The Vision Thing

[aarf]

shroomy_bee can you have this vision algorithm on my desk by next Friday,thanks. I have all these inboxes I need to fill with spam and just haven't got the time to fill in all those catchpas.

The Vision Thing
One of the key capabilities limiting robotic expansion at the moment is image processing -- the ability of robots to look at a scene like a human does and detect all the objects in the scene. Without general, flexible vision algorithms, it is hard for a robot to do much. For example, it is hard for a blind robot to clean a bathroom or drive a car. Part of the problem is raw CPU power, but that problem will be solved over the next 20 to 30 years because of Moore's law. The other part is a software problem. We don't have really good algorithms yet. My prediction is that we will see significant progress in the image processing field over the next 20 years.

Think about the changes that will take place once basic research in image processing yields the algorithms we need. Suddenly it will be easy for robots to walk around and manipulate objects in any human environment.

* Robotic cars and trucks are one obvious application for vision systems. There are more than 40,000 deaths in the U.S. every year because of car accidents. Human negligence causes most of these accidents. With robots doing all the driving, the number of accidents will go way down and we will eliminate one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. Unfortunately, robotic vehicles will also leave every taxi driver, bus driver, truck driver, etc. out of work.
* Robots with vision systems will be able to do all the cleaning in every hotel, store, airport and restaurant. Things will be spotless, but that will unemploy perhaps five million people.
* Robots with vision can stack brick, lay tile, paint and put on roofs all day and all night. Five million more people will be out of work.
* Robots with vision can easily stock shelves in stores. Think of all the workers stocking shelves, restocking merchandise, taking inventory, directing customers and manning cash resisters in places like Wal-Mart, K-Mart, Target, Home Depot, Lowes, BJ's, Sam's Club, Toys R Us, Sears, J.C. Penny's, Barnes and Noble, Borders, Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max, Staples, Office Depot, Kroger's, Winn-Dixie, Pet Depot and on and on and on. More than 10 million employees will be on the street.
* Armies of robots with built-in night vision will be able to provide security and policing unlike anything we can imagine today.
* And so on.

A single research area -- computer vision -- will have a tremendous impact once it reaches its goal of general, flexible image processing algorithms.

This is analogous to the development of airplanes. Nothing happened in the field of aviation until the Wright Brothers made the breakthrough that got the first airplane off the ground. 44 short years after the breakthrough, supersonic flight was possible. Once robots have flexible, accurate vision systems, the pace of change will be unbelievably rapid and unstoppable. Tens of millions of people will become unemployed over the course of just two to three decades.

If you think about it, robots are a very good thing. Human beings should not be driving trucks, flipping burgers or scrubbing toilets. These activites represent a massive waste of human potential. The question is: what will these tens of millions of people do to make a living when their tens of millions of jobs evaporate? What will happen to the economy when the unemployment rate reaches 30% or 40%?
http://www.marshallbrain.com/robotic-nation.htm

[shroomy_bee]

Yikes - most anything with 'Marshall' in it is Montauk Project corrupted, as in inserted artificially by the multidimensional limiters...

but yeah cool, it looks interesting other than that. I'll read through it later; if you really are building robots then the best eyes are echo-location based, which would then be matched to a 3D graphics (vector) map.

[shroomy_bee]

Robot of the year award, 2006:

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2006/12/top ... ward-2006/

2007:

http://www.pinktentacle.com/2007/12/200 ... -the-year/

More...

http://www.robots.com/

not sure how good this link is, cause it wouldn't load (plenty more online about it though): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithm_March

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VXa9tXcMhXQ

[shroomy_bee]

The question is: what will these tens of millions of people do to make a living when their tens of millions of jobs evaporate?

Yeah right, what jobs is that that are meant to exist currently and in the last decade? More like, the question is: what the hell jobs are you talking about man?

In theory of course, more automatons actually means more jobs - partially to very skilled tech jobs. Even if it's programming and designing robots that then themselves build and design other robots, there's still a requirement for people to do that work, and maintenance. Still need to manufacture the parts, the parts need raw materials to make them, fuel needs to be generated etc and delivered, automated assembly lines still need monitoring and maintaining.

In reality, it depends where you live. If I lived in a normal proper place for example, I'd have had tonnes of work and would be having to pick what I wanted to do the most out of many offers. Such a pity I can't afford to just move and live somewhere else.

In terms of Jobs That'd Be Great To Do, some of mine:

network admin / system speccer / builder of some kind for - nightclub installations, space faring anything, animation and fx render farms etc.

anything green as long as it isn't 'greenwashing' and is vegetarian

lol, supercomputer builder

network security auditor

giant wireless roaming robo-behemoth datacenter coordinator....I'll stop listing them now


nb - spamming and sales of that type are not real jobs! No matter how much they pay.

[aarf]

so shroomy_bee, how are you getting long with this?