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Monday, March 19, 2012

Current Event: Robotic Animals, and Limbs

Recently DARPA's robotic cheetah has set a speed record for robots. Although it only ran at 18 miles per hour which is not even close to real cheetahs which can run at 70 miles per hour, it is still a huge achievement. One of the spectacular things about the robotic cheetah is that the flexing and un-flexing along with the realistic spine moves makes it move faster and more realistically. This shows that we are getting close and close to having robots that could possibly be pets, or even human robots. This has been a topic for lots of poular culture for 60 years. We are always striving forward in technology so this might not even be far away. This is something that is a lot like GATTACA in my opinion. Like how in GATTACA the society is based entirely on humans being genetically modified to do specific things. This could also be done with robots. Imagine in a world where there are robots to do everything for us. In my opinion this is a lot like GATTACA. I think that advances in robots are bad as this could also transition into humans being systematically turned into machines. If we can make human robots why wouldn't we be able to have robotic body parts? This is something that scared me and which I was very surprised when I watched a short documentary about robotic body parts. In the short film it shows the most advanced robotic arms, legs, and eyes. It is scary too see that already there are robotic legs that seem to function exactly like normal legs, and arms that have different kinds of attachments like paddles, tennis rackets, and much more. In the documentary some of the largest producers of robotic limbs are asked whether or not we could have a future where lots of people have robotic limbs by the year 2025. What frightened me was that they actually said that it is very possible. Overall I think that we are advancing in robotic body parts too quickly and they might actually start replacing normal ones which will create a very bad society in my opinion. I hope that advances stop and we stay content with having organic body parts, and animals.

DARPA Robotic Cheetah:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-03/video-darpas-cheetah-robot-sets-land-speed-record-robotic-big-cats

The Human Eyeborg Documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxiCI8l4qhI 

1 comment:

  1. Just imagine genetic engineering and robotic body parts! Are these robotic limbs used for people who have lost their limbs to disease or war or accidents or could people just decide to have their arm replaced with a robotic one? That would be weird. Great job on this.

    The documentary link is great!

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