The Terminator Google’s Army READY
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Google’s latest acquisition is one of the most advanced robotics companies in the world, and makes robots for the US military.
Google’s recent acquisition of Boston Dynamics marks its eighth robotics purchase in the past six months, showing Google’s “moonshot” robotics vision is more than just a pet project.
Boston Dynamics is the most high-profile acquisition, however, instantly adding world-leading robotics capability, including robots that can walk all on their own, to Google’s arsenal – as well as significant links to the US military – conjuring images of Skynet and the artificial intelligence-led robot uprising straight out of the 1984 film The Terminator.
What is it?
Boston Dynamics is an engineering and robotics design company that works across a wide range of computer intelligence and simulation systems, as well as large, advanced robotic platforms.
The company was created as a technology spin-off from Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Prof Marc Raibert in 1992, then the founder and lead researcher of the Leg Lab – a research group focussed on systems that move dynamically, including legged robots.
What does it do?
Raibert describes the Boston Dynamics team as “simply engineers that build robots”, but in reality Boston Dynamics is much more than that.
Its robotics work is at the forefront of the technology creating the self-proclaimed “most advanced robots on Earth” particularly focused around self-balancing humanoid or bestial robots.
Funding for the majority of the most advanced Boston Dynamics robots comes from military sources, including the US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and the US army, navy and marine corps. The terms of contracts currently held by Boston Dynamics with military bodies are unknown, althoughGoogle has committed to honouring existing contracts, including recent $10.8m funding from Darpa.
What else has Google got?
Boston Dynamics is not the only robotics company Google has bought in recent years. Put under the leadership of Andy Rubin, previously Google's head of Android, the search company has quietly acquired seven different technology companies to foster a self-described “moonshot” robotics vision.
The acquired companies included Schaft, a small Japanese humanoid robotics company; Meka and Redwood Robotics, San Francisco-based creators of humanoid robots and robot arms; Bot & Dolly who created the robotic camera systems recently used in the movie Gravity; Autofuss an advertising and design company; Holomni, high-tech wheel designer, and Industrial Perception, a startup developing computer vision systems for manufacturing and delivery processes.
Sources told the New York Times that Google’s initial plans are not consumer-focused, instead aimed at manufacturing and industry automation, although products are expected within the next three to five years.
Rubin, before making Android into a mobile powerhouse, started life as a robotics engineer at Zeiss. He has now convinced Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to fund a commercial robotics venture, something Rubin has been mulling for some 10 years.
Robotic cars
Google is no stranger to robots. Its robotic car project, which kicked off in 2009, is one of the leaders in the field. It currently has a fleet of at least 10 converted Toyota Priuses, which have covered more than 300,000 miles on Californian roads without incident.
The robotic cars have roof-mounted cameras and sensors that monitor the road ahead and its surroundings, building a 3D model of the route and navigating obstacles.
In 2012, a blind man names Steve Mahan was allowed behind the wheel of a Google self-driving car in Morgan Hill, California.
Presently, most of these robots are controlled externally and don't demonstrate any real intelligence. But when combined with the AI systems now rapidly exploding in complexity and intelligence -- Ray Kurzweil insists AI systems will be smarter than humans by 2029 -- you have the perfect recipe for a walking, thinking, calculating "Terminator" robot that's ready to commit mass genocide against humanity.
Who will control these robots? Google, of course, the same corporation that spies on all your email, searches and web surfing behavior. Google is now being called the "evil empire" of the modern world, and many are convinced the corporation intends to pursue an agenda of global domination at every level: technology, social engineering, robotics and militarization.
Humanity's defense: Guns and EMP
What is humanity's defense against the rise of the robots? Firearms and EMP weapons, it turns out. Making robots bulletproof is very difficult to achieve, as they would become too heavy to carry out their tasks with efficiency. While robots could be outfitted with Kevlar vests, there are more than enough sniper rifles in the hands of everyday Americans -- especially across the hunting industry -- to take out millions of robots with high-velocity rounds and long ranges.
EMP weapons, too, can disable robots unless they are hardened against EMP attacks. EMP weapons were depicted in The Matrix sci-fi film as a key weapon against the search-and-destroy "Squiddies" that stalked humans and destroyed their transport craft. In order to survive for the long term, humans would have to seek out and destroy the robotfactories that keep churning out the Terminators. They might also cut off the supply of power or raw materials to the factories by sabotaging supply lines.
In the original Terminator film, future humans managed to invent a time machine that could send a naked human into the past to reshape the course of events. Kyle Reese was transported to 1984 -- a year of really bad punk fashion -- to protect future military leader John Conner, who was being hunted by a Terminator also sent back in time.
While Google hasn't yet created a time machine, it's getting frighteningly close to the Terminator android robots depicted in the film of the same name. Once achieved, this willgive a corporation the military might of the Pentagon. Essentially, Google would be the first corporation in the world to raise its own private combat army.
Survival of the human race may soon depend on humanity's ability to disable or destroy armies of corporate-controlled robots programmed to terminate human life. Don't search for how to accomplish this on Google.com, or you will be scheduled for termination.