Catherine Prasifka: The robots are here, and there's a creeping sense the tech bros have created a world to which we never consented
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The Journal
3 days ago
- The Journal
Terence Stamp, Superman villain and 'swinging sixties' icon, dies aged 87
BRITISH ACTOR TERENCE Stamp, who perfected the role of the brooding villain and starred in 'The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert', has died aged 87, UK media cited his family announcing today. 'He leaves behind an extraordinary body of work, both as an actor and as a writer that will continue to touch and inspire people for years to come,' media quoted the family saying. From Pier Paolo Pasolini's 'Theorem' to George Lucas's 'Star Wars', the 'swinging sixties' icon captivated audiences in both arthouse films and Hollywood with his magnetic presence, making more than 60 films during his genre-spanning career. The London actor from a working-class background, born on 22 July, 1938 had his first breakthrough in the role of a dashing young sailor hanged for killing one of his crewmates. Peter Ustinov's 'Billy Budd' earning him an Oscar nomination and a Golden Globe for Best New Actor. Carving out a niche for his alluring depictions of broody villains, he won Best Actor at Cannes in 1965 for his role as a psychopathic character in 'The Collector', a twisted love story by William Wyler. His 1967 encounter with Federico Fellini, who was searching for the 'most decadent English actor' for his adaptation of 'Extraordinary Stories', was transformative. Advertisement The Italian director found his 'Toby Dammit', a drunken actor seduced by the devil in the guise of a little girl. And Pasolini, who cast him in the cult classic 'Theorem', saw him as a 'boy of divine nature'. In 1969, Stamp played an enigmatic visitor who seduced an entire bourgeois Milanese family. He also had a relationship with Jean Shrimpton — model and beauty of the sixties — before she left him towards the end of the 1960s. 'I was so closely identified with the 1960s that when that era ended, I was finished with it,' he once told French daily Liberation. But a dry spell did not last long, with Stamp reviving his career for some of his most popular roles, including in 1980′s 'Superman II', as Superman's arch-nemesis General Zod. Other roles followed, including that of Bernadette, a transgender woman in 'Priscilla, Queen of the Desert' (1994), in which Stamp continued his exploration of human ambiguity, this time in fishnet stockings. He continued to pursue a wide-ranging career, jumping between big-budget productions like 'Star Wars' and independent films like Stephen Frears' 'The Hit' and Ken Loach's British drama 'Poor Cow'.
Extra.ie
4 days ago
- Extra.ie
Robot Olympics underway as bots fight for medals in Beijing
It's science fiction brought to life this week, as China hosts the world's first 'Robot Olympic Games'. Sounds like something from an episode of Star Trek or the Star Wars movie franchise, but the three-day event, officially entitled the 'World Humanoid Robot Games', sees AI 'athletes' from 16 countries competing across a range of events and disciplines. The AI bots are going head–to–head in sports such as football, track and field, boxing, and table tennis. Pic:However the event has already had its share of gremlins in the works, as at one of the first events – five–aside football – 10 robots the size of seven–year–old kids shuffled their mechanical bodies around the pitch, often getting stuck in a scrum or falling over each other in a pile of robot limbs. And the AI antics continued over at the athletics field, where one runner slammed right into a human operator, who was knocked to the ground in the incident. The teams of robots have been developed from scientific facilities across the world and are representing countries such as the United States, Germany, and Brazil, with 192 representing universities and 88 from private enterprises. Pic:The games began in Beijing, China, this weekend, with over 500 androids competing for medals, but in their efforts, alternating between tumbles and falls, crashes and accidental scrums, in between, there were some frightening glimpses of real power as they competed in events from the 100–metre hurdles to martial arts. Max Polter, a member of the HTWK Robots Football Team from Germany, affiliated with Leipzig University of Applied Sciences, said 'We come here to play and to win. But we are also interested in research, you can test a lot of interesting new and exciting approaches in this contest.' In a 1,500–metre race, Chinese humanoids stomped, rather than raced, along the track at an impressive clip, easily outpacing their rivals, with the fastest robot reportedly finishing the race in 6:29:37 minutes. However, that is still a far cry from the human men's world record of time of 3:26:00. Pic:The Beijing municipal government is among the organising bodies for the event, and is keen to show the emphasis Chinese authorities place on the robotics industry and reflects the country's broader ambitions in AI and robotics. It's thought to also reflect a worry in China, as the country grapples with an ageing population and slowing economic growth, with the country staging a number of high-profile robotics events in recent months, including the world's first humanoid robot marathon in Beijing. This event drew criticism after several robots started to emit smoke during the race, while some stalled and failed to finish the event, which raises questions about the current capabilities of the technology at the moment. Pic:However, the Robotics and AI Sector in China has received government subsidies of over $20 billion over the past year alone, while Beijing is believed to have plans to establish a multi-billion-dollar fund to support AI and Robotics startups. Still, while some people may view such competitions and events as simply publicity stunts, industry experts would disagree and instead see them as crucial catalysts for advancing AI and Humanoid Robots toward practical real-world applications. We've come a long way from R2-D2.
Irish Independent
6 days ago
- Irish Independent
Catherine Prasifka: The robots are here, and there's a creeping sense the tech bros have created a world to which we never consented
We may already have the word of the year, if not the decade: clanker. Originating from the Star Wars universe, it has become a catch-all term used to refer to robots and AI. Any technology can be referred to as a clanker. There is something about the term that has captured imaginations and gained popularity online, above other sci-fi terms: Battlestar Galactica's toaster, for example.
