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Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

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Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Carlhole » Sat 24 Nov 2007, 21:00:31

[align=center][flash width=425 height=350]http://www.liveleak.com/player2.swf?token=109_1195663753[/flash][/align]

[align=center]Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators[/align]

Wow, I didn't realize these things were so developed.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby culicomorpha » Sat 24 Nov 2007, 22:36:41

Great.

If anyone ever thought technology was neutral, this clip should disavow them of that opinion.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Geko45 » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 00:48:50

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('culicomorpha', 'G')reat. If anyone ever thought technology was neutral, this clip should disavow them of that opinion.

I don't see anything in that clip that would indicate otherwise. The application of that technology would be universal. To bad PO will prevent it from ever being used to any great extent.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Carlhole » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 02:04:28

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Geko45', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('culicomorpha', 'G')reat. If anyone ever thought technology was neutral, this clip should disavow them of that opinion.


I don't see anything in that clip that would indicate otherwise. The application of that technology would be universal. To bad PO will prevent it from ever being used to any great extent.


It could be a very efficient use of energy.

Which writer was it who was explaining about the difference between animal power, which can be large but stupid, and human power, which is weaker but often more effective because it can be intelligently directed? I think the discussion had been one concerning the fantastic utility of human slavery or something like that because slaves can intelligently direct their energy - it must have been one of Jared Diamond's books.

Anyway, a person using such an exoskeleton could be using energy very efficiently simply because the available energy is intelligently directed upon a complex task such as a construction site.

So there!

...You know, this knee-jerk, neo-Luddite supposition by the Peak Oil crowd - that human beings will not have access to any significant large-scale energy and the idea that we will all be living in mud hovels again is kind of tiresome and ridiculous. We will always have sizeable energy sources.

After peak, it will be a question of reaching a new energy equilibrium that balances a certain population level with energy availability and with environmental concerns. It remains to be seen how this will all play out; there could be much strife and loss, sure, but it wouldn't be the first time living things on Planet Earth have had to squeeze through a bottleneck.

Having energy dire straits certainly doesn't spell the end of human ingenuity, achievement, problem-solving, dreams and all those very things that make human beings human. And that will include continued learning and continuing to shape our environment. If anything, the challenge presented by decreased energy availability will dramatically increase ingenuity. I'm loathe to bet against it.

An exoskeleton is just another cool tool. It's also a piece of art in a way - a CNC machine tool/mechanical designer's art.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Kylon » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 02:27:29

Awesome, one step closer to mechas!
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Eli » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 02:29:48

Yeah it is cool, but it is complete bull shit too.
Show me the model that does not have a power cable the size of a 20,000 volt mainline and I will give it a little more credit.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby jasonraymondson » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 03:02:04

10 - 15 more years and those full suits they were showing will be ready for deployment within the US. Then those damn hippies will learn their place.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby culicomorpha » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 08:56:11

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')...You know, this knee-jerk, neo-Luddite supposition by the Peak Oil crowd - that human beings will not have access to any significant large-scale energy and the idea that we will all be living in mud hovels again is kind of tiresome and ridiculous. We will always have sizeable energy sources.


Actually, for my part it's not knee-jerk. It is a position I have come to over the course of many years of seeing just how my work has been used. How new technologies are invariably used by the wealthy and powerful to control the poor and weak. It really goes deeper than that, because the technology itself mediates our relationship to the world, and I am afraid we are loosing touch with the real world. Like water to a fish, we are immersed in this technology and pretty soon it becomes hard to tell where we end and where it begins. This story could not provide a better example of this blurring. I can provide a personal story demonstrate the same thing, so I am speaking from personal experience not on theoretical grounds.

I don't dispute that humans can direct much more energy purposefully than animals, but I would argue that our purposes or objectives have been left out of the technology discussion for far too long. And so aren't killing machines the logical conclusion of all the unexamined (and I would argue) false premises we hold about technology and it's role in our society?

And similarly, I don't disagree that energy isn't going away, just suggesting that we might find better uses for it than the obvious purpose for that 'exoskeleton.'
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby mgibbons19 » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 09:57:43

That thing's awesome.

Perfect for lumping loads all day long. Easy on the back.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Chuckmak » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 11:17:46

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('jasonraymondson', 'T')hen those damn hippies will learn their place.


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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Carlhole » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 15:44:42

I immediately see a big market for these things in warehouses, construction... any place where human beings have to labor and do heavy physical lifting.

Even of they are plugged in via cable, they are still useful as hell because you don't have to program a human being. And if you can save someone's back or legs, if you can reduce on-the-job injuries, reduce the insurance expenditures to cover injuries, or you can save the expense of years of medical treatment... then why the hell not?

Also, fewer people and less overall equipment expenditures would be needed to accomplish the same task. It's just simply more efficient because it's powerful energy intelligently directed.

And besides all that, the exoskeleton is cool as hell!

It was cool when the idea was conceived in comic book or movie and it's still fuckin' cool now.

If you really hate technology all that much, you're really gonna hate nano-technology, because we have barely scratched the surface of nanoinventions and discoveries. And nano-technology strains credulity, because the physical laws governing the quantum level are so utterly different than physical laws that govern the world which we intuitively comprehend. Who knows what ocean of invention awaits us there?

