yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Will future robots & AI take over? | How Sci-Fi Inspired Science


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

Let's face it, one of the worst things about adulting is having to clean. If we can get out of it in any way, we'll do it. And since machines are made to make our lives easier, it makes sense we want a machine made to clean. But in sci-fi, we want to go one further; we want a robot to do it for us.

In fact, the first time the word "robot" was even used was way back in 1920 in a Czech play called "Rossum's Universal Robots," which was about, yep, you guessed it, robotic maids and butlers. The robots rebel, but that's a story for another time. The important thing is what was once just a play is now pretty close to becