Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Pure Science Fiction?

Based upon your recent reading of articles regarding science and technology developments, what connections or observations can you make about your read article(s) and the concepts and stories we have read or viewed? Please complete this blog response in class today, March 19th, 2014.

23 comments:

  1. As far as I've read, most all technological developments are not for entertainment's sake, but rather either discovery's sake, exploration's sake, or for people's sake. Robots are being created with gentler touches along with softer, squishier medical devices, and they say this could lead to safer medical devices and thus safer more successful surgeries. Bionic limbs are being created that can be wired to the nervous system, allowing the disabled to not only control the limb with their mind, but feel through it as well. These are medical advancements once unthinkable rapidly becoming reality - the extrapolations of science fiction writers from back then may just be coming true. If we continue down this path, who is to say that we won't soon be far enough along to revive the dead like Ralph 124C41+?

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  2. I've noticed that the stories are fearful of things with which we create, whereas in the article I read and video I watched, they weren't fearful, but were rather excited about what they had accomplished. They were ready to try hard to advance even further into the wearable robot. This I found interesting because in all these stories they are extremely fearful from the point they create something.

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  3. I think that these articles show our desire to progress technologically. But it also reveals a delicate dependency upon technology. We want technology to make our lives more effective and efficient, but at what cost? For example, there is one movie about a baby completely controlling a robotic P5000 baby costume and it is rather frightening to think that someone so young is already capable of controlling such powerful technology. Similar to the short story "Epicac", the man relies on a war computer to write love poems. We must ask ourselves is it morally correct to use technology for personal gains and as facades of who we really are? It is easy to hide behind technology as it might be even more capable of doing things than we are.

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  4. With the stories we have read so far, I do not actually see many connection to the articles regarding robots so far. Nearly all the new inventions have been medical advances like a prosthetic hand controlled by the mind with a sense of touch or scientific for researching the deep sea. There are military drones and robots as well, but the creators are fully aware of what they are building and will use them as such. So far, it doesn't look like anything is getting out of hand or too crazy to control, but if we were to keep an eye on anything, I think it would be the drones.

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  5. The SEV is a concept that is in many sci-fi movies and books, so the idea that the SEV is now a real thing is proof that sci-fi and sci-fa are becoming one and the same.

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  6. We are trying to create more and more everyday. We try to be like Dr. Frankenstein and create life. While Dr. Frankenstein creation was of flesh and blood, ours is more of wires and metal. For example, people have made a man that has a pothestic face and hands, with real working organs.

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  7. Connections/observations that I have noticed in articles that I have read would be that humans are more and more relying on technology to make life easier and better. I have read stories about how intellectual robots are structured to make disabilities easier to live with.

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  8. The articles that I have read are exciting because they articulate an advancement in technology, all within a short time period. The P5000 robot was the strangest of the articles considering the robot was controlled by a 13 month old baby.

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  9. Something I noticed and connected is that the articles and stories describe their technology idea with knowledge. Something with high vocabulary and description. In previous stories something with an invention the author had described what this invention is capable of doing and how it had helped the community. Just like the article I read on tidal energy turbines. These turbines are placed in high tide places where energy could be created. Lockheed Martin came out with a new turbine that helps with this, similar related to the underwater turbine.

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  10. I think in the articles we read we can start truly connecting story's into reality. A perfect example of this is the "robot cop". Sound familiar? a group of undergraduate students from Florida International University have designed a robot for disabled peace officer to get back into the field. In another article a helocopter truck is being tested, this is another example of human dream becoming a reality. This truck was not only 4X4 and off road ready it also had 6 chopper blades ready to take off from where ever. This could revolutionize military rescue.

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  11. The similarities in the stories and articles are day and night, many times in our class this year we read about sophisticated robots that are better than human beings and are planning on taking over the world. In the articles I read I saw an example of robots doing things humans could not do such as swimming underwater to help discover the ocean, there was a robot who had fully functioning organs and was basically living off a battery. "Rex has a heart that beats with the help of a battery, and eyes that actually kind of see: Rex’s glasses send images to a microchip is his retina, which in turn sends electrical pulses to the brain, forming shapes and patterns.'' So this is an example that robots could soon take over our world as we know it.

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  12. The experimental replacements for missing parts to help someone live entirely what very evident in both the article i read about European scientists making a prosthetic hand that has everything a normal hand does and the story Ralph 124c 41+ when he replaces his loves blood with a chemical to bring her back to life. The scientists are able to attach the hand to all the necessary nerves that go to the brain, and they can give the person back their feelings that they lost years ago. Though the Ralph story plays out differently, he still uses a foreign material to help supplement Alice. "he demonstrated for researchers that he was able to do things like distinguish between a bottle, a baseball and a mandarin orange, and press things with light, medium or firm pressure." This is proof that their experimentation was all to help and supplement for what the man lost.

