Today is the last day at the Prospect for our brilliant associate editor Jaime Fuller, who is cruelly abandoning me, much like Shane walked away from that little boy crying for him to come back. We've had a running joke for a while, wherein on many Fridays I write a post about robots, Jaime mutters, "Sheesh, another post about robots? Give it up Waldman, this is a magazine about politics, remember?" and I say "Yer damn right it's another post about robots! You'll thank me when they take over!" (This conversation actually takes place in my head; in fact, Jaime has been unfailingly tolerant of my odd Friday topic choices.)
Anyhow, I couldn't let the day end without some alarming robot news in Jaime's honor. It comes in the form of a threat from across the ocean: a robot gap! Are we going to let the Europeans move ahead of us? This is from the BBC:
A world wide web for robots to learn from each other and share information is being shown off for the first time.
Scientists behind RoboEarth will put it through its paces at Eindhoven University in a mocked-up hospital room.
Four robots will use the system to complete a series of tasks, including serving drinks to patients.
It is the culmination of a four-year project, funded by the European Union. The eventual aim is that both robots and humans will be able to upload information to the cloud-based database, which would act as a kind of common brain for machines.
The system has been developed by research scientists from Philips and five European universities including Eindhoven.
"At its core RoboEarth is a world wide web for robots: a giant network and database repository where robots can share information and learn from each other," said Rene van de Molengraft, the RoboEarth project leader.
Just like those European socialists, getting all their robots to work together. And what's going to happen when our isolated American robots, seemingly secure in their rugged individualism, confront an army of Euro-Terminators linked by a "common brain?" I'll tell you what: we'll all be speaking Flemish before you know it. You've been warned.