Then
d
n
a
NOW
THE AGE OF ROBOTICS
by Tom Carroll
A lot of people speak of the age of robotics. They’ve been doing that
for decades. Sometimes these words are just hype by a book publisher to
promote a book, whereas others are truly convinced that the period in which
they live is the beginning of the age of robotics. They see robots everywhere
in their lives — on TV, in the movies, cleaning their carpets, exploring space,
and building cars world-wide. Figure 1 from the Japan Robot association
illustrates just how fast the robot market is growing. I wanted to capture a
few thoughts from others about their ideas on the age of robotics.
While doing some spring cleaning of my robotics bookcase and file cabinets recently,
I saw several titles of articles and books that spoke
about how robotics was becoming a part of
everyday life. I decided to look at several titles that
spanned several decades to see just how thoughts
and ideas have changed over the years. Some
articles and books spoke glowingly of the “age of
robotics” and how robots would soon be scurrying
about our homes, serving us as mindless slaves to
fulfill our every wish and command. One article
that I reread was in the January ‘07 issue of
Scientific American that captured the eyes of
many robot experimenters, as evidenced by the
many online responses from the various robotics
groups.
The cover of the
magazine (shown in
Figure 2) boldly
stated: “Dawn of the
Age of Robots Bill
Gates writes that every
home will soon have
smart mobile devices”
introduced the article.
FIGURE 2. Scientific
American — Dawn of
the Age of Robots.
and steel robot that was interestingly posed to
capture the interest of newsstand magazine
buyers. The article was titled A Robot in Every
Home and Gates detractors immediately jumped
on his writing, stating that ‘this software guy did
not know anything about robotics.’ Supporters
looked a bit deeper and realized that he truly did
have insights into home robots, just as he did for
home computers 30 years prior. The
FIGURE 1.
Worldwide
Robot Market
from the
Japan Robot
Association.
SERVO 06.2010 77
