Dr. Forlizzi focused the second half of her talk on a project called the "SnackBot" which, as you could probably guess, is designed to bring snacks around to people at CMU. There seems like a lot that you can do with a SnackBot, and parts of the design seemed well grounded in the ethnographic study of people's snacking habits. Of course, as she was describing her research insights and challenges, and how they led to a humanoid form of certain proportions and abilities, I couldn't help but think of this:
Rosie Jetson is the ultimate snackbot. While I don't mean to dimish the work of Dr. Forlizzi or others working in the robotics field, who would have guessed that given the technological revolution of the past few decades, we are not even close to making something with the abilities of this 1962 Hanna-Barbera conception. Not to say that having a fleet of maid-robots wheeling around our houses would be a good thing, but I feel like we've been promised these household humanoid robots for decades, and it seems like it's never going to happen. When will I have a comprehending metal assistant to perform all of my menial tasks for me? Is this the ultimate goal that is driving robotics specialists to create such things as SnackBot?
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Well... we might not have robotic butlers anytime soon, however, the flying car may not be too far off. In fact, one has already been made: http://www.terrafugia.com/. In 2010, we can all be flying these babies around for a paltry $200,000. Granted, they admit this isn't intended to replace anyone's car, but isn't this what we've really been waiting for after watching the Jetsons?
ReplyDeleteI guess the push for humanoid robots has very much to do with the emotional appeal. After all, I'm sure that the human form isn't the most efficient for a majority of tasks. However, will we ever really be able to interact with our technology on the highest level if it does not take our appearance? I wonder if a non-humanoid robot could ever make such a connection, or if it would be limited to the lesser bond that we share with animals.
Well, what makes things even whackier is the ethical issue: if we could develop a robot that was behaviorally indistinguishable from a human, how could we rightly treat it as anything less? You wouldn't be able to selectively decide what it would or wouldn't do, and you wouldn't be able to help it from having feelings and plans of its own. Is there any way around this?
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