Robots Call the Shots

Dr. Robot, I presume? Your appendix may be removed by motor-driven, scalpel-wielding mechanical hands one day. Robots are debuting in the medical field… as well as on battlefields. And they’re increasingly making important decisions – on their own. But can we teach robots right from wrong? Find out why the onslaught of silicon intelligence has prompted a new field of robo-ethics.

Plus, robo-geologists: NASA’s vision for autonomous robots in space.

Listen to individual segments here:
Part 1 - P.W. Singer
Part 2 - Pablo Garcia
Part 3 - Robyn Asimov
Part 4 - Wendell Wallach
Part 5 - Robert Anderson

Robots Call the Shots - P.W. Singer

Part 1 of Robots Call the Shots, featuring P.W. Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, and the author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.

Robots Call the Shots - Pablo Garcia

Part 2 of Robots Call the Shots, featuring Pablo Garcia, principal engineer working on medical robotics at SRI International, Menlo Park, California.

Robots Call the Shots - Robyn Asimov

Part 3 of Robots Call the Shots, featuring Robyn Asimov, daughter of author Isaac Asimov on the three laws of robotics.

Robots Call the Shots - Wendell Wallach

Part 4 of Robots Call the Shots, featuring Wendell Wallach, Chair of a technology and ethics working group for Yale University’s Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics, and the co-author of Moral Machines: Teaching Robots Right from Wrong.

Robots Call the Shots - Robert Anderson

Part 5 of Robots Call the Shots, featuring Robert Anderson, Planetary geologist, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, discussing robot and rover autonomy.

Space Race 2.0

It’s goodnight moon from President Obama, as he calls for canceling the program that would return astronauts to the moon by 2020. We’ll hear from the private sector, which might win in this deal, and consider whether we should really replace human explorers with robots.

Plus, if we can’t fly you to the moon, would you settle for a few acres and a deed? Meet the man who claims to have property on the moon – but will it hold up in court?

Wernher von Braun was one of America’s premier rocket engineers and, a new book contends, an enthusiastic supporter of the Nazi party. Find out what the U.S. space program was willing to ignore for the prize of beating the Russians to the moon.

Listen to individual segments here:
Part 1 - Phil Chapman
Part 2 - Burt Rutan
Part 3 - Steven Weinberg
Part 4 - Steven Durst
Part 5 - Frans von der Dunk
Part 6 - Wayne Biddle

Space Race 2.0 - Steven Weinberg

Part 3 of Space Race 2.0 featuring Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist at University of Texas at Austin and author of Lake Views: This World and the Universe.

Boldly Going Nowhere - Seth writes for the NYT

This week, Seth expanded on an earlier article for an op-ed piece in the New York Times. In it, Seth describes the near future of space 'travel' being conducted visually and robotically. After all, it would take as long as homo sapiens have walked the earth to get to the nearest star and back. And it may not be worth the wait. Better yet, Seth suggests, we should be sending unmanned craft, like the Mars rovers, to survey and capture data that we can analyze from the safety of our living rooms. You can read the whole editorial HERE.

Seth chats with Discovery Channel

Seth was recently interviewed by Dave Mosher for Discovery Channel's website. An afternoon of instant messaging touched on the subjects of life on mars, what aliens might look like, and why SETI is important. Here's an excerpt:

Dave on Earth (1:15 PM): Is there a chance SETI and everyone else is looking for the wrong thing?

SethHeartsAliens (1:15 PM): Of course there's a chance that we're doing the wrong thing, but if you don't know, then I think you should do SOMETHING. We'll never find the aliens by just throwing up our hands and saying "we don't know how to look!" Better to explore and not find them, than to not explore and be guaranteed not to find them!

You can read the entire interview on Discovery's website.

The long arm of the laws of robotics

Here's Molly at ICRA, apparently being interviewed by a robot

Okay, it may only be a robotic arm, but just watch what that arm can do!

The demonstration of "back-drivable" programming is just after a minute in. Watch the way the "hand" moves after its been programmed.