I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for certain dystopian scenarios.
Microbots Are on Their Way
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Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, spaceflight is a big industry though. Or do you mean human spaceflight?
Anything outside of telecommunications or earth observation. Human spaceflight is a different can of worms with the additional dilemma of that no large hardware failures can occur. Rockets fail a lot, people dying is bad for PR, and thus you need a really good reason to send a person. The thing then is what do you do with people in space that makes enough money to warrant it? Basically nothing. Thus the lack of any h…
I think theoretically, you could make money refining rare minerals from asteroids (like platinum, gold, rare earths). The issue is that since the startup cost is so high, the mission is very risky (conservatively, it would probably cost in the 10s of billions to be able to refine anything at scale) and 10s of billions worth of rare minerals won't stay worth 10s of billions since the world only needs so much minerals - the price would fall substantially.
I think the only thing really worth doing in space, economically speaking, will be energy related. Maybe harvesting helium 3 will be lucrative. Maybe (I doubt it) there will be a profitable way to harness solar energy - could be more profitable if we can produce the panels in space by the asteroid they are procured from, but then the issue is transmission.
Actually, there is another thing. I think space tourism could be lucrative. Imagine if you set up a lunar colony for 20b that could house ~1k people with about 200 permanent staff. If 800 people are paying $100k/week (plus cost of transportation) to stay up there, you're making $4b per year. Personally if I were worth in the ~10s of millions I would absolutely shell out $100k to spend a week on the moon so I think this kind of thing could work
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#13"could one day", beware these three word in a title.
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#14I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for certain dystopian scenarios.
The ones in the article look like they're basically photocells which get activated by lasers to move the 'legs'.
At that scale, you probably couldn't have much battery power either. Maybe it'd be possible to power a small microcontroller off of radio signals which also send instructions. They wouldn't need to be very "smart" as long as something else in the room was, like a phone or router or something.
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#15I've played the Metal Gear Solid games enough to know the crazy possibilities of nano machines.
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#16I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for certain dystopian scenarios.
The ones in the article look like they're basically photocells which get activated by lasers to move the 'legs'. At that scale, you probably couldn't have much battery power either. Maybe it'd be possible to power a small microcontroller off of radio signals which also send instructions. They wouldn't need to be very "smart" as long as something else in the room was, like a phone or router or something.
When I looked at the animated picture I wondered about the flashing dots on the circuit till I realized that these are probably reflections of the laser beams directed onto the microbot.
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#17I wonder what kind of "brain" would even be possible to put in a robot this small, given the physical limit we're approaching. Could limit the potential for certain dystopian scenarios.
A cluster brain/Hive mind would be one option and splitting the brain across several robots.
However - No need to have the computing/brain in the robot at all. Equally a group of these robots sharing sensor data would make some central processing design even more suitable and allows the robots to not be limited by just their own sensors. So many upsides with that aspect.
Onboard you would need very limited processing and wireless comms and that would be it, all the intelligence can then be offloaded and would also make such robots cheaper and less energy dependant. More so as with lower power usage, wireless powered becomes much easier, as well as offer a wireless communication channel using ambient backscatter.
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#18[deleted]
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#1920 years ago, when I was a bright eyed graduate student, I was mesmerized by MEMS (micro-electro mechanical systems), which promised similar revolution. I learnt about 'artificial muscles', and MIT Technology Review even ran a cover issue on how MEMS will revolutionize everything. This article could have been written in the year 2000 except it would have mentioned MEMS then. Now there is no mention of it. I'm older and saner now. Still feels very much a academic pipe dream than real engineering. I dreamed of working with Kris Pister and now he is 20 years older. Another young professor at UPenn and Cornell is trying to get tenure....call me cynical but this too shall pass. Issues of toxicity in human body etc are huge...
Re: Microbots Are on Their Way
#20I really like the slaughterbots: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HipTO_7mUOw
What a thought-provoking short video, thanks for sharing.
As for the researchers aiming to ban autonomous weapons at the UN, how would instituting a ban actually solve anything? It wouldn't prevent someone in their basement from building them, nor would it be a deterrent to states with a strong military from developing them.