Future Robots

[Charles Nolan]

G'Day All,

Do you think that an advanced civilization would build robots out of metal as Lucas imagined in Star Wars?  Borgs, as in Star Trek, might be more likely.  There is rumor that the Grey's are not reproductive intelligent beings, but instead biological androids that respond to telepathic commands, and use carefully written AI.

At a recent talk at PARC, one of the panelists complained that we are seeing much less science fiction, which the panel agreed is reducing the active imagination that inspires new technologies.

I attended a pitch meeting, where one startup claims to have a "Tricorder", a handheld medical scanner and treatment device.  They got the seed funding that they were looking for.

Best Wishes,

Charles Nolan

[Chris Albertson]

How advanced of a civilization?     I assume given enough time, robots’ materials will be made from mixtures of nano particles yjst interlock at the molecular level and form a composite, and each part will use a different mix of materials that is exactly suited to the need of that part.     By the time this happens, there might be a mandate that EVERY manufactured object be 100% recyclable with zero waste.  If so, that could change the preferred materials.  

What will dramatically change robot design would be high-temperature superconductors.   If this ever happens, we might have motors that can generate huge amounts of power with zero waste heat. i^2*r losses would be zero for any i because r=0.     I don’t think robots need much stronger materials, but better power density could never hurt.

The other advance in technology that will happen sooner or later is quantum computing.    This can shorten search times and replace data centers.   But large and powerful quantum computers are likely not going to happen in this century.

That said, who cares about the mechanics?   Today, it is the AI that is the bottleneck, and we see no end of this in sight.  I’d say the mechanical part of robots is a solved problem.

As for Science Fiction, one thing all fiction has to do is tell a story.  It has to be comprehensible to the audience.     This is why in Star Trek the captain speaks his commands out loud.   It is not because he does not have his own “fire the photon torpedo” button and has to ask someone else to press it for him.  It is so the audience knows they are firing a photon torpedo.   The writers said exactly that.  Most of the sci-fi gadgets are plot devices.  So why did Star Wars have metal robots? Because that is what the audience expected, and the director wanted the audience to see in a second it was a robot.      Same reason, the space ships make jet airplane sounds, so you know what is happening.

[Stephen Williams]

How do we go to these talks at PARC?  Or see them online?
I am still on the mailing list for certain computer science talks at Stanford, which sometimes have interesting subjects.

There will be cheapest, lightest, toughest, longest lasting, water / everything proof, and other variations.  Some of those will be easily recyclable, or maybe most of those in terms of the internals.  There will likely be a lot of silicone.

This is a great explanation of everything around silicone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDkQza6e1EY

"mixtures of nano particles that just interlock at the molecular level" is a good description of polymers.  Composites can mean a number of things, but usually a polymer or epoxy (which is a kind of polymer I think) along with some kind of fiber.  Carbon fiber can be organic, recyclable in a way.

Outside of factory robotics, I think we will gravitate toward robots that are very lightweight, can be maintained easily, and parts of them should be easily reusable & recyclable.  Ideally, the parts that are not should be inexpensive and non-toxic, including silicone.

We have interesting capable humanoid robots now, although the hand solution is still up for grabs.  But we do not have any practical humanoid robots yet, for most purposes.  We have enough to get started on the AI/ML, and people are.  We are far from a 'must buy' robotic solution beyond a few tiny niches.

There is some good scifi, and some of it covers robotics & avatars to some extent.  Perhaps because things are getting close, becoming real, it is less fun to project into the future?  Or perhaps now we need inventor / futurist / storytellers to craft an interesting story that tracks well and holds up over time.  Perhaps the futuristic "magic" scifi requires is fading as reality eats away at the edges.

sdw

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Stephen D. Williams Founder: VolksDroid, Blue Scholar Foundation 650-450-8649 | fax:703-995-0407 | s...@lg.net | https://VolksDroid.org | https://BlueScholar.org | https://sdw.st/in