JOHN REES replies to Claudia Webbe
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Hard problems for soft robots
Machines have changed how we think about data. Will they make us think differently about matter, ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL
SOFT TOUCH: A Shadow Dexterous Robot Hand holding a lightbulb
[Richard Greenhill and Hugo Elias/Creative Commons]
There is no justification for spending colossal amounts of money on so-called defence — sacrificing our education, health and transport while they’re at it, says BERT SCHOUWENBURG
GEOFFREY BELL looks at the curiously unsupportive stance of British progressives of the Easter Rising
On the eve of the Communist Party of Ireland’s 27th congress JIMMY CORCORAN reiterates the principles that guided James Connolly
But that’s OK, says MATT KERR, as talking is what will help us get things done
Why a defeat of the miners still haunts Britain’s rulers, says PHIL KATZ
ROBOTS are here. They run our lives, they do our jobs, they find our soulmates, they persuade us what to listen to, how to spend our time and money, they teach us, they connect us to other people.
Your phone is a robot, your checkout is a robot, your smart speaker is a robot, your computer is a robot, your electronics are robots, using the internet means using robots to use other robots.
Perhaps calling all of these technologies “robots” is unnecessarily simplifying. It’s not how we imagined the future of machinery when the first automatons of the industrial revolution tumbled clanking and steaming into factories, or how robots were imagined in most visions of the future in sci-fi comics and films. And yet this is what we have made.
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