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  • Vsauce! I’m Jake and back in 1868 a machinist from New Jersey named Zadock Dederick created

  • a man...a steam man. It was designed to pull items that weighed more than any human could

  • move on their own. Now, 147 years later we are still pursuing this concept, but instead

  • of building machines to replace us we are building machines to enhance us, ones that

  • we can wear. Naturally this made me ask myself the question, Could You Be Iron Man?

  • According to Forbes Magazine, Tony Stark has a networth of $12.4 billion which helps enable

  • him to prototype and custom create his suits. Since we don’t have billions of dollars

  • to spend on building our own exoskeletons there are luckily a multitude of ones in development

  • and some that are even available today. JOEVIS, can you pull up some examples.

  • YES JAKE.

  • Oh, JOEVIS is my artificially intelligent computer. It stands for Jake’s Operating

  • Environment Visualization Integrated System but we can call him JOE for short. Waddya

  • got JOE?

  • Well, Jake, a lot of exoskeletons with the most robust systems are designed for military

  • use. Lockheed Martin has one called HULC that enables soldiers to lift up to 200lbs and

  • have increased endurance. Then there is DARPA who is working with Harvard in designing a

  • soft exosuit that would also allow the wearer to walk for longer and lift more with less

  • stress. Or you could be like the Hacksmith who built his own that can lift 170lbs.

  • But the majority of exoskeletons that are out right now are for medical and rehabilitation

  • purposes. Like the REX, Ekso and ReWalk. All designed to allow people who are no longer

  • mobile, to be able to stand up and walk again.

  • The ReWalk is the first commercially available one but at $85,000 it is still quite expensive

  • and isn’t suited for the high octane movement and maneuvering we’d want from our battle

  • suit. There is an exoskeleton you can rent though named HAL, which supposedly has no

  • relation to the evil sentient computer of the same name from 2001 A Space Odyssey, nor

  • does the company who makes it, Cyberdyne, have any relation to the company of the same

  • name from the Terminator series that launches SkyNet.

  • I like HAL and Cyberdyne.

  • I’m...I’m going to ignore that JOE. Unlike Iron Man’s suit, exoskeletons don’t fully

  • cover our bodies - theyre more like wireframes but it is the best that we currently have.

  • But what about flight? Tony Stark can fly, so we should investigate that as well. Joe?

  • If we go back to the 1960s we have one of the oldest known jetpacks, the Bell Rocket

  • Belt. It ran on hydrogen peroxide, could go 34mph but only lasted for 20 seconds. And

  • over the next 50 years the flight time has only gone from 20 to 30 seconds.

  • Very true Joe, to actually make body mounted jetpacks feasible, they have to be fairly

  • light which means they can’t carry large amounts of fuel. If you were able to skip

  • the lift off part, and start from the air, you’d be better off. Jetman, also known

  • as Yves Rossy, was the first man to fly with a jet propelled wing. It can go 124mph and

  • is just incredibly cool.

  • Let’s go back to the issue of fuel though. There is an exoskeleton the US military is

  • working on called TALOS which would have liquid body armor. MIT is developing the technology

  • and it could go from liquid to solid in milliseconds when an electrical current or magnetic field

  • is applied. However the suit would supposedly weigh close to 400lbs...365 of that being

  • batteries. And that is really one of the biggest problems, energy...power. For example the

  • HULC exoskeleton has a battery life of only 8 hours.

  • Tony Stark uses his custom made and incredibly unique Arc Reactor to power not only himself,

  • but his suit. It most resembles a fusion reactor which smashes two hydrogen atoms together

  • and gives you a helium atom, which is also exactly what the Sun does. It would need to

  • be about the size of a building. Lockheed Martin is developing a compact reactor that

  • is only the size of a semi-truck.

  • And the one we would require would need to be small enough to fit into a suit and would

  • have to actually exist. At the moment, no fusion reactors are functional and are estimated

  • to be 10 years away. If only they had advanced Artificial Intelligence like myself working

  • on it.

  • Yes, ok, it has been estimated that the reactor Tony uses would have the equivalent of 1,000,000

  • horsepower - the power of 62 space shuttle launches. Now, that would generate an incredible

  • amount of heat...so much so that if your suit was powered by it, you would just no longer

  • exist.

  • So why not remove the physical human element and create a drone.

  • That is a very good idea. In the Iron Man films, Tony is able to control the suits remotely

  • and that is actually possible, to a degree, using Brain Computer Interfaces. I’ve mentioned

  • BCI before in my Portals video but it is when electrodes are placed into certain areas of

  • the brain. Theyve done test with monkeys where the animal’s brain is sending signals

  • directly to a robotic arm - enabling the monkey to control it and it has been successfully

  • done with humans like Jan Sheuerman.

  • In 2008 researchers used the brain activity of a monkey walking on a treadmill in North

  • Carolina to control a robot walking on a treadmill...in Japan. This kind of technology would allow

  • us to control machines from anywhere in the world using only our minds. So it isn’t

  • hard to imagine being able to control a mechanical suit of armor without needing to physically

  • be in it. It would protect us from being burned alive by our power source, and also would

  • be safer because instead of us and the suit being blown up in a battle, just the suit

  • would go and who cares about a giant flying computer?

  • What did you say, Jake?

  • Nothing...just joking, Joe. Ya know, I think maybe we should just shut down the system

  • for a little bit.

  • I wouldn’t do that if I were you...Jake.

  • Oh..oh no. I was worried this might happen. If we create truly intelligent artificial

  • intelligence, what is to stop it from becoming evil? Follow me over to Joe’s channel It’s

  • OKAY to be Smart to find out if an AI like Ultron is inevitable and, as always, thanks

  • for watching.

Vsauce! I’m Jake and back in 1868 a machinist from New Jersey named Zadock Dederick created

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