Emotional Robots

What are they?
Emotional robots are robots who can read human facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language to determine the emotional state of the person addressing them. The robot can then simulate an appropriate emotional response using its own tone, facial expressions, and actions. For example, if a person is angry, the robot can behave in a contrite way; if a person is upset the robot can be soothing. They are being developed in research labs, and have been deployed in a limited way in some hospitals in the US and Japan. Two of the more famous emotional robots are Kismet, developed by roboticist Cynthia Breazeal at MIT, whose facial expressions might be crude but are nevertheless very effective; and the Actroid series of robots developed by Hiroshi Ishiguro at Osaka University in Japan. (You can see the Actroid Repliee Q1 in the video below.)

Whose jobs will be eliminated?
Emotional robots are ideally suited for a number of working-class or retail jobs. They will work in hospitals and homes as caretakers, eliminating those jobs for humans. Who wants somebody surly and underpaid taking care of their bedridden grandmother? Emotional robots will also take over receptionist jobs and retail work in many stores. They are incapable of becoming angry or upset when customers yell at them or make strange demands. If a customer is upset, the emotional robot will always act sorry and mean it. In fact, robots have already taken over some customer care services - that's why when you call the phone company or other large businesses, you have to yell at an automated system instead of interacting with people in order to get the information you're looking for. Pretty soon, you'll be yelling at robots in person too, when you walk into your neighborhood Sprint store to figure out what the hell those charges are on your mobile phone bill.

Surgeon Robots

What are they?
Surgeon robots are just what they sound like - a pair of robotic arms equipped with a camera that can conduct surgeries with precision and speed that no human could ever muster. They have already been used successfully in several surgeries. Sometimes the robot arms are controlled by a human, but several successful surgeries have been performed by robots operating autonomously.

Whose jobs will be eliminated?
Surgeons will be eliminated, or will be turned into technicians rather than exalted mega-doctors. This goes to prove that robots don't just threaten the jobs of regular working people - they will also eliminate professional middle-class jobs too. Or they will turn formerly high-paid, highly-trained surgeons into skilled labor like forklift operators.

Brain-computer interfaces

What are they?
Brain computer interfaces (BCIs) are any piece of technology that allows your brain to control a computer directly. One of the most famous examples of this technology is BrainGate, a device that plugs directly into your brain and carries electrical signals from it to a computer. People who use BrainGate are able to control a computer cursor, which has allowed people who are completely paralyzed to communicate again by moving a cursor over a virtual keyboard and typing out words. Future kinds of BCIs will operate wirelessly. One example of wireless BCI was an experiment done on a rat who could be remote-controlled from a distance when operators sent electrical signals to the parts of his brain responsible for directing his body left or right. Often called the "robo-rat," (see video below) this creature demonstrated that BCI works both ways, wirelessly: You can send signals from your brain to a computer, and send signals to somebody's brain too.

Whose jobs will be eliminated?
Brain implants could change the jobs of machine operators. Operating heavy machinery might move from being a physical job to being a mental one. You could use your brain to control a robot who is digging up a fuel tank, or laying cement.

Other jobs that might be profoundly changed are entertainment-industry related. Cameras and sound systems could be brain-controlled, possibly allowing for new kinds of camerawork that will be more crazily vivid than anything we've seen before.

Either way, people trained on the manual systems for industrial machines and cameras will have to learn to use BCI or get downsized.

Augmented reality contact lenses

What is it?
Augmented reality contact lenses are basically computer monitors that go directly on top of your eyes, like contact lenses. As a result, you see computer information overlaid on the world you're looking at around you. You could look down a street and see little pop-ups full of information about local stores - or navigate your way to the nearest public bathroom by watching glowing yellow arrows on the street leading you to a cafe with a toilet. And yes, you could also look up into the beautiful, blue sky and see a million Google ads for sky-related products.

You could also be reading io9 in your contacts while your boss yells at you, or watching porn while your parents take you out to dinner to talk about their new kitchen remodel.

Whose jobs will be eliminated?
Like BCI, augmented reality lenses won't eliminate jobs but simply transform existing jobs so much that people trained in the old ways won't be employable anymore.

Already, augmented reality type technologies are used in architecture, to visualize what a building or a given set of structures will look like on the street. Imagine being able to design a building while standing in the vacant lot where it will eventually stand, matching its walls precisely to the proper angles and observing in real life how the sunlight will hit its windows. These contacts will also make it easier for building inspectors of all types to check that structures are up to code: Just stroll around a factory and compare what you're seeing with a virtual overlay of what's supposed to be there (or not there).

