Will robots drill for oil, dust pianos, gun down enemies?
LAS VEGAS--Back in the '90s, iRobot worked on a robot that could help drill for oil.
Then oil dropped from $30 to $20 a barrel, and interest among potential customers dropped too, said iRobot CEO Colin Angle during a meeting at this week's Consumer Electronics Show here. With oil bouncing around $100 a barrel now, that chucked idea may make a comeback, he said.
iRobot CEO Colin Angle
(Credit: iRobot)Drilling for oil is sort of misnomer, Angle noted. The ground doesn't consist of hidden lakes of liquid petrochemicals. Instead, oil is encased in porous rock, Angle said. To get at it, oil drillers dig deep holes into the ground and then encase them in metal. Subsequently, a charge is fired to break through the metal to get at the rock. After oil is extracted, drillers move on to make new holes and seal up the old ones.
But such holes can upset geological formations. A robot could, in theory, repair the holes without upsetting the geological balance, Angle said. Conceivably, the robots could also allow drillers to extract more oil out of deposits. Now, drillers only harvest part of it.
He further outlined why robots are going to become part of our lives: the inevitability of old age and war.
Angle tends to focus on disasters and crises, which is sort of a nice change at CES.
People are living longer in Western Europe and America. We can't take care of them all, and they don't want to go to rest homes. Hence, he said, robots will be the ones to clean the house and check on their health.
"There is an inevitability with robots that is frightening and exciting and (a) great driver," he said. "For developed nations, this is a force of nature that we are not going to stop. We can't do it with nurses either. The average age of nurses is over 50."
CES 2008 is here
the massive electronics show.
Robots will be drafted into the military, too. A robot with a stun gun or a goop gun can be more effective than a soldier with a gun. That's because a soldier must always shoot first if he or she is facing an armed enemy.
"A robot has the ability to shoot second," Angle said. It may sound counterintuitive, he said, but that's a good thing. When soldiers enter a hairy situation, they often must shoot before they can fully assess the conditions. This often results in creating more enemies. (I think I heard about this happening in Iraq.).
The U.S. also must fight more asymmetrical wars that will involve combatants who are part of crowds.
"We need to find a new way to conduct combat," Angle said. "A robot gives you a presence on the ground that is dispensable, inexpensive, and can exert a zone of control."
So there is your cheery, sober analysis of our world today.
point for his robots. There may be a lot of great reasons for
developing robots, but this has to be the most disgusting one
imaginable. Another fascist corporation is on the rise. War is only
rarely unavoidable, but is commonly manufactured to increase
profits.
into seniors' home, and into combat.
I the love the equating of "holes" and "seniors' homes."
Then oil dropped from $30 to $20 a barrel, and interest among potential customers dropped too, said iRobot CEO Colin Angle during a meeting at this week's Consumer Electronics Show here. With oil bouncing around $100 a barrel now, that chucked idea may make a comeback, he said." What happens to the "iRobots" when the world's oil supplies runs out - they are toast/history? :-) :-D ;-)
Oh. Oil and war. Robots to get oil. Robots to fight wars. When robots can't get more oil they'll send them to fight a war for new lands to extract oil! Manufacture tose robots will such a great business.
- They were built by man. They rebelled.
- by MCK68 January 9, 2008 2:30 PM PST
- ...They evolved...
- Like this Reply to this comment
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(13 Comments)Seriously now...free moving industrial robots as described would probably be a good thing. But the economics dislocations they might produce are impossible to predict. When I as a kid, it was said the first generation of industrial robots (then known as "automation") would create a utopian society. Only the US and maybe Europe would have the capital to build the automated systems, and the skilled engineers and workers to run them. We would do all industrial production for the world. The work week would drop to 15 or 20 hours. Some people predicted that everyone in the US would be paid in part by (or just be given) blocks of stocks to supplement the direct income from such a short work week. Leisure would be the biggest growth industry...So now we work on average 25% more hours per week than my parents generation did and most industrial robots and most manufacturing alosng with them, is in what was then the "Third World".
War might be different. But do we really want to make easier (because less bloody for us) to engage in the most cost-ineffective enterprise ever invented by the most perverted of bureaucratic minds?