[John Nagle]

We already have the ability for anybody to easily and cheaply communicate with anybody willing to talk to them, anywhere, at any time. Pictures, even. That’s become intrusive. Telepathy where the sender didn’t control the traffic would be even more intrusive. That would lead to thought monitoring. Telepathy where the receiver didn’t control the traffic would lead to spam.

And how do you do call waiting?

[John Nagle]

Google’s purchase of several advanced robotics companies is worrisome. Every few years, Google decides to “put more wood behind fewer arrows”, and kills off major projects. They bought Motorola and killed it off. They might do that to Boston Dynamics and Schaft.Those outfits are a long way from commercial profitability. All those smart people can be more profitably employed boosting ad revenue.

Let’s see what happens when Google has a down quarter.

[John Nagle]

In the 1980s, Feigenbaum (a forgotten expert systems prof at Stanford) was talking about building a lunar base using robots by the year 2000. My comment was “How soon can you do it in Arizona?” He didn’t like that.  I have the same comment here: “How soon can you do it in Arizona?”

We still can’t build a building entirely with robots. let alone maintain the robots remotely.  (Yes, there are some guys with a CNC concrete pumping system who can put up walls, but they’re only doing a small fraction of the job. ) Doing useful work with robots in unstructured situations is still very hard. The DARPA Robotics Challenge is throwing money at the problem, and there’s been some progress in the last two years.

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