Tag Archives: black mirror
You can build your own Black Mirror-style robot dog for roughly $750
Charlie Brooker, the creator of popular dystopian sci-fi series Black Mirror said he was taking a hiatus from the show… his reason? The world’s too messed up for him to be able to produce a show that literally depicts messed up worlds. Where’s the boundary between sci-fi and reality when you really can’t tell the difference between the two anymore? Remember the Black Mirror episode titled ‘Metalhead’ with the robot dogs that hunted humans? Well, Singapore’s introduced human-monitoring robot canines to their parks to check on people and warn them to socially distance. Sounds weird? Sounds like something you’d see on TV? Well, that’s life now… and apparently students at Stanford have reverse engineered the popular robotic canine and made their DIY kit open source. For anywhere between $600-$900, you can build and assemble your own bionic pupper… Don’t worry though, this one’s harmless.
The Stanford Pupper Quadriped Robot requires a fair bit of technical expertise, though, and can take anywhere from 4-10 hours to build. The cost of building the robot depends partly on whether you have a few key elements. If you’ve got a Raspberry Pi 4 and a PS4 controller handy, things should be a breeze (resources and code can be found on links available on the Stanford Student Robotics website). You’ll also need a few elements for the frame, like a carbon fiber plate and a few 3D printed PLA parts, although the guys at Stanford make it easy by letting you buy the pre-fab parts from a website. It’s impossible to say if the assembled cyberdog could do your shopping for you, but you could easily have it carry small items like your remote or beer can from one room to another. Just don’t piss it off or turn it sentient.
Designer: Stanford Student Robotics
Automatic Visual Censorship Tech is Black Mirror IRL
Did you ever see the Black Mirror episode called “Arkangel?” Basically, it tells the story of an overly-cautious mother who has a chip implanted in her daughter’s brain so she can track her every movement. But she also upgrades it with a couple of features, like the ability to see everything she sees, and to block out images of anything that might be deemed “shocking.” Needless to say, things don’t turn out too well for anyone. Regardless, there is technology in the works today that could actually be used to automatically censor images in real time.
In this clip from TEDx Talks, computer interaction scientist Lonni Besançon introduces us to a technology that could do just that. The system works a bit differently from the version seen in Black Mirror, with the goal of preserving more information about the image that’s being obscured. Rather than just pixelate out the “offensive” imagery, processing technology would apply filters to make the image less shocking. The use case explained here is one in which a surgical image could be made less repulsive, while still preserving enough detail to understand what was going on.
The core of this particular technology is more about reducing the shocking nature of specific images or video footage, rather than making decisions about what is considered offensive or shocking. That said, Besançon’s team has made a prototype Chrome extension which can automatically identify violence, nudity, or medical imagery, and apply visual filters.
While there are legitimate uses for this kind of AI-powered censorship tech, like protecting social media moderators or police detectives from having to view disturbing imagery, it could also be used to impose unwanted censorship if used improperly or forced into consumer technology.