There are also thousands of ways such a technology could transform work that we haven't thought of yet. As augmented reality contact lens developer Babak A. Parviz wrote recently, "We already see a future in which the humble contact lens becomes a real platform, like the iPhone is today, with lots of developers contributing their ideas and inventions."

Illustration of contact lens: Emily Cooper

Long-Range Wireless Energy Transfer: Tesla explored the wireless transmission of energy through his work with radio and microwaves and his creation of the Tesla coil and the magnifying transmitter. But he sought to create a system where energy could be broadcast across vast distances. To that end, he constructed Wardenclyffe Tower in Shoreham, Long Island, which was to function as a wireless telecommunications facility and broadcast electrical power. But JP Morgan, who financed the construction of the tower, eventually pulled Tesla's funding. Unable to find additional backers, Tesla was forced to abandon construction of the tower, and never fulfilled his dreams of creating a worldwide wireless electrical energy system.

The Witches of Chiswick by Robert Rankin: In an alternate timeline, Tesla teams up with mathematician Charles Babbage and create a highly advanced version of the 19th Century. Tesla’s perfection of wireless energy transfer combined with Babbage’s computer programming enable the pair to create autonomous robots, airships, and space-bound rocketships.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest: Tesla invents a device resembling the magnifying transmitter, but it succeeds in transmitting not just energy, but matter. The problem is that, while the machine transports matter to another location, it leaves the original matter behind, creating duplicates of objects, animals, and even human beings, with their memories intact.

Humanoid Robots: In 1898, Tesla demonstrated his radio-controlled boat, which he was able to control remotely. He presented it as the first of a future race of robots, which would be able to perform labor safely and effectively, and many credit the event as being the birth of robotics.

Five Fists of Science by Matt Fraction: Real-life friends Nikola Tesla and Mark Twain team up against Thomas Edison, JP Morgan , Guglielmo Marconi, and Andrew Carnegie to bring about world peace. Tesla’s plan is to develop a series of super-powered robots operated through a virtual reality system and then gifting each country with such an automaton, ensuring that each nation has equivalent firing power.

Atomic Robo by Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener: Nikola Tesla creates Atomic Robo, a wisecracking robot, war hero, and paranormal investigator. Together with the Action Scientists of Tesladyne, Robo battles supernatural forces and Nazi scientist Baron Heinrich Von Helsingard.

Death Ray: In the 1930s, Tesla claimed to have invented a particle beam weapon, or, as some called it, a “peace ray.” The device was, in theory, capable of generating an intense, targeted beam of energy and sending it across great distances to demolish warplanes, foreign armies, or anything else you'd rather didn't exist. Tesla shopped the plans around to various national militaries, but never found anyone to finance its construction. It isn't known if Tesla ever developed a working prototype, and the plans for his death ray were never found after his death.

JLA: Age of Wonder: After laboring for Thomas Edison, Tesla strikes up a partnership with the Superman Clark Kent to develop inventions for the betterment of mankind. But during World War I, he joins forces with former Edison bookkeeper Lex Luthor to create a death ray to battle the Germans.

Area 51 by Robert Doherty: Various theories have swirled around the Tunguska Event, a powerful and mysterious explosion that knocked down a swath of trees in Siberia in 1908. Some have suspected Tesla’s experiments were responsible for the blast; others blame a UFO crash. Doherty’s series explains that it was a little of both: Tesla deployed his death ray to knock down an alien spacecraft.

Callahan’s Key by Spider Robinson: Robinson also holds Tesla accountable for the Tunguska event, but says he deliberately knocked down the Siberian trees as a test firing. The trouble starts when government forces get their hands on the technology and use it to threaten the Earth. Fortunately, by then Tesla has become an immortal time traveler and is still around to stop them.

The Tesla Legacy by Robert G. Barrett: Tesla may not have built his death ray, but he may have created an entirely different, though still powerful, weapon. The United States Government has long kept secret Tesla’s most dangerous invention: a doomsday device that could disrupt all communication systems on Earth. And it has been sitting for decades in the Australian desert.

Improved Airships: Tesla envisioned applying his theories on wireless energy transfer to improve transportation. He claimed that electrically-powered airships would transport passengers from New York to London in three hours, traveling eight miles above the ground. He also imagined that airships might draw their power from the very atmosphere, never needing to stop for refueling. Unmanned airships might even be used to transport passengers to a preselected destination or for a remote aerial strike.

