A new study says by 2030 household robots will dominate every phase of our lives. The study says the No. 1 field for robot growth is medicine. That makes sense. Robots already perform well in surgery. That is, until there is a power outage. Then it's just a coat rack leaning over you as you bleed to death.
I do think, in time, people will have, sort of, relationships with certain kinds of robots - not every robot, but certain kinds of robots - where they might feel that it is a sort of friendship, but it's going to be of a robot-human kind.
Our robots are signing up for online learning. After decades of attempts to program robots to perform complex tasks like flying helicopters or surgical suturing, the new approach is based on observing and recording the motions of human experts as they perform these feats.
With regard to robots, in the early days of robots people said, 'Oh, let's build a robot' and what's the first thought? You make a robot look like a human and do human things. That's so 1950s. We are so past that.
I collect robots. They're mainly Japanese, American, and especially Russian - small robots, big robots, and old toy robots made between 1910 and the Fifties.
So robots are good at very simple things like cleaning the floor, like doing a repetitive task. Our robots have a little tiny bit of common sense. Our robots know that if they've got something in their hand and they drop it, it's gone. They shouldn't go and try and put it down.
Robots have gotten steadily more capable, but humans' expectations that robots should have minds keeps biting robot developers.
Robots are great. I am saying that now so that when a future civilization of robots takes us captive, they will search through the 'Guardian' web archive and realise I said, 'Robots are great,' and then they'll choose to save me.
I'm Dr. David Hanson, and I build robots with character. And by that, I mean that I develop robots that are characters, but also robots that will eventually come to empathize with you.
Most of the robots being developed for home use are functional in design - Gecko's homecare robot looks rather like the Star Wars robot R2-D2. Honda and Sony are designing robots that look more like the same movie's 'android' C-3PO.
It's hard not to love Roomba. Roomba had such an amazing impact on the field. When we launched, we asked people, 'Is it a robot?' and got an overwhelming no - 'robots' have arms and legs; they command data. There was a very strong perception that robots had to look like people.
Robots already perform many functions, from making cars to defusing bombs - or, more menacingly, firing missiles. Children and adults play with toy robots, while vacuum-cleaning robots are sucking up dirt in a growing number of homes and - as evidenced by YouTube videos - entertaining cats.
Human reactions to robots varies by culture and changes over time. In the United States we are terrified by killer robots. In Japan people want to snuggle with killer robots.
The general public perception is that fighting robots were popular, and then went away for a long time, but in reality, there have been live robot combat events happening continuously since 1994. And all the while, the robots have been getting better and meaner and tougher.
Man’s usurpation over nature is an egotism that will destroy human as well as whale kingdoms. … Academies should return to wisdom study in tree groves rather than robot study in plastic cells
According to a recent study, depression is described as being the disease most destructive to humankind, largely because of the devastation it wreaks on our lives.... Yes, we could set up our minds to ignore our feelings and barricade ourselves from the winds and dust of the brain pattern. And we could become like robots, refusing to consider the passion and joys that could be ours. But then, we also might as well be dead.
Sledging makes things interesting. There are no robots playing. They are humans who want to perform well for the country. So when stakes are so high, emotions will take over. Sometimes sledging gets the best out of you.