not just communicated; they are acted out by chaotic ecologies of robot minions.” (Reza 27)

Comments: This idea is depicted in a lot of sci-fi novels. Something like a robot rebellion always originates from a strong, logical but crazy personal will. Eventually, this trend will become embedded in our lives through the daily interactions of robots like a tsunami that swept across the globe.

5. “The Internet, with its ever-increasing rates of data transfer, was seen as a solution to the problem of miniaturizing robots and yet retaining high IQ in their behavior.” (Reza 36)

Comments: The Internet serves as an expanded sense of robotics and it emphasizes the serial communication between different mediums and sensors. This could become another milestone making robots smaller but meanwhile, able to process multi-channel information at the same time, making them more productive.

6. “Adjustable autonomy suggests that, as with commercial jetliner autopilots, the interfaces are designed so well that humans can gain situational awareness and take over the controls whenever necessary.”

Comments: Another scene that happened a lot in the sci movie is that the robotics and human operators cannot reach an agreement on what the crisis is, yet arousing conflict between 2 sides, leading to a disastrous ending. Though the future of adjustable autonomy seems promising, there is still a lot to work on.