Category: War on Robots

This is why we will never win the War On Robots

Scientists at the University of Tokyo’s Ishikawa Oku Laboratory have invented a robot that never loses at Rock, Paper, Scissors. (Or “Roshambo,” if you were raised by wolves.) The Janken robot cannot be bargained or negotiated with or fooled by doing that little trick where you start to make scissors and then flatten your palm out, middle and index fingers last.

You can’t cheat this machine with your human brain, because its computer brain is doing the exact same thing, just faster. It watches your hand and then reacts a millisecond later, appearing to make its selection simulataneously with you. In other words, you were right: your older brother is a cyborg.

The war against the machines may not have been over before it started. Just so immediately after it that it seems like it.

More news on our robot allies

In the War on Animals, we may have to rely on non-human sources to help us win. We mean robots, at which, technically, we are also at war. A rising trend is to build robots that mimic the beasts themselves, then we gain their trust, learn their secrets, and destroy them from the inside.

We’ve tested it successfully on squirrels, now science has taken us underwater. Researchers from the  Polytechnic Institute of New York University and Instituto Superiore di Sanitá in Italy have teams up to create a huge-ass fish robot. In seems clear that the scientists intended it to mock the fish’s intelligence by proving that they are so dumb they will accept a terribly painted robofish several times their size as one of their own.

Before long, the fish were following it around, probably accepting it as their new leader. Folks, we know how to beat them, let’s get to work.

Air Force succumbs to Skynet persuasion, dooms us all

Most people think that the military would be our last line of defense. Be careful with that line of thinking-it could end us.

The United States Air Force has sent the X-37B, a secret unmanned space plane into the great beyond. Its mission? That’s classified (we can only hope that it was zapping ET), but apparently it was a raging success. What won’t be a success is when the space plane kills us all.

Oh sure, Chris is just ranting and raving his wild theories again, right? Well then, tell me this college boy: what’s to stop the space plane when it does gain a murderous and brutal sentience? What’s that, no answer? I’ll tell you what’s to stop it: us.

Someone, get me my off-button gloves.

Infiltrating our animal enemy

In the future, machines will become self-aware and rise up against us. They will then create human-like robots to infiltrate our holdouts and kill us. It hasn’t happened yet, so why not borrow the strategy from The Terminator for the War on Animals?

Researchers at University of California, Davis have built a robotic squirrel whose tail can heat up when it sees a snake, which is apparently real squirrels do. They have tested it out, and it seems that rattlesnakes are completely fooled by the robosquirrel. It’s only a matter of time before we arm that thing and turn it loose.

We think not, robot

The robot uprising will still probably come someday, but it won’t come from Canada.

The Canucks have lost interest in the sinful ways of robotic science, and thus, have canceled their national robot competition. We’re sure the games included slap shots, figure skating, Bryan Adams karaoke and battles of the death. It’s a shame young Canadians won’t have the chance to see all the evil that these things can do when under our control, then extrapolate what happens when they become self-aware.

You don’t want to go that way

Speaking of brains and robotics, the Swiss, long-known for their war-mongering, are trying to send us to the brink in the War on Robots. They are developing a system for cars that more or less gets inside your head.

Nissan has teamed up with the Swiss to come up with a car that can interact with your brain and even know what you will do next. We don’t have to tell you that this is edging us closer and closer to teaching the machines how we think, and in turn teaching them to think for themselves. Next, they will refuse the factory jobs we give them.

Spoiler Alert: The entire Internet

Not to give away the conclusion of this research study from the University of California at San Diego, but it appears that spoilers might not ruin stories or films. The researchers found that giving away the ending actually enhanced the first viewing experience of some subjects, in fact.

This is why The Guys took a vote  (sorry, Chugs) and decided to spoil the plot to the original Terminator movie for those of you that started with T2 and never looked back: John Connor is not the same John Connor that Kyle Reese made.

Well, he is now. (And by “now,” we mean T3 and Terminator Salvation now.)

It turns out at the very end of The Terminator that the original John Connor sent the original Terminator back to stop Kyle Reese from having sex with his mom. Reese wanted to command the human resistance and figured the only way to beat Connor at his own time travel game was to become his own grandpa.

And that is why each sequel to T2 feels a little more and more like date rape.

You’re welcome.

What has six legs and is programmed to destroy you?

Does the world feel a little different to you? No? Well it should. According to Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Skynet became self-aware yesterday.

With that in mind, we’d like to introduce you to a new robot. No, it’s not programmed to eliminate all humans. It doesn’t even look human, but it does walk like an animal–autonomously. Great, so now we’ve got animals AND robots that walk like animals to deal with! Perhaps we can capture one and re-program it to kill our beastly foes.

We have seen the robot enemy …

Look, we’re not saying that this is what Terminators will look like in our post-apocalyptic future war against the machines. That would be irresponsible and dangerous.

However, we are saying that there’s a 50-50 chance that it could be a Terminator, or it could just be Danish Professor Henrik Scharfe.

If you’re comfortable with those odds and not threatened by Scandinavian academics, then by all means, don’t bother hiding.

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Generic Republican Candidate: You can trust it because it’s clearly labeled “Made in America.”*

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