Scary Technological Development

<p>Just think about what the below means for students needing part time and summer jobs and for people whose intelligence limits them to the below kind of jobs.</p>

<p><a href=“http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7152895/[/url]”>http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7152895/&lt;/a&gt;
By Anthony Faiola</p>

<p>TOKYO - Ms. Saya, a perky receptionist in a smart canary-yellow suit, beamed a smile from behind the “May I Help You?” sign on her desk, offering greetings and answering questions posed by visitors at a local university. But when she failed to welcome a workman who had just walked by, a professor stormed up to Saya and dished out a harsh reprimand.</p>

<p>“You’re so stupid!” said the professor, Hiroshi Kobayashi, towering over her desk.</p>

<p>“Eh?” she responded, her face wrinkling into a scowl. “I tell you, I am not stupid!”</p>

<p>Truth is, Saya isn’t even human. But in a country where robots are changing the way people live, work, play and even love, that doesn’t stop Saya the cyber-receptionist from defending herself from men who are out of line. With voice recognition technology allowing 700 verbal responses and an almost infinite number of facial expressions from joy to despair, surprise to rage, Saya may not be biological – but she is nobody’s fool…"</p>

<p>I read this and for some reason I thought of those fad electronic toys from Japan my kids used about ten years ago where you had to feed them, hold them, and interact, least they die. Kind of like keeping a pet.</p>

<p>As if this robotics advancement isn’t scary enough, some of the recent hacking stuff with Choicepoint and Lexus makes me wonder how much we control technology or it controls us…</p>

<p>Ugh. Downright frightening. Thank you for another thought-provoking (but sad) article, NSM.</p>