In what may be the best definition of a robot since Douglas Adams',
"Your plastic pal who's fun to be with", the Hindustan Times defines a
robot as "A cast iron dummy that walks like a hopeless arthritic and
talks like Tonto". It presents the definition only to say that ASIMO has
proven it wrong by walking like a real human. It then predicts we have
about 30 years before robots become more capable and intelligent than
Ineterestingly, Japanese researchers
said they need 30-years and furthemore 50 billion yen (over $400
million) per year to
build a robot with the abilities of a 5 year old child. That certainlly
doesn't seem that optimistic, but looking at what ASIMO can really do
now, it's probably a more reallistic guess.
OTOH, Marshall Brain in his essay was
also relativelly optimistic, setting the breakthrough somewhere around
2025. At least it's nice to see that these guesses generally agree that
within 30 years, we could see robots with abilities similar to at least
5 year old humans.
Now, if I could just push fast forward.
All these predictions are pretty vaccuous, but I recon 30 years is a
reasonably conservative estimate for reaching the intellectual level of
a 5 year old.
For what its worth I think there will be some interesting developments
over the next decade but that things will really start to hot up after
Actually I think even when robots are as smart as the average person
(and it has to be said that there are many people who aren't very
smart) there will still be those who say "ah but it's not really
intelligent, its just following some sophisticated program" - just as
there are some people today who claim that other animals aren't
intelligent or in any way conscious.
Beware, today I found my favorite 80's game on the net as a Java web
here. I forgot how to get the bablefish out of that dratted
machine. I guess I'll have to listen to some more opera in a language
I can't understand.