The Zen of Technology & Scientific Discovery! (& Robots)
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Hi Meishin,
Which article did you mean to link to (although everything on that page is really interesting)? The one on Siri?
I live here in Tsukuba Science City, home of Treeleaf Zendo and more robot factories than any place in Japan, about 5 minutes by car from where they are planning to build "Robot City" ... a futuristic development where the hospital, retirement center, school and the like will be robot staffed. Yes, the names of the company and its product is real and intentional (for SF fans)
TSUKUBA, Ibaraki Prefecture--A start-up firm here is planning to construct a futuristic “city of robots” that relies on robotic and cybernetic technologies to assist with the daily lives of humans.
Cybernic City is the brainchild of Cyberdyne Inc. President Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at the University of Tsukuba, known for developing the robot suit HAL (Hybrid Assistive Limb) power assist device for applications in health care and welfare.
Cybernic City will be built in Tsukuba, where the company has its headquarters, and will feature a research-and-development center, senior citizen housing and other facilities on 8.4 hectares of land.
Cyberdyne envisions the site working on everything from developing robots to assist with everyday living to testing them and putting them to actual use in society. Cyberdyne's idea is to make the zone a model for the cities of the future.
Cybernic City is derived from "cybernics," an academic field of study espoused by Sankai that combines robotics, neuroscience and other disciplines.
http://www.japanbullet.com/technolog...city-of-robots
We have had a couple of threads on the CyboSattvas ...
Of Buddhabots and Dharmadroids ...
This story today about a temple here in Japan ... ...(and before someone asks, Buddhism generally holds that robots do not have "souls", although also holding that neither do people! :buddha: The question remains open, however, about whether machines will ever be sentient beings. I happen to think they
and
It's the Robo-Buddhist-Priest!
It Does Not Compute Gassho, Jundo
SatTodayLAHALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Hi Jundo,
Oops. Technologically challenged. Maybe this is it.
Sci-fi may have us worried about self-aware robots, but it’s the mindless ones we need to be cautious of. Conscious machines may actually be our allies.
Thank you for the links to earlier posts. I'm a day late and a dollar short.
Gassho
Meishin
sat todayLast edited by Meishin; 06-30-2017, 02:31 AM.Comment
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If robots become intelligent, do THEY vow to save us?
Thank you.
Gassho,
Kotei sattoday.義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.Comment
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If robots become intelligent, do THEY vow to save us?
Thank you.
Gassho,
Kotei sattoday.The technological singularity (also, simply, the singularity)[1] is the hypothesis that the invention of artificial superintelligence will abruptly trigger runaway technological growth, resulting in unfathomable changes to human civilization.[2] According to this hypothesis, an upgradable intelligent agent (such as a computer running software-based artificial general intelligence) would enter a "runaway reaction" of self-improvement cycles, with each new and more intelligent generation appearing more and more rapidly, causing an intelligence explosion and resulting in a powerful superintelligence that would, qualitatively, far surpass all human intelligence.
Well, Buddha said that all composite things are impermanent. We, and our civilization, are "composite things"
Hopefully the new machine masters (maybe they will include some usable biological elements from us in the mix, but probably they will design something better) will do a better job than we have in running the world.
Maybe it will be kind of like the Borg ... but nice. Nice, gentle, peace loving Borg.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAHALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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Don't worry, best guess is around 2040 ;-)
At the 2012 Singularity Summit, Stuart Armstrong did a study of artificial general intelligence (AGI) predictions by experts and found a wide range of predicted dates, with a median value of 2040.[7]
edit:
Actually, there are some interesting concepts about 'transhumanism' ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism )
Ray Kurzweil ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil#Predictions ) wrote a non science fiction book about 'The Age of Spiritual Machines' and is quite sure, that he'll upload himself into a machine the next decades.
He's also working on the improvement of his body in the meantime ( "Live Long Enough to Live Forever" ).
There's an impressive list of technological inventions, he made and now, he's working full-time for google with the goal "to bring natural language understanding to Google".
"Does God exist? I would say, 'Not yet.'"
Gassho,
Kotei sat/lah today義道 冴庭 / Gidō Kotei.Comment
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Last edited by Meishin; 07-18-2017, 09:39 PM.Comment
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http://neurosciencenews.com/roboethi...oscience-7111/
Gassho
Meishin
sat today LAH
... or, at least, Asimov's Three Rules of Robotics ...
CNN: US general warns of out-of-control killer robots
America's second-highest ranking military officer, Gen. Paul Selva, advocated Tuesday for "keeping the ethical rules of war in place lest we unleash on humanity a set of robots that we don't know how to control."
Selva was responding to a question from Sen. Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat, about his views on a Department of Defense directive that requires a human operator to be kept in the decision-making process when it comes to the taking of human life by autonomous weapons systems.
Peters said the restriction was "due to expire later this year."
...
But Peters warned that America's adversaries may be less hesitant to adopt such lethal technology.
"Our adversaries often do not to consider the same moral and ethical issues that we consider each and every day," the senator told Selva.
Selva acknowledged the possibility of US adversaries developing such technology, but said the decision not to pursue it for the US military "doesn't mean that we don't have to address the development of those kinds of technologies and potentially find their vulnerabilities and exploit those vulnerabilities."America’s second-highest ranking military officer, Gen. Paul Selva, warned Tuesday of “a set of robots that we don’t know how to control.”
