🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <J?=%^5|@ads.com> pkenny@ADS.COM (Patrick Kenny) writes:

}Where do you see the next breakthrough in robotics coming from
}and how will the acceptance of robots affect our culture.

The technology is advancing so fast it's hard to decide what's a
breakthrough.  Six degree of freedom arms are now common.  A year ago they
were like hen's teeth and outrageously expensive if you could find one.
Force sensing is now commonplace.  Machine vision and pattern recognition
have made enormous strides and some truly amazing technology is available
off the shelf.  That's the place I'd look for major advances.

}Since robots could well be 'better' than people, will we ever
}live in peace with them, will we give them rights, and will we let
}them control or rule over us. Will they someday be the world police
}force designed to keep us in order and at peace.

Anything on this order is so far in the future it's really outside the
scope of this group. (The charter calls for discussion of real world
robots and state of the art technology.  Positronic brains and R2D2 fall
well outside those restrictions).

I'll note that robot security guards do exist, but no reasonable person
would compare them to human intelligence.  They mostly carry cameras with
some pattern recognition capability and enough smarts to sound an alarm if
they find something unexpected. i.e.:  They're glorified burglar alarms.

For now, I think building a robot that can make up a bed (any arbitrary
bed in any room of a house, starting with a bare mattress and folded
sheets in the linen closet) should at least get a Nobel prize nomination.
(Think about it.  It's an extremely complex task).  On the other hand,
practical robot vacuum cleaners are starting to appear, at least for
commercial applications.  Building one cheap, smart, simple and reliable
enough to use in an average private home would be a breakthrough on the
order of the introduction of the personal computer.

-- 
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, M.A., CDP, aka: hollombe@ttidca.tti.com)
Head Robot Wrangler at Citicorp(+)TTI             Illegitimis non
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 450-9111, x2483       Carborundum
Santa Monica, CA  90405 {csun | philabs | psivax}!ttidca!hollombe