Barnum!: As an evil Tesla threatens the United States, he evades the forces of American spy PT Barnum in his marvelous airship, where he sometimes hides Charles Babbage’s stolen thinking machine. He’s also got an armory of technological achievements at his ingenious fingertips, including a gyrocopter and a wearable device that lets him electrocute victims with a handshake.

The Venture Bros.: Rusty Venture’s ancestor, Colonel Lloyd Venture, protects a mysterious Orb with Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, and Aleister Crowley, all members of a Guild, aboard an airship. But Tesla and the Avon Ladies launch an aerial assault against the Guild. Incidentally, the Sovereign of the later Guild of Calamitous Intent is David Bowie, the same man who portrayed Tesla in the film adaptation of The Prestige.

Wonder of the Worlds by Sesh Heri: Tesla creates an airship that not only sails through the skies, but also travels into space. In fact, Tesla’s inventions are so impressive that Martian agents steal from him a powerful crystal engine, compelling Tesla to travel to the Red Planet with Mark Twain and Harry Houdini.

Super Electrotherapy: Engineer Georges Lakhovsky believed that people could achieve good health by adjusting the oscillation of their cells. He tapped Tesla to assist him in building the Multiple Wave Oscillator. Lakhovsky claimed the machine would improve health, remove pathogens, and even cure cancer, but many regard it as medical quackery.

Sanctuary: In infusion of vampire blood triggers Tesla’s latent vampiric genes, transforming him into an amoral bloodsucker. It also makes him long-lived enough to perfect his inventions. He even finds a way to recreate the vampire race using his own blood and a portable electrical device. Incidentally, the same device results in deep brain stimulation, and can heal psychosis-inducing brain damage.

Generation Tesla: This version of Tesla also manages to escape death, in this case by transferring his consciousness to another plane of existence. His superhuman creations have also similarly come back from the dead, transformed as he resurrects them to battle evil.

Re-Enact Your Favorite TV Show, All The Way From The Beginning
Sure, anyone can spend the day watching every episode of Buffy on DVD, but it takes some real stamina and dedication - the kind of dedication that you possess, dear reader - to take it that one step further. You can't do it alone, of course, but that's just one of the many benefits of this unsung pasttime: Being a community organizer didn't hurt Barack Obama's Presidency chances... and he never organized a neighborhood recreation of the scene where everyone gets shot at the end of Blake's Seven.

Write That Screenplay/Novel/Comic Book That You Know That You've Always Had In You
It's the perfect time for it; you're inside, you have all manner of sandwiches awaiting you so food isn't a worry, and television is going to be pretty much uninvolving for the entire day. What better opportunity will you ever get to flex your artistic muscles and open the faucet to let your particularly creative juices flow free? (Unless, of course, your day job is being a writer. In which case, never mind; it'd be too much like every other day. You should just pay more attention to acting out the entire first Rose McGowan season of Charmed or something).

Invent Some Scientific Breakthrough That Will Revolutionize The World And Make Your Name Known In Every Household Across The Planet
I know; you're all about starting small. But look at it like this - No-one is expecting anything like this to come from you today, giving you not only the freedom from expectations, but also the element of surprise. And just think of how wide a field you have to chose from to invent within! The only limit is your imagination, which means that you already have more chance of success than the people writing Sanctuary.

Consider The Evolutionary Potential For The Perfect Turkey That Comes Pre-Cranberried For Next Year's Thanksgiving
See previous point, but also consider this: If you could make this happen, but manage to patent the genetic code required, you wouldn't have to avoid next year's sales because you can't afford to buy anything. And when we come down to it, isn't that really the point?

Spend The Day Online, Reading Blogs, Looking At Porn And Then Playing Video Games While Thinking About Ordering Pizza Or Something
When it comes down to it, Black Friday isn't even a real holiday, so why should you spend it any differently than usual just because you're not at work (Unless you are at work, in which case... Well, we feel your pain, to be honest)? Just stay in that chair and keep reading us and maybe catch up on those episodes of Knight Rider that you've been secretly hiding on your TiVo. No-one needs to know. They're all out shopping, after all.

I've left off things that occur in nature that we "discovered," such as penicillin, although one could make an argument in favor of antibiotics being on this list. There are surely some others I've left off as well. Atomic weapons? Airplanes? Steam engines?

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