The Future of Robotics

Ever since I was a child, the field of robotics has fascinated me. I find the future to be a brighter place with robots and the possibility that humans will no longer be put in harms way for really dangerous jobs-- such as coal mining or fire fighting.

I agree with Bill Gates, in the fact that the field of robotics right now is equivalent to the field of computers in the early 1970s. I have been disappointed that there hasn't been more of a mainstream interest in getting robotics in the home than there has been. Of course, we have the Irobot Corp that is single handedly putting rather simplistic robots in the home for cleaning purposes. I have 2 of these robotics and I can say that I am less than impressed. The vacuum drives itself into the wall repeatedly and spins in circles.

In any event, I began to wonder-- are we ever going to escape from this Robotic Dark Age and emerge on the other side with Functional and relatively self sufficient robots that will cook my dinner and clean up the cat box and be a friend for my 4 year old?

Microsoft has taken great strides and is actually giving away their Robotics Suite of software that acts as a plugin for Visual Studio. I can say-- it is a good first step but as far as a tool for actually creating artificial intelligence -- it is lacking. Sure-- the software can control multiple inputs from the sensors and, for example, detect if the robot ran into the wall and back the robot up and go in the other direction. Therefore the software does allow for rudimentary input and output but as far as any kind of independent somewhat higher level decision making-- it just isn't there.

There is an excellent Wikipedia page that gives a good description of where the people in the "know" think robotics will go within the next 10-20 years. For example, by 2021-2022 there is a belief that transhumanism will be common place and for example-- aging and human intellectual capacity will be increased with the use of artificial intelligence and nanotechnology.