Let's see if you and I can start a genuine discussion on robotics and get this thread back on track, shall we?

Not true. If you can provide me with an argument which addresses my opposition - which you have not - then I will be quite happy to agree that humanoid robots have uses. I do not, however, see that they should be the major form of robot, and I've given good reasons why they should not be.

How does that justify your rudeness?

So far as funding is concerned, I am sure it will appear. But this is not scientific research, is it? It's consumer marketing; as amply demonstrated by the fact that the robots we're talking about are human-like and feminised. That puts an obligation on the producer to consider the effects of the product being marketed. That is the whole point of the thread.

So far as human interface design is concerned, I am not convinced by the arguments you've cited, nor am I convinced that human interface design is actually necessary, except possibly in cultural context. It's not obvious to me that existing methods are so badly flawed that they need humanoid robots to replace them. That case needs to be made first.

In addition, AFAICT you have chosen not to answer my points about education (at least to my satisfaction), and to assume that morality and social structure should have no bearing on the thread. That ignores its entire context.

The whole consumerist mindset, and what it requires. We need to move away from that, as fast as possible. The reasons for having humanoid robots, and most particularly feminised robots, are fundamentally opposed to that move.

Which is why I keep talking about education. We need to adapt to the world, rather than insisting it adapts to us. Both are aspects of intelligence, but we've been neglecting the first one.

so you're disgruntled with the fact that it is feminized?

so if it were a male secretary/librarian robot we wouldn't be having this discussion? Your first statement was that it was humanized, and now you're specifying that you're opposed to feminized robots.

I can guarantee this is only one form of robotics being researched. For human interface purposes, having a robot that resembles a human will make the transition much easier. This doesn't mean that underwater welding robots, or tree climbing robots are going to be bipedal and resemble humans, but in most cases, where a human once was, for interface purposes, will more than like be bipedal and resemble a human.

Technology like this is interchangeable with other technologies. This specific robot may not be the best for cutting branches out of tall trees, or welding underwater, but the technology used in this specific robot may be transferred to a non-human looking robot that is built with that in mind. Advances in robotics usually mean advances across the broad spectrum of robotics, not just one specific type of robotics.

SockPuppet, you seem to be making a lot of statements about the utility and design of various objects, with little to no education in the field of user interface design. UI design is less about facilitating laziness and more about facilitating accessibility and accuracy. I'd suggest reading Donald Norman's excellent The Design of Everyday Things as a good introduction to the subject.

Anyone who watched the last episode of Galactica should know that robots are bad.

No one has said they should be the major form of robot. You've said they shouldn't exist at all. A number of us have argued that they have uses. You have chosen not to accept those arguments.

Producing the robot in the OP required new research in robotics. It uses smaller parts. It has a basic, if imperfect, ability to walk. Sounds like scientific research to me, particularly when the developments will be used in other, non-humanoid robots.

Those developments would not appear without the funding provided by this robot. And this robot gets funding because it's humanoid.

It's public outreach. Putting on a show allows you to continue doing what you want to do, research-wise.

Frankly, the social aspect is what you think is the point of this thread. I'm approaching it from a purely technical standpoint, and ignoring the morality and social structure context you've unilaterally imposed..

In that case, why create robots at all, humanoid or otherwise? The whole point of robots is for them to do tasks that are too dangerous, inaccessible, or tedious for humans. The very existence of robots promotes the consumerist mindset, and adapts the world to us, rather than vice-versa.

Ahhh... someone with an actual source for their opinion

Thank you, I will do that.

Indeed. Consider, if you will, that that may be weakness in your arguments. I still do not see why we should be reinforcing humanocentricity (which is what we will be doing) by assuming that any public-interaction robot needs to be humanoid.

For the librarian, for instance, a Davros-style chassis might serve quite well; human-like face for comfortable interaction, stable, plenty of room for onboard storage and shuttling of library media, and no wasteful legs.

I'd also say that the whole context of the thread is about making robots look like people; and, in particular, like women of a very specific body type and commercial function, i.e. supermodels. The assumption that robots will look like people is being sold to the general public by the sort of work this thread started off with. That assumption is what I'm opposed to, really.

I beg to differ, for several reasons.
Firstly, the title of the thread; it's about robot supermodels! That imposes a context from word one.
Secondly, you're approaching it from a viewpoint which is about funding. That puts it in a marketplace, and that puts it in a morality and social structure context.

So, AFAICT, it's not me who's imposed it; it's you who's trying to ignore it.

That wasn't quite what I meant. Simply because something allows one approach doesn't (necessarily) restrict its usefulness to that approach. It rather depends on the worldview, I think.

Also, I'm not sure I agree with your version of the whole point. Dangerous or inaccessible, certainly; tedious, not so sure. Are you thinking of assembly-line work, or what?