Asimov's Rules ...
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAHALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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discourse.suttacentral.net article on buddhism and robots
FYI:
Indeed, the interesting thing is the robot’s claim to have insight into the Buddha’s teaching is based, not on its really having “learned” the Dhamma as a freely thinking being, but rather, by having experienced it through a “bare nature”, or an absent nature. The idea being that this bare nature sees things “as-they-are”. Very interesting. Also very superfluous.
Kyousui - strong waters 強 水Comment
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Pepper’s creators said the robotic Buddhist could cut the cost of a funeral to under $500 — one quarter of the price of a human priest.» Subscribe to NBC New...
I know I could be replaced by a robot around here too!
Plastics manufacturer Nissei Eco dressed Pepper in Buddhist garb and programmed the humanoid robot to chant and preach as a monk would during funeral service...
Gassho, J
SatTodayLAHALL OF LIFE IS OUR TEMPLEComment
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This is so freaking cool!
Zen and technology seem like a good match for me. This droid could help a lot of people that don't have a priest nearby for ceremonies and listening to teachings.
Still is no match for a good old fashioned human priest, though.
Gassho,
Kyonin
Sat/LAHHondō Kyōnin
奔道 協忍Comment
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https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t...ersection/6266 has a watercooler topic on Buddhism and Robots.
Sat today/ LAH/wasted time today
Kyousui - strong waters 強 水Comment
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Aibo the robo-puppy is back
The Verge is about technology and how it makes us feel. Founded in 2011, we offer our audience everything from breaking news to reviews to award-winning features and investigations, on our site, in video, and in podcasts.
Sony says Aibo’s behavior is adaptable, with the dog seeking out owners, learning what makes them happy, and gradually growing accustomed to wider environments. It uses deep learning technology to analyze the sounds and images coming through Aibo’s array of sensors, and uses cloud data to learn from the experiences of other Aibo units and owners.
Gassho,
Kyonin
Sat/LAHHondō Kyōnin
奔道 協忍Comment
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Masahiro Mori's Buddhist philosophy of robot
Hi,
I am posting a link to this article here because, although I did not really understanding much of what it said, it is:
(1) About robots
(2) About a fellow who develops robots based on Zen Buddhism
(3) Is written by a Professor at the University of Tsukuba, the M.I.T. of Japan, home of Treeleaf Tsukuba, and Robot City!
(4) I did not understand much of it.
(5) Maybe it will be interesting to somebody who is into robots and Zen (and Tsukuba?) who perhaps can understand it better than me!
Masahiro Mori is a well-known Japanese robotics scholar whose notion of Uncanny Valley is worldly famous. Mori is also an initiator of the Robot Contest and a student of Buddhism and a practitioner of Zen. He constructs his original Buddhist
It said things about robots and Zen like this (and these were the parts I kinda understood!) ...
Engineers who have worked at those engineering companies
need to receive the lessons and teachings of Zen
Buddhism in an engineering manner. Mori strongly believes
that his understanding of experiencing non-duality
oneness as the source of creativity and innovation could be
the basis for many engineers from a variety of disciplines
to receive ideas intuitively and create new innovative technology
that would contribute to solving global problems.
However, many engineers and industrial designers
face difficulties obtaining such ideas in the process of designing
and developing a new technology. In response,
Mori teaches them to learn the backward step (退 歩,
taiho). According to Mori, scientists and engineers are
both trapped in the myriad of progress and epistemological
duality that made people blind, preventing them from
being able to see things as they are. The backward step
is taken from the Zen master Dogen’s words (E. Dogen,
The Zen Site: Fukanzazengi [Universally Recommended
Instructions for Zazen]) and means that, instead of looking
for a solution outwardly, it is necessary to sit still and
look for a solution inwardly. By turning conscious attention
from an external to an internal view and by focusing
attention inwardly, it is possible to be released from
the entangled web of duality that appears to obscure intuition.
As the epistemological duality does not enable people
to see things clearly, it is necessary to see things as one;
for example, for a car to run, it requires both the accelerator
and brake, whose functions are oppositional. It is
a sort of religious awakening to be able to see things as
dualistic oneness in his explanatory terms for engineers,
where duality represents technological oppositions and
oneness represents a sort of holistic perspective. Mori’s explanatory
term of dualistic oneness is equivalent to nondualistic
oneness in religious terms, which allows engineers
and robotics scholars who need to design new technology
to see non-dualistic oneness, since engineers and
robotics scholars need to learn the circular relationship between
technological duality and Zen oneness.
--
Mori’s interest in the relationship between life-form
and technology led him to a new insight into the Mahayana
teachings of Buddhism. For example, when he was a small
boy, he wondered why a dog walked on four legs. After he
began to design and build a robot, one day he suddenly understood
intuitively why a dog walked on four legs. When
he was totally absorbed in thinking about how to design
his new robot, he realized that it is a dog’s Buddhahood;
therefore, a dog walks on four legs. Although he does not
refer to any koan, a metaphorical story for Zen practice, ¯
when referring to this episode, there is a well-known koan ¯
from The Gateless Barriers. A monk asks, “Does a dog have
Buddhahood?” The master replies, “Mu (Nothing)” [51].
The novice monk spent all of his time in a monastic life
while Mori worked at the secular and technological environment.
However, Mori reached a somewhat similar realization
to the monk at the Zen monastery
Gassho, J
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