I wouldn't be surprised to see energy storage technology like advanced batteries that store incredible amounts of energy emerge from the nanotechnology field, for example.

No one knows the future. If you claim to be able to foresee what will happen, you are lying to yourself. We have no idea what inventions or discoveries we will see in our lifetimes. Nor can we foresee how they will change the world.

It makes sense to be aware of peak oil and declining energy availability and to make preparations for it, but to be dead-certain about what the future holds about anything, including energy production and availability, is to be someone who is destined to be proven wrong.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Eli » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 15:57:27

Then buy stock in the company.

I wouldn't do it myself the whole economic system is coming apart right now and that is not just me saying it. The problem here is human labor is going to be getting cheaper and there are no business on the planet that want to incur the capitol cost of investing in anything let alone this contraption.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby TWilliam » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 16:09:45

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'S')how me the model that does not have a power cable the size of a 20,000 volt mainline and I will give it a little more credit.


As you wish:

HAL

Image

Of course, they're not pushing it as a military application:

Robot suit helps quadriplegic scale mountain

I had to chuckle when I saw that the venture firm supporting the developer's work is named Cyberdyne...
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby threadbear » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 16:32:43

Though the exo skeleton has some positive applications, it's commerical applications guarantee that industry can get things done more easily and quicker. Is that where we want to go? Same with cheap energy. Do we really want to live in a world where people have access to cheap fuel, even if that fuel doesn't burn carbon?

For example, say solar power could be used to sustain increasing populations. How would that be a good thing? Even if carbon isn't being used, displacement of ecosytems occurs, not through green house gas emissions, but through purely mechanical means--too many people, requiring too much living space.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby culicomorpha » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 18:19:33

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Carlhole', '
')If you really hate technology all that much, you're really gonna hate nano-technology, because we have barely scratched the surface of nanoinventions and discoveries. And nano-technology strains credulity, because the physical laws governing the quantum level are so utterly different than physical laws that govern the world which we intuitively comprehend. Who knows what ocean of invention awaits us there?


Carlhole,

I think you're helping to make my point. Nanotechnology, just like all the other technologies we implement, are touted for their supposed "benefits." Any costs: economic, health, social, ethical, whatever, these are thrown to the wayside. These costs are commonly ignored completely in risk analyses. Test data is commonly secret and not made available to the public. Preliminary nanotechnology testing has already shown rather dramatic skeletal defects in fish, so what do manufacturers do? They add these materials to cosmetics. Wonderful, huh? Nice to test out new technology on women and then don't bother telling them that they are really test subjects.

I consider people that hold this very lopsided view of technology as "technological positivists." (Not an ad hom, just a descriptive term) I find the attitudes and beliefs to be a close parallel to cornucopians around here, in that there is a patterned blindness to acknowledging certain unpalatable facts. i.e. that we are educated to be ignorant of the consequences of technology.

But a few paragraphs that are very relevant to the discussion of legitimacy of conscious purpose came to mind*:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')Consciousness ... is organized in terms of purpose. It is a short-cut device to enable you to get quickly at what you want; not to act with maximum wisdom in order to live, but to follow the shortest logical or causal path to get what you next want, which may be dinner; it may be a Beethoven sonata; it may be sex. Above all, it may be money or power.

But you may say: "Yes, but we have lived that way for a million years." Consciousness and purpose have been characteristic of man for at least a million years, and may have been with us a great deal longer than that. I am not prepared to say that dogs and cats are not conscious, still less that porpoises are not conscious.

So you may say: "Why worry about that?"

But what worries me is the addition of modern technology to the old system. Today the purposes of consciousness are implemented by more and more effective machinery, transportation systems, airplanes, weaponry, medicine, pesticides, and so forth. Conscious purpose is now empowered to upset the balance of the body, of society, and of the biological world around us. A pathology - a loss of balance - is threatened.


G Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Conscious Purpose Versus Nature. p. 433-4. 1972.

You are trying to argue what we have much to gain from these new technologies, and I am trying to argue that we have already lost much because of them. At what point do we stop putting all our efforts and energy into increasing the efficiency by which we saw away at the tree of life? The warning of Pandora's box seems more and more real to me every day.

So what I am saying is that it is possible for a technological development, such as this exoskeleton, to be incredible useful in fulfilling specific conscious purposes of interest to humans, but that does not mean that it should be done. In fact, I will go further and suggest that you will see these sorts of things used for all sorts of "legitimate purposes" before you will see terminators on the street. But this is the direction the research is going, so expect to see it eventually, notwithstanding pstarr's objections about power. (which seem legitimate at the moment)
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby Zardoz » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 18:49:35

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Eli', 'Y')eah it is cool, but it is complete bull shit too.
Show me the model that does not have a power cable the size of a 20,000 volt mainline and I will give it a little more credit.

That is what I am saying Eli. It's a carnival act.

Agreed. It's stupid.
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Re: Exoskeleton Turns Humans Into Terminators

Unread postby jasonraymondson » Sun 25 Nov 2007, 19:07:21

One day you will all bow to my army of mechs and you shall call me god.
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