Don’t believe what the sci-fi movies tell you. When it comes to understanding our world, robots are stupid. Like computers, robots only do what we program them to do. And that’s a big problem if we’re ever going to realize the dream of practical robot helpers for the masses. Wouldn’t it be great if anyone could teach a robot to perform a task, like they would a child? Well, that’s precisely what Maya Cakmak has been working on at Willow Garage. Cakmak, a researcher from Georgia Tech, spent the summer creating a user-friendly system that teaches the PR2 robot simple tasks. The kicker is that it doesn’t require any traditional programming skills whatsoever – it works by physically guiding the robot’s arms while giving it verbal commands. After inviting regular people to give it a try, she found that with few instructions they were able to teach the PR2 how to retrieve medicine from a cabinet and fold a t-shirt. Such tasks may be easy for us, but for a robot they are very difficult. That’s why most scientists don’t take the threat of a robopocalypse very seriously just yet – they know how difficult it is to get a robot to do anything even remotely useful. (via Teaching robots new tricks without programming)

We think of school as a place where children learn new skills and knowledge. Young people come to class more or less ready to learn, their aptitude and readiness determined by genetics and environment. They are motivated or apathetic. They are attentive or distractible. They are social or shy, anxious or calm. Teachers accept these differences and try to adjust for them, to teach their charges as best they can. But what if school could also be a place where kids get training in fundamental psychological traits—focus, drive and self-control—that are critical for success in school and later in life? Programs geared toward social and emotional learning are aimed at this lofty goal. Backed by research and designed by psychologists, such curricula are growing in number and popularity.

The Education of Character: Teaching Control with a Cotton Ball | Streams of Consciousness, Scientific American Blog Network

The mediocrity principle simply states that you aren’t special. The universe does not revolve around you, this planet isn’t privileged in any unique way, your country is not the perfect product of divine destiny, your existence isn’t the product of directed, intentional fate, and that tuna sandwich you had for lunch was not plotting to give you indigestion. Most of what happens in the world is just a consequence of natural, universal laws — laws that apply everywhere and to everything, with no special exemptions or amplifications for your benefit — given variety by the input of chance. Everything that you as a human being consider cosmically important is an accident. The rules of inheritance and the nature of biology meant that when your parents had a baby, it was anatomically human and mostly fully functional physiologically, but the unique combination of traits that make you male or female, tall or short, brown-eyed or blue-eyed were the result of a chance shuffle of genetic attributes during meiosis, a few random mutations, and the luck of the draw in the grand sperm race at fertilization.

P.Z. MYERS
Biologist, University of Minnesota; blogger, Pharyngula

THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2011 — Page 12

Teaching futurism to children and teens

clipped from www.depressedmetabolism.com Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.” Plato (BC 427-BC 347) Greek philosopher. For the most part the education systems of the industrialized nations are functional in that they cover the basics: reading, writing, science, and arithmetic. There is systematic guidance in the form of counselors in schools once a child becomes an adolescent and help is given for the child to develop into their adult career. What is a futurist to do to inspire the next generation? A futurist can share sci-fi books such as Stephen Hawking’s new book for children “George’s Secret Key to the Universe”, or a transhumanist adventure based on what is seen as possible by scientists now –like my book “21st Century Kids”, but they still must encourage the child’s own loves, even if they are radically different.