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SEX OR WAR ARE DRIVERS. “U.S. military spending millions to make cyborgs a reality.” What an odd species we are. https://lnkd.in/dPuyDSZ View in LinkedIn

MILITARY ROBOTS are already in use, and represent an additional momentum for robotic improvement. https://lnkd.in/dtyGz69 View in LinkedIn

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS is a massive driver for achieving more and more advanced robotics. "Always at the forefront of increased efficiency through technology, China opened an automotive plant last August in Tianjin that is perhaps the most advanced in the world. The plant, belonging to Chinese automaker Great Wall Motors, has 30 workstations occupied by 27 robots that perform more than 4,000 high-precision welding operations. The robots are so fast they can complete the welding of an entire Haval SUV in just 86 seconds." https://lnkd.in/dDEtcYs View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends dealing with the evolution of culture. The common perception that culture evolves faster than biological evolution is confirmed, and the interactions between the two are at an early stage of being analyzed. Even though the field was plagued by early bias that it was not a scientific subject, this subject is clearly of enormous importance as we approach the inevitable melding of man and machine. View in LinkedIn

GENES VERSUS CULTURE. “Differences between genetic and cultural change are taken seriously, such as the possibility in the latter of nonrandomly guided variation or transformation, blending inheritance, and one-to-many transmission.” https://lnkd.in/dEH-wAF View in LinkedIn

GENETICS OF CULTURE. “I review current progress in the pursuit of an evolutionary science of culture that is grounded in both biological and evolutionary theory, but also treats culture as more than a proximate mechanism that is directly controlled by genes. Both genetic and cultural evolution can be described as systems of inherited variation that change over time in response to processes such as selection, migration, and drift.” https://lnkd.in/dEH-wAF View in LinkedIn

“CULTURE IS BIOLOGICAL.” An immensely famous quote. https://lnkd.in/dfnBFVP View in LinkedIn

ROBOTIC BANK ASSISTANTS. "SoftBank and Nestle aren’t the only companies embracing robotic workers. From April, humanoid robots designed by the creator of SoftBank’s Pepper robot will provide banking assistance to customers at the country’s largest bank, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ." (2016). https://lnkd.in/dJkxwCH View in LinkedIn

WEAK BIASES CAN FIX. “Given enough time, a weak bias in favor of a particular trait can eventually drive that trait to fixation. Probabilistic constraints combined with culture therefore potentially provide an alternative to nativism or nothing: Behavioral universals can be underpinned by weak biases at the level of the individual.” https://lnkd.in/dCmU6-w View in LinkedIn

SHOP ASSISTANTS. "Dressed in a kimono and smiling, Aiko Chihira greets shoppers at the entrance of Tokyo's Mitsukoshi department store. But Chihira is no regular employee -- she is a humanoid robot." (2015). https://lnkd.in/dQ-Uy2X View in LinkedIn