George Rebane

Two developments, one hopeful and one scary.  Japanese researchers concerned about their aging population of farmers are developing a machine-assisted-man (MAM) suit to assist frail bodies do hard work.  The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) reports that

Researchers at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology recently demonstrated the suit by having someone pull radishes from the ground and pick oranges from high branches. The robot suit has eight motors, 16 sensors, and weighs 55 pounds. Japan has an aging, shrinking farm industry, and the researchers believe the robot suit would help provide support for the leg muscles and joints of elderly farmers.

The suit, pictured here, clearly needs more work in its miniaturization.  But I can see strapping one on in my eighties to go hiking in high mountains.  More here.

On the more sinister side, ACM reports that Ohio State University researchers are developing a “smart” wide-area surveillance camera system “that will be able to determine if a person on the street appears to be lost or is acting suspiciously. The goal is to create a network of smart video cameras that will allow officers to quickly and efficiently observe and monitor a wide area.”

Around the world states are developing such people surveillance and control systems by the ton.  Their funding is from various defense and national security agencies, and their putative purpose is to keep us all safe and secure or behaving per the mandated social norms as defined by the government.  As long as the government is on our side, everything is hunky-dory.  But it takes only one election to change things, and in some countries it doesn’t even take that.

Meanwhile a researcher blithely says, “We are trying to automatically learn what typical activity patterns exist in the monitored area, and then have the system look for atypical patterns that may signal a person of interest,”

The system is designed to “focus on where a person goes and what they do.”

It is a very short step from here to such a system being integrated into the sensor suite of a metropolitan area’s automated police system the autonomy of which will grow and be directed by whoever has control of its ‘knobs’. 

More here in an article that has all the soothing palliatives assuring us that the system won’t care who you are or what color your skin is (today).  I am appropriately soothed.