Market Metrics: Robotics

We can gauge the progress of humanoid robot technology in proportion to how much war game simulations factor in these robot armies when scheming and dreaming about futuristic wartime scenarios.  If the generals aren't expressing worry about the displacement of human soldiers, and/or the boots on the ground soldiers aren't organizing to keep their roles, then likely the state of the art is pretty far from replacing actual GIs. You'll need GIs with different skills. What's really happening is the "dronification" of various vehicles, such that they might be piloted remotely.

To what extent is DARPA funding "drone tanks" would be a question for some chatbot. I'm not planning to ask because I don't really care that much about what DARPA is or isn't funding these days. CP4E was enough to get the ball rolling in my bailiwick.

CP4E was Guido's proposal to develop a world-changing computer language, starting with a campaign to make it work equally well (via a GUI IDE) on all major platforms. This he accomplished, with masterful success, and the rest is history.

I expect Wall Streeters are already inundated with humanoid robot portfolios, glossy presentations about future product lines, and extension of the Kitchen Debate struck up by Nixon vs Khrushchev in the shadow of the Moscow Dome. 

The state of "kitchen technology" is indicative of civilian quality of life overall. If the average household has all the requisite appliances, it gets to be rated "first world" (using an obsolete jargon). Will Japanese households have humanoid helpers in the kitchen? What tasks will they perform? 

In the meantime, the consumers control the marketplace in large degree. When it comes to AI, a lot of the GenZers are less interested in humanoid robots that in pet feeders employing facial recognition to dole out requisite portions and meds. In a cafeteria plan, individuals get handed a completed tray based on their dialed in dietary profile, much as on an airplane, but with meds meted out.

These are humans on the go who don't just wanna drink Soylent before heading back out to the playing fields. They do wanna be facially recognized, although fingerprint readers might be doable. Swipe cards will likewise work in some clubs (for food, gym locker, sailboat, scuba gear and so on).

The pet facial reader and feeder, like the floorplan-learning vacuum cleaner, are both examples of specialized appliances that don't need a humanoid appearance so much as a voice-controlled API.  Many GenXers, GenYers and GenZers are already passing on to Gen Alpha the joys of using inhouse voice-activation to control lighting, heating, meal planning, shopping orders and so on. 

Instead of driving to the store, conveyor belt driven fulfillment centers assemble orders and push them out.

However, when it comes to the rough-and-tumble world of real-world driving, fantasy fiction meets reality in a big way. The Amazon delivery fleet, with private car armada, is not robotized, nor has drone delivery yet taken off (that'll be more relevant when we set up our more remote Earthala-type campuses).

Wall Street as a whole, on average, is not necessarily tech savvy enough to not fall for empty promises. Once parted from their money, investors have little choice but to ride the rollercoaster in some cases. Their money was skimmed from their borrowing accounts (by prior agreement) and invested on their behalf, with the promise of more back than put in. 

The promise of the LLC is you won't lose more than you put in, not that you won't lose. Benefits from risks cannot be locked in, by law of nature. But by law, they may be mitigated.

SpyVille

So what I’m I learning from all this noir watching, thanks to MMU (Movie Madness University — but I repeat myself)?

I’m glad I caught up to The Girl Hunters (1963). Even though I’m older than Bogart (physically if not psychically, whatever that means), that doesn’t mean ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (as goes the tired cliche). I didn’t grow up on those Mickey Spillane novels featuring private eye Mike Hammer (thank you Genesis, not Mark). 

What I got was Spillane was up against Ian Flemming, the competition, as the Cold War was giving rise to a new set of stereotypes around good versus villainy. How to get the new spy lingo into Hammerese? The Girl Hunters marks a stab in that direction, with its fem fatale star the lucky girl to get painted gold in Goldfinger (which I also just rewatched thanks to MMU).

Trevor had earlier taught me about the Ian Flemming versus Patrick McGoohan school of thought, which could be summarized I suppose as “do the goodie spies have to be good with guns?” The question is akin to the age-old: “must the hero engage in swordplay?”. That depends on whom the script is written for. Speaking of which, Dick Van Dyke was offered the possibility of being a Bond after Connery, but he didn’t think the audience would buy it. True, it’s hard to imagine Dick sounding British.

As a child of the Cold War, I got to spys’ ville (a city of shadows) via such as Spy vs Spy in Mad Magazine, and yes through the Bond films, more than the novels, which nudged me into John le Carré, one of who’s novels I was privileged to read actually traveling through Victoria Station or one of those, on a rare visit closer to his setting.

Then of course I met some real spies in person, like Ralph McGehee that time, and later Ed Applewhite. Mostly I’d just read their books, like with Colby, Turner and that Spy for All Seasons guy (Duane “Dewey” Clarridge). Of course Casey (we might’ve met). Etcetera. More recently, I’ve been picking up some clues on stuff to read through Candace’s show (she’s eclectic).

Anyway, all that later stuff I’ve written up in previous posts, other media. It’s the out-of-sequence noir stuff that’s new (with thanks to MMU). Hey, I didn’t get to Sesame Street until high school, given Manila screened more USA telly than Rome. Or maybe that was more a case of getting it contemporaneously, versus catching up through reruns?

Political Awareness Through Toys

Vintage Silicon Forest

Python for Math Teachers:  Introducing Cryptography

VintageTEK Museum

Google Street View