Are we already that close to eating other people?

Overpopulation is a big issue of today and tomorow. It does not necessarily include only countries like China or India. Even though statistics say that the population in Europe and the United States is decreasing, we cannot be sure what the future holds. Do we have enough resources to accomodate and feed every living soul on this planet? We do not have that power even today. There are milions of people fighting to get a little loaf of bread to feed their family. Are we going to face the threat of overpopulated countries all over the world in the next fifty or one hundred years? This could very likely happen soon. But is it really possible that we will be forced to eat our deceased neighbours, friends or family members? A few years ago I watched a movie about a plane crash in the mountains. Half of the people died when the plane hit the ground and the other half began to die because of the lack of food. To survive they eventually decided to eat the people who were already dead. That was the only way to stay alive. Is this really what we will have to do in the future – close our eyes while eating someone’s friend? Will our desire for life be stronger than our sense of humanity? Personally, I hope we will find a way out of this without needing to resort to this extreme solution. But who knows...

The creepy toddler robot

I have never really given much of a thought about robots in the future. Of course our life is already full of modern equipment that we cannot imagine living without. However, does this technology include intelligent robots and cyborgs? I was convinced our technology has not reached that point yet, but after reading articles about a toddler humanoid (www.physorg.com, www.newscientist.com), I am very much convinced that the possibility of my world changing into a scene from a science fiction movie is actually realistic.

The Toddler Robot named iCub is designed to think for itself and is fully capable of imitating the actions and learning abilities of a three year old child with a toddler-sized brain. The main goal, according to the scientists, is to understand more about how humans learn, think, and cooperate with each other. Even though this project was designed with practical applications in mind, such as helping hospital patients to recover or cleaning the house, could something go wrong? The fact that scientists are expecting the robot to make its own decisions is rather alarming.

Is this just an innocent way of pushing our everday boundaries further or could this cute robot begin an era of intelligent robots who could eventually destroy us?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-FOr7hEw1c