Build Your Own Robot Swarm — or — Angular Automatons and Cuckoo Clocks

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1,024 little robots got together at Harvard, making the letter "K" and drawing a star. What they do doesn't look as sophisticated as many marching band halftime formations — but it's a good start on collective artificial intelligence.

Meanwhile, Harvard and MIT's angular automatons don't do much except fold themselves into crablike shapes, and scuttle away: today....

...I'm not troubled that we make increasingly lifelike imitations of living creatures. Somehow, I don't think the Almighty is going to be offended by cuckoo clocks or robot dogs playing soccer.

Tightly-would folks of a grimly pious bent might have qualms about mechanical birds, music boxes, and other frivolities. I'm convinced that gloominess is not next to Godliness, and that's another topic.

Besides, many automata help make this a safer world for humans....

More at A Catholic Citizen in America.

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