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  13. A similarity that all of the robotic innovations have is the absence of a brain, and the unclear way of how to develop one. In an article I read about a driver-less car, the main obstacle in creating an entirely driver free experience is the lack of human judgement, especially in a situation where the car would be forced to either hit a pedestrian or another car. Only humans are able to recognize the collision with the other car as safer, and technology is not yet at the place where the car would be able to differentiate the car and pedestrian. However if sometime in the future, adequate technology emerged to make this a possibility, humans would always run the risk of allowing the car to malfunction and accidentally hit a pedestrian. This relates to the Frankenstein complex in that I feel humans should fear this invention. We would never be able to rely entirely on the judgement of a car for the safety of ourselves and others. If cars do become completely independent and accidents happen there will not be anyone to blame which could cause potential problems in future society, since, as humans, we like to know that those who are dangerous or who have caused pain receive their proper punishment.

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  14. I have noticed after reading some of the stories in class that people and different creatures are fearful of technology and technological advances. Some of these articles show different technology and different advances. I think in today's society people are less fearful and more excited about all of the new technology.

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  15. There is a wearable robot suit that can lift 110 pounds in each hand this can be used to lift debris from wrecks or work in factories. This suit said by the article is like Iron Man but this suit is all too real. I could also see this help move us forward in the prosthetics industry for people who are missing their arms or legs to get them to interact and help more than they already have in our community.These robot suits can help us in the future with our jobs and everyday life .

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  16. a lot of the stories are telling about how robots and technology is growing in tremendous stride. In our story its takes a good knowledge of science and technology in order to create a creature of this sort. In these articles people are making live like robots and are starting to control other species based on a wireless device. People are astounding the world with their knowledge of how technology works and how science fits into the cracks of that technology. Like in Frankenstein the doctor has to create a beast with the power to come back to life and he does this through his knowledge of how science and technology co exsist

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  17. from what i have read almost all of the technological developments aren't made for people to be entertained by, they are made to help people that have a disability or they are for instance used to show a baby how it feels to walk by putting the baby into the robot and it makes it so that he will be walking faster than any of the other kids that are his age.

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  18. So far what I have read is that we are accomplishing today what people back then dreamed about accomplishing. They basically only wrote about what they thought might never happen but want it to. But these stories in science fiction that we have read might have given us leverage to building and creating these contraptions and leading us into the future.

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  19. Almost all articles we read about new scientific discoveries have been made to help people. Unlike Frankenstein's monster, these man-made creations were not for the knowledge of whether or not we can but to use. The most common reason to make robots is to assist disabled people. On NASA’s website one of the inventions was an exoskeleton to help improve mobility and strength. While this could be extremely helpful in space, the uses on earth are even more vast. Also connecting to the medical field are robots that are made to perform surgery. These robots would cut costs and improve performance. While these robots are helpful, they carry the risk of taking jobs away from American citizens, possibly crippling our government.

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  20. The shown connections between the articles and previous stories are a bit evident. Such as, in FASRAD, the machines and robots are both their life support and doom. As someone said, what if the robot falls down and crushes the child? The robots may be our greatest achievement or the tool of out imminent demise.

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  21. The articles that I read showed how advanced of a society we are, and how technology is huge to our society. I was looking at the articles and came across some things that were just astonishing, things that seem so crazy we wouldn't think would be invented. Like clothes in a can, a silly spray that is a shirt or suit, or Snake Robots.

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  22. In the recently posted articles, there was a lot of news about robots. A lot of these robots that were written about were groundbreaking science. Just like EPICAC, many of these (expensive) robots have just been invented and are mind-blowing to the common-man and scientists, alike. The robots also have affected, in some way, almost every person's life. These newly invented robots have the capability to reach out of their initial purpose was. EPICAC was able to do more than he was initially created for; it was able to connect to humans on a personal level and learn/understand culture. Likewise, the robots in the articles, though they might have been made for other purposes originally, are now helping to educate elementary school children about science. Robots are becoming more and more a part of our everyday lives, just as EPICAC became a big part of the narrator's life.

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  23. In the recent stories the technology in it is mainly is non robotic, but there are some robots for sure. In EPICAC, a military robot writes poems for this one man. But this connects to the articles I read by show we are an advanced culture that can only get more advanced. So i think these stories connect by the fact we could eventually build robots like in the stories we've read.

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