Sometimes we look at the robots coming out of Japan and get all caught up in their cuteness. For instance, we could listen all day as PALRO politely confirms its target with childish exuberance. But what, exactly, is the point of a $3300 robot that can recognize faces and slowly walk across a room without falling over? Painstaking programming goes into robots like PALRO and Honda’s ASIMO, which just hit its 10th anniversary at the end of October. Is enough of that researched aimed at creating sophisticated artificial intelligence?
creating robots that look like people, Honda has shifted its focus to ASIMO’s intelligence. Hopefully that’s where more robotics will be focused in the future.
We’re looking forward to seeing more robots like the archer that learned how to aim. We’re seeing more and more examples of artificial intelligence in software and self-teaching computer systems, but no groundbreaking effort has yet combined our AI advances with an equally impressive robot body. What do you think--will robotics research be able to merge the mobility of AMISO with advanced AI anytime soon, or will most of our robots for decades to come look more like Roombas than anything out of sci-fi?
