Category: Robotics

Accelerating Future » Folding DNA into Twisted and Curved Nanoscale Shapes. Cool pics of some (artist’s conceptions of) shapes made from DNA.

This is the Motoman SDA10 15-axis robot (“for high level of dexterity and range of motion”) putting together an office chair. This is roughly the kind of thing we need for the Feynman Path assembly robot. (in case the embedding isn’t working on your browser, it’s here) There are several times when the Motoman uses… Continue reading Motoman SDA10

More evidence for a Society of Mind model, complete with economics: The Brain Economy by Michael L. Anderson over at Forbes. Together with fMRI, DTI and connectomes offer an unprecedented opportunity to understand how the brain operates. This is similar to learning about a city from looking at a map. You could easily find major… Continue reading Diffusion Tensor Imaging and the Economy of Mind

A short comment on Drexler’s paper Biological and Nanomechanical Systems: Contrasts in Evolutionary Capacity:  He distinguishes two types of design, O-style (like organic) and M-style (like mechanical) systems.  He points out that O-style systems are much more robust to incremental design modification, where M-style systems require coordinated changes that are much, much less likely to happen… Continue reading Organic vs machine evolution

Yesterday I wrote that we don’t have a clue how learning works. If that were as categorically true as I made it sound, the prospects of AGI would be pretty much sunk. AGI requires getting up to the universal level of a learning machine: one that can in theory learn anything any other learning machine… Continue reading Learning and AGI

In 1902, H. G Wells penned a book, remarkably prophetic in some respects, that can be taken as the definition of the fin de siecle take on the probable course of the 20th century. It was called Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress Upon Human Life and Thought. You can find it… Continue reading Where is my flying car?

Will the stars align for space-based solar power? – Ars Technica. Nice overview of the current status.  Nanotech can only help…   Update: economics of space-based solar  follow-on article.