Toggle light / dark theme

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your Automaton bloggers. We’ll also be posting a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months; here’s what we have so far (send us your events!):

Let us know if you have suggestions for next week, and enjoy today’s videos.

In 2017, a team of USC Viterbi researchers created ADAMMS (Agile Dexterous Autonomous Mobile Manipulation System), a robot designed to support repetitive human tasks, like transporting equipment or tending a 3D printer at 3 a.m. ADAMMS can perform specific actions like opening doors or picking up objects autonomously. These researchers, including postdoctoral researcher in the USC Viterbi Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Pradeep Rajendran, AME Ph.D student Shantanu Thakar, Department of Computer Science master’s student Hyojeong Kim and M.S. AME’18 Vivek Annem, envisioned a tool that could support humans remotely.

For the last couple of years, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been changing many fields and increasing efficiency by using improved datasets. One of those areas where AI has accelerated evolution is the robo-advisory, which is a field having extensive financial big data to analyze.

Robo-advisors are the systems that use algorithms to automatically perform investment decisions or tasks which are mostly done by human advisors. “Robo advisors are a potential solution to the complexities of financial decision making,” said Jill E. Fisch, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania at a conference of Pension Research Council.

In the main scheme, robo-advisors are merging customers’ information such as their financial goals, risk tolerances, timeframes, with the right asset allocation that qualifies customer’s needs. While making this merge, they use many algorithms including machine learning models to create the best fit for the customer. In the process of timeframe, they take lots of actions as well such as rebalancing the portfolio or performing tax-loss harvesting. This automatically increases efficiency while taking decisions at the right time for the portfolio.

“People usually say they want a human element to their interactions but Covid-19 has changed that,” says Martin Ford, a futurist who has written about the ways robots will be integrated into the economy in the coming decades.

“[Covid-19] is going to change consumer preference and really open up new opportunities for automation.”


Robot workers can help us keep social distance but once machines take over it will be hard to go back.

Hey all! I hope you are doing fine despite the coronavirus outbreak! I have just made a video about what the world will look like immediately after the coronavirus outbreak. If this is interesting to you, please check it out!


Ever wondered what the world will look like after the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic is over? In this video, I go over how our society could change for years or even decades to come after the corona virus pandemic is over. Topics I talk about include how religion, education, lifestyle, and automation after the pandemic.

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_futurist_tom/

Drone attack kills refugees in Syria. It is unclear whether the drones are remotely controlled by humans or whether they drones are autonomous.

“Turkey has launched a deadly drone strike on a refugee camp in Iraq’s northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region…air defense detected a Turkish drone breaching the Iraqi airspace and firing a rocket on Maxmur refugee camp near the town of Makhmour on Wednesday…Two women were killed in the raid, the statement said. Iraqi media later reported that the death toll had risen to three.”


A Turkish drone strike on a refugee camp in northern Iraq has killed three women, sparking condemnation from Iraqi officials.

Remember those tales of drones harassing northeastern Colorado back in December?

If they ever come back, the Air Force may have a new way to zap them from the sky. The service announced Monday it is ready to test its first high-energy lasers for use against enemy drones overseas.

“(Troops) will utilize this system as an operational asset against small unmanned aircraft systems for the duration of the field assessment,” said Michael Jirjis, who headed development of the laser for the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio.

Pew-pew-pew is coming soon-soon-soon.

The U.S. Navy plans to put a laser weapon on a warship by 2021. The High Energy Laser with Integrated Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) system, or HELIOS, is a defensive weapon system designed to burn boats and shoot down unmanned drones. The weapon will go to sea with a guided missile destroyer assigned to the Pacific Fleet in two years’ time, the Navy says.

The service placed an order for HELIOS in January 2019. The $150 million contract, awarded to Lockheed Martin, calls for the company to deliver two systems. According to a company press release, one will go to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico for testing. USNI News says the Navy will install the other on a Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer.

This is a disturbing article on the utilization of drones by Turkey in attacks in Syria. What is unclear to me is whether the drones were piloted or whether they were autonomous. This is a critical distinction for me because drones that are piloted by humans are under human control and are legal. Autonomous drones are killer robots and are immoral.

“Regardless of an exact death toll and damage evaluation, there is a general understanding that the Idlib attacks were an example of effective air warfare, in which killer drones, rather than piloted jets, played a key role. “My understanding is that Turkey compensated for its inability to fly jets over Idlib by using drones, lots of drones,” says Aron Lund, a fellow with U.S.-based think tank The Century Foundation.”

Ban Killer Robots!


Those who want to win do not prepare for wars of today — they prepare for wars that are to be fought tomorrow.