Robots: Real life Vs. Science Fiction

       We've all read about and seen on television different robots with different jobs and different abilities, their main purpose being machines who help us with our everyday life. Now today we can look around and think that having a functioning robot is a far away dream that may never happen in our life time, but surprisingly there are a great number of functioning robots that are being used today that would make a number of science fiction books look like a thing from the past. From delivering items to reminding someone of an appointment and even reading a child a bedtime story, robots are beginning to appear all around the world. As the current computer robotics industries grow there is a lot of speculation as to whether are not these current robots are to be taken seriously. Many people out there are calling these robots 'servants', but to serve is not what many of the them are designed to do. Most are designed to interact with us, some doing it very well. The real question behind these robots is why are they being created to serve mentally rather than physically as we always thought? Are we as a society so dependent on technology that creating a artificial intelligence to connect and interact with us is the next stage for our social conduct? Are we using the term 'robot' as an excuse to build new technologies that make us think like we are being productively social simply because we aren't looking at a phone or computer screen.

    Now I know personally that when        

I think the word 'robot' an image of 

something that resembles a human comes to mind, something that runs errands and helps around the house. When it comes to current robots who can do these sort of jobs we are very limited in the technology, but that does not mean that there is nothing in that field. This first robot here is called an A.L.O Botlr and he is a hotel concierge. One of it's biggest jobs at the Aloft Hotel in California is to help with delivering items to guests in their rooms. At 3-feet tall, 100 pounds on wheels this Botlr has a 7 inch tablet that lets people interact with it. Along with 4G and Wifi, this concierge has a built in 3D camera that lets it move around the hotel efficiently on it's own. This is the kind of robot that many would come to use the word 'servant' for thinking that using this machine as something that we don't need as a society, and when it comes to robots as simple as this one it is really is a personal opinion on today's technology. They are not much like the scientific dream we have, but it is a start.

     

     Unlike in the physical uses for today's robots we are much further ahead in computer robotics that focus more around a person mentally. Communicating through voices, faces and gestures we recognize, there is a far wider range of robots who are capable of having a conversation with you rather then going to pick up your dry-cleaning. There is already a small market for these types of robots. And that is why I would like you to meet Jibo. Jibo has been introduced as the world's first family robot. 

     Jibo is a small robot that is meant to be talked to. He has his own voice and his own personality. Jibo is one of the very first of his kind as he can see, hear, speak, help, learn and relate to a person. Now these all can seem frighteningly like human characteristics, and that is how he is meant to be programmed. He has a very unique social aspect to him. With many more like him more suited towards being social around us, it leaves many in wonder of how these robots are going to develop through out the next up coming years, and how it's social abilities are going to change. My question is are these changes going to be for the better? Is this going to be like when the first iPhone was released? Are these and others like Jibo now going to be a part of people's home on a regular basis.

     We humans as a society have already proclaimed that the technology of today is taking away from the very means that we use to socialize with each other. We would rather be looking down at a screen then face to face with another person. These new advancements to robotics are seen as the new step forward towards machines that can help our daily lives. But unlike in science fiction, are these real life robots about to become a fake way for us to think that we are being productively social simply because we aren't looking at a phone or computer screen. Is that to the ways life is or is all of this nothing more than the plot of another sci-fi book.