What if robots took over the world?

Everyone knows (or should!) that Honda has tipped their hat to Isaac Asimov by naming their robot line Asimo. For those that have been living in caves for the past 50 years, he inadvertently invented the word ‘robotics’ in his story Runaround. He assumed it already was a word, but he is attributed for the first use of it in a publication. I remember seeing a YouTube video of these little robots a few years ago which caught my eye. This commercial tries to show the ‘human’ side of robots. I highly doubt that all of the actions in the commercial were autonomous, but I can’t see why it won’t be possible in the near future. Considering I am just a few days away from finishing my huge book project in Asimov’s Robot &amp Foundation Universe I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across this.

A quick look to related videos on YouTube showcased a technical demo of some new abilities in the new Asimo robot version. I’m very impressed to see the progress that has been made. Many of the tasks they show are fairly simple, but I think if they can make the robots use power efficiently they will be useful. It’s amazing that probably within 100 years of Asimov’s robot stories there might be a working model similar to his creations. Of course we are a bit behind robot production, since US Robotics and Mechanical Men had positronic robots in production in the 1990s.

Of course there are several videos of failed demonstrations with the Asimo prototypes taking spills while trying to do something as simple as walking up and down stairs. I’m confident that Honda will work out the bugs with the programming and balancing servos sooner or later. I know I will be keeping an eye on development in robotics.

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Wow, looks like I’ve had quite a few hits from StumbleUpon. Hopefully I can get some interesting feedback with this nice spike in visitors.

So, do any of you think that Robots can or will ever become self aware? If so, how soon do you think it could happen given the rapid development of technology? Would humans revolt and ban such machines? Asimov covers that last question in his science fiction, which is one of my favorite themes. Are there any authors you might recommend that focus on human/robot relations?
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I ran across this ad recently for an amazing new product, promoted by my own favorite science fiction author, Isaac Asimov.

Radio Shack’s TRS-80 Pocket Computer turned my dreams into a reality. Now I can take the power of a true computer with me wherever I go.
— Isaac Asimov

The marketing guys chime in a few paragraphs later.

And it can also function just like a calculator — something a desktop computer can’t do.
— Radio Shack

Wait, what!? With a standard calculator included in just about every phone that I can think of, it is hard to imagine a desktop computer ever existing without that ability. Crazy, right? Now that I think of it, it wasn’t too far in the distant past that desktop computers couldn’t be used for voice communications, something a simple phone could do. So what does $169.95 actually get you?

From Dave Dunfield’s old computer page:

The machine was actually a Radio Shack branded version of the Sharp PC-1211, which features:

• Sharp SC43177/SC43178 4-bit CPU running at 256khz
• 1×24 character LCD display
• 57 key “Qwerty” keyboard
• 1.5k of RAM for user program storage
• Pizoelectric buzzer

Be sure to check out the full breakdown at Dave’s TRS-80 Pocket Computer page

As a point of comparison, here are a few highlights of Motorola’s Droid 2 tech specs:

• 1 GHz processor
• 480×854 Pixel display (Characters displayed depends on the font)
• QWERTY keyboard
• 8GB flash (expandable to 32GB)
• Support for stereo bluetooth (not sure if actual speaker is stereo or not)
• 100’s of other features like camera, video capture, streaming video, and get this includes the ability to make phone calls. Sadly though, it can’t make you breakfast… yet.

Let me whip out my calculator on my i7 Desktop Computer! The Droid 2 has a 3,906.25 times faster processor (just based on clock rate, not actual computational power) and has 5,592,405.33 times more storage. That seems crazy right? The TRS-80 pocket computer came out in 1980, about 20 years ago. I wonder how people will feel about our state of the art smartphones in 2020? That is assuming we haven’t been taken over by robots gone wild, destroyed ourselves with nukes, or succumbed to a raging nano-plague. But that is all just science fiction.

Isaac Asimov promotes Radio Shack's TRS-80 Pocket Computer