FEATURE |
rise
robots of
the
T
hey have mastered the art of poker, helped write a cookbook and can cope with a basic conversation. The decision by a Japanese bank to staff their front-desk with a bevy of robots is just the latest in a series of advances and predictions that at times appear to suggest we will all be replaced, professionally and socially, by automatons.
Before mourning or rejoicing over the imminent demise of the entire legal and other professions, it is worth noting that these machines only do well at responding to certain predictable questions. Like the iPhone’s Siri, if you ask the right things, it sounds quite competent, but a lot of the time the responses are plain silly.
Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google, has estimated that robots will reach human levels of intelligence by 2029, purportedly leaving us about 14 years to reign supreme. So, how far are we along this trajectory?
The next step, elusive thus far, is developing a program that actually understands the meaning of words and phrases. Computer scientists generally concede that jokes and sarcasm are still utterly beyond computers.
The increase in computing prowess during the past decade has expanded the kinds of tasks computers can undertake independently. IBM’s Watson computer, which won the US quiz show Jeopardy! in 2011, is being successfully applied to medical diagnosis. By mining medical research papers available online and analysing diagnostic images, it can outperform doctors in some tasks. Most recently, the same machine has been transformed in to an “artificial lawyer”, which can search legal databases and correspondence for possibly relevant information.
Beyond purely intellectual tasks, the physical capability of robots is also rapidly advancing. Improved processing of visual information means that driverless cars are now on the horizon and a glance at some of the galloping and armoured machines developed by Boston Dynamics gives a sinister hint of the military potential. But the best technology today still performs far worse on skills such as dexterity and balance – attributes that come naturally to humans. Engineers can just about build a robot capable of loading a dishwasher or taking out the rubbish, for instance, but at
>> timeline: what events does the future predict will happen?
12
3D printing becomes a mainstream consumer technology.
ADVANCED TVS
2020
Consumer devices are now seen with 100Gbit/s transfer speeds.
3D PRINTING
2019
Sales of electric and hybrid trucks reach 100,000 annually.
INTERNET SPEED
2018
The mining industry is starting to become highly automated.
HYBRID TRUCKS
2017
2016
AUTOMATION
Holographic TVS are now available for purchase.