Human, machine, what's the difference

While not exactly a demonstration of the doom of humanity, here's an interesting article on why the Turing Test is no good.

For those not in the know, the Turing Test is basically a test of a machine's intelligence, using its ability to communicate like a human. Normally, the test would be designed so that the judge would be at a terminal IM'ing with two or more different 'people' - at least one of whom is a machine. If the judge can't tell which is the human and which is the machine, then the machine must be as smart as a human (a flawed jump, but a key component of the test).

If you don't want to read the article, it basically says that the judges as just as likely to find that real people are machines. Apparently we are not good at spotting 'normal' conversations. Odd. And amusing. If we can't spot 'em when they're just boxes, how will we spot the Terminators, or Cylons...

Robots take on Theatre

So apparently the New York theatre people feel that using human actors it totally 20th Century. They have come up with a play using robots! Yep. They remade to Ibsen classic Hedda Gabler into a story about ailen robots.
The company to create these actors was Botmatrix a small NYC company. They also organized the Robot Parade.

Danger Rating: 4 (apparently they are stopped by such things as 1/4 inch plexiglass on the floor)

Not flying cars, but...

So now they can drive!
I love that the creators are so nervous about a car driving without supervision, that the driver has to touch the wheel every 10 seconds. Like things couldn't possibly go awry in 10 seconds.
But a nice way to get around drinking and driving!

Danger Rating: 8 (Cars with people driving are dangerous. Cars with homicidal robots driving are just wrong).