Robots

I just read an article in National Geographic about robots titled "Us. And Them."(I have a link to the website of pictures of the robots in the article here).  It talked about many different robots all of different intelligence.  I found this article really interesting.  It was a little creepy seeing the different pictures and how alike they are to humans.  In the picture where the guy is talking to the robot woman's head is really weird.  She is so lifelike!  A statistic that really worries me is that in five or ten years robots will be routinely functioning in human environments!  That's a little scary!
The first robot the article talked about is Actroid-DER.  It, the robot, is a girl and was developed in Japan.  She can talk to humans and looks like one too.  The article says she has a habit of appearing to nod off momentarily as if she were on something stronger than electricity.  I thought that was funny.  The second robot was HERB, standing for Home Exploring Robotic Butler.  He has wheels for legs and a computer for a body.  He actually thinks and "dreams".  In his system is a video camera and a laser navigation device and has pressure sensitive system like human tendons.  He is a gentle robot.  He first scans objects and determines what they are.  Then he has to decide how he is going to approach the object.  He keep a memory of all the objects and environments he has experienced and puts those to use when he meets something new.  This just like humans when we learn from past experiences.  This technology could be very useful.  Also in the article it talked about a guy reproducing himself as a robot to be in two different places at once.  I think this is a little extreme, but if you have the money to do it, well go ahead.  Another robot they talked about was military grade robots.  These robots would be trained to shoot guns.  In order to do this they would have to determine what is a dangerous situation and what is not.  They would use video cameras to do this and would work out different scenarios in their "heads".  Of course, a human could override the robots decision.
I am glad that this technology is in the future.  I don't think our world is ready for artificial intelligence.  I think it is weird that the robots can "think" for themselves, but really it is humans all along.  There could be some bad people out there run robots and could do really bad.  In conclusion, after reading this article, I am not ready for robots.