We have always known that — we, who think about such things, anyway — but the implicit assumption has always been that automation would come to industry first.
Robots
Guy Rundle: The frightening automation of Planet Manchester
Rise of the machines: cinema’s best robot betrayals
Over the years the cinema has presented a plethora of back-stabbing robots - from the Replicants in Blade Runner to Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Vine lists ten of the best.
Could journalists be replaced by robots?
Damn: researchers in Japan have created a “journalist robot”, which detects when interesting things are going down, takes photos, asks questions, and uploads it all to the web. Looks like we’re stuffed.
Welcome to the age of the killer robot
It sounds like a sci-fi film, but it’s the reality of war in the 21st century: the West is now fighting its wars with a rapidly expanding army of killer robots. Is this really the future we want to engineer for our world?
AOL to replace human editors with robots
AOL — owner of big-name websites like TMZ, Politics Daily and Popeater — is creating an algorithm to automatically assign stories and pay rates to freelancers, based on web searchers and stats.
Machines will be smarter than humans within 10 years
Artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence by 2020, according to one expert. Is the human race engineering our own demise? Is civilisation nearing the Singularity? All hail our new robot overlords.
The world’s first kissing robots
Cute AND creepy: robots Thomas and Janet are the stars of a Taiwanese robot production of Phantom of the Opera developed by the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology.
What is it with the Japanese and robots?
It seems every few years, Japanese engineers roll out a headline-grabbing new robot, yet the robotics industry is yet to really take off. Are they just playing out Astro Boy-fueled fantasies, or is Japan getting a foothold in the next big tech market?
When robots attack
A Swedish factory has been fined after a worker was attacked by one of its manufacturing robots which “suddenly came to life” and grabbed hold of his head.
VIDEO: Japanese robot chefs
Robots can now prepare sushi, flip burgers and slice vegies. Humans are officially obsolete.
Wall-E in real life
An Italian town obsessed with garbage is the testing ground for DustCart, a prototype robot that seems to have escaped from the animated movie “Wall-E” and could revolutionise rubbish collection.
VIDEO: Underwater robot wars
What’s better than robot wars? Underwater robot wars.
Disney unveils creepy Robot Obama
Walt Disney World has added an animatronic Barack Obama to its Hall of Presidents attraction, and it’s quite disturbing. Duff beer for me, Duff beer for you…
Driving in space
Meet Dr Ashley Stroupe, NASA’s lead robot driver for the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit. Apparently, he’s grown pretty attached to Spirit and does “a lot of the long-term planning for her”.
Pollution-detecting robot fish released
A school of pollution-detecting robotic fish are set to be released off the northern Spanish port of Gijon in a trial next year.
