What level of intelligence, how autonomous and humanoid (outwardly, internally)?

As you probably see, the first such robots are already coming , which (who) aim some level of these attributes. https://yourstory.com/2018/12/top-three-predictions-humanoid-robots-2019/ I've already met Pepper who is already in mass production. AkinRobotics opened mass production factory more than one year ago. Sophia the robot created by Hanson Robotics, will be in mass production in the very near future: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/333894 , https://qrius.com/humanoid-robots-four-predictions-for-2019/ . If you thought more intelligent, autonomous, humanoid robots, then you still might have to wait little bit.

AI enhanced robots exist at the moment. There is no doubt more advanced robots with mass production will be produced. In a decade time world would be definitely different dramatically. AI enhanced robots will definetly replace some of the human labor in the near future in many areas sinch as medicine, business, architecture, transportation, construction, defence and even in social sciences etc. You would come across even a novel writer robots as well. There will be more “Robocop” type fighting robots out there. It’s a bit scary but the direction towards “a robotic world” seems to be inevitable. As Alon Musk states how we will control it , will be a difficult and may be a daunting task. Man thanks bringing up this interesting topic here Dariusz Prokopowicz

There are many questions to answers, among them:

- Mechanical design

Atlas from Boston Dynamics demonstrates that we are not too far from having a very reliable mechanical platform. Please note that the dynamics of Atlas is governed by "traditional (non linear) control algorithms" and that Reinforement learning is far far from being able to generate the same level of performances.

- Energy/autonomy

This is a big issue because if you need your robot to recharge after one hour of duty, people will not use it.

- Artificial intelligence

Well, there are a lot to say here, because it covers natural language, scene understanding, reasoning, manipulation, navigation... although impressive progress have been made in some areas, there are still a lot to do to develop a "robotics maid"!

- Business model

be able to design a humanoid robot is one thing, be able to create a sustainable business model is another thing and you need it if you want to be profitable as a company. If you want to adress mass market, you need to figure out the price a family can afford versus the services delivered by the humanoid robot.

We can see that some companies are following that way:

Agility Robotics, spin off from OSU, created Cassie and now Digit that will help to create: “A fleet of autonomous vehicles will deliver packages to your curb; a robot will take it to your doorstep. The entire system will be fast, delivering groceries in time for dinner; it will be less expensive than shopping in a store; and it will utilize existing roads and walkways. Automated delivery logistics will revolutionize the retail market.” - see website (http://www.agilityrobotics.com/meet-digit) for more information.

Boston Robotics is also working hard for selling Spot: https://www.theverge.com/2019/6/5/18653710/boston-dynamics-first-commercial-robot-spot-demo-amazon-remars-conference-marc-raibert

But (1) these robots are not for end-users and (2) have been designed to tackle specific tasks.

- Social acceptation

Surveys held in Japan and the US have indicated that there are huge differences of opinion when it comes to what humanoid robots should to look like. The Japanese really seem to want the robots to be indistinguishable from humans while people in the West generally prefer to know that they are dealing with a robot.

- Ethic/Moral

Although we are becoming increasingly used to autonomous or semi-autonomous technology, we still need to ensure embedded AI makes decisions compatible with our human values. The decisions need to be properly structured so that they don’t turn the horrors we see in movies into reality.

- Ethical Societal Challenges

Future jobs:

* People may become unemployed because of automation

* How much and in what way are we going to work with increased automation?

- Law:

Another challenge is the matter of responsibility. As long as a robot or other machine is owned by someone and instructed by that person to perform tasks, the worst that could happen is that the owner is faced with product or user liability if something goes wrong.

Conclusions

The first legitimate question to ask is: do we need such robots or can we develop simpler and CHEAPER robots that can cooperate to do the same things?

By answering this question:

- iRobot becomes profitable and successful in designing a robot which is really usefull in a home, i.e, Roomba

- Amazon is developping wheeled robots and actively works on a manipulator arm able to pick up any kind of products that will be packed by another one. It is even sponsoring a contest in that category every year.

Assuming that there are (niche) markets for these robots, first they will be designed to achieve a very well define set of tasks for a very precise purpose - first market will be in the military arena and may be within 10 years you may see some of them out there. Although they may prefer to go for quadrupeds instead.

regarding the Domestic market, give a timeframe is useless, there are two many questions which remain unanswered, the technology is not ready yet and unless you can define an affordable price, i.e., what a end-user is able to pay with respect to the offered services, it will not work.

To resume: build a robot which can do anything is (still) a chimera and the industry (and research) is focusing on specialized robots and how they can cooperate together.

Dear Colleagues and Friends from RG,

In the context of the above issues, I am asking you the following question: In what areas of industry, in what branches of the economy will autonomous robots be built based on advanced solutions of artificial intelligence technology?

Please reply

Hi Dariusz

you are not talking about humanoid robots but autonomous robots in general, they can fly, run with wheels...

The first one which comes to my mind is retail and warehouses - which is already the case with amazon for instance. More and more autonomous robots will be deployed in warehouses to unload trucks for instance with autonomous worklifts, move stuffs around and even in a near future get the items anyone ordered and pack it.

The second one is factories, Apple is relocating factories in USA to make iphones and it is almost completely autonomous. The same for cars is coming.

The agriculture will be impacted as well with autonomous vehicles picking up vegetables and or fruits from trees for instance.

Of course everybody is thinking about autonomous cars but to be honest 2020/2022 is probably optimistic.

Fabrice

What level of intelligence ?