No, the lesson that Battlestar has taught us is to treat robots with respect and dignity. THEY ARE OUR FRIENDS, NOT OUR SERVANTS.

Again, human interface issues. I'm sorry we haven't provided references for interface design, but the principles I and others have been citing are so basic to the discipline that it wouldn't even occur to us; they're something anyone we'd talk to about it would know.

I'm not trying to be rude, but knowledge of a subject's basic ideas is necessary for any discourse. Any rudeness any of us has shown has likely been caused by frustration over arguing about fundamentals. Try the resource cited by gdarklighter and get back to us.

Assembly-line work certainly qualifies. But I meant anything boring, repetitive, and mind-numbing. Things that need to be done but don't really require any thought.

Take calculation, for example. You can do all that arithmetic by hand, but it's boring and slow-going. So we invented computers to do it for us, and we can spend our time doing something useful.

"It is unworthy of excellent men to lose hours like slaves in the labor of calculation which could be relegated to anyone else if machines were used."

I shall do that. My suspicion, though, is that you're extending its precepts beyond its scope. I don't doubt that user interface design is of great importance; I spend far too much time dealing with badly-designed interfaces to question that. I just doubt that it has any real relevance to the subject at hand. I do maintain, you see, that the Hubble Telescope is a robot, for pretty much all useful definitions.

And, for the record, nobody else showed me any rudeness.

That's not why we invented computers. Slow, yes. Tedious, no. Which - you might remember - was the question I asked you, one whole post ago. I'm sorry if I seem annoyed, but that's because you keep denying that my questions have any relevance or interest.

And I'm sorry, but the invention of the computer is intimately linked with the desire to avoid doing tedious computation by hand, from the abacus to Napier's bones to the Pascaline and Lebiniz's Stepped Reckoner to the Difference Engine to Colossus to the modern PC.

Do you know that before the invention of the digital computer, the word "computer" simply meant "one who computes"? Everything was done by hand. And if you had a lot of calculation that needed to be done, for instance cryptography work, you got a whole room of human computers together and got them working on it? It was slow, it was inaccurate, and it was tedious, and the first real electronic digital computer was created to avoid it.

The quote in my post above is from Leibniz; it directly reflects his, and many of the other early inventors', views. There's no reason a human mind should be occupied with something simple and boring when that task can be relegated to machines, thus freeing the human mind to do something more worthwhile.

But do tell, why did we invent the computer?

Why don't you start over and state your social and moral objections without first telling me how wrong I am on something technical? I'm perfectly happy to discuss them, but we weren't talking about them in this thread until you brought them up, and then you got upset when I wouldn't drop what I was talking about in order to talk about what you wanted to talk about.

So, fresh start. What are your moral and social objections?

Also, my apologies, but it tries my patience when someone argues as an authority on a subject of which they lack basic knowledge, ignores or disputes anyone who tries to explain things, and refuses to take the initiative to learn the basic concepts himself. This isn't the behavior of someone who is genuinely seeking knowledge and discussion, but of someone with his own ax to grind. I don't feel the need to respond to it politely.

Now, if I've been mistaken and there's a genuine request for knowledge, that's another story, so why don't we start this whole thing over?

There really is no definition of the term robot, it's a word that is often misused, and sometimes outright abused. A lot of that comes from fictional writing using the term, there are many crossovers that create a fallacy when it comes to reality.

The Hubble fits some of the characteristics of a robot, but in the end, the Hubble is basically human controlled, it doesn't really make any decisions on it's own. However it does make some automated decisions based on it's programming, so it loosely fits the broadly defined term robot.

The term computer is just as broad as the term robot.

Analog Computer

Personal Computer

General Definition of Computer

Supercomputer

The computer itself describes many machines, including machines like the Z1, Z2 & Z3 which were all electro-mechanical machines built to solve calculations or to do statistical work. The bad thing about the Z-series is that they were developed by a German, which isn't bad, but he kept developing them in his parent's houses, which always seemed to be in the direct path of Allied bombing areas, all three of them were destroyed. Thankfully others learned from them before they were destroyed.

The whole basis of the Z1, Z2, and Z3 were to complete mathematical equations and calculations.

Supercomputers are used basically to do calculations, from the Wiki page:

They are constantly being built smaller, better and faster to complete the calculations and simulations in a more timely fashion.

The computer your using at this very moment uses basic mathematical functions to complete it's tasks, even simple tasks like typing.

Most of the computers initially used in history to do mathematical functions were enormous, taking up 20x20 rooms to do the most basic calculations, they're now capable of fitting all that in a calculator, or as an add-on to something that performs multiple tasks, like a cell-phone.

Every book i have ever read about computers states that the main purpose of their design and creation was to do mathematical functions and simulations (which are all math based processes) and were later used for other things, like looking at tits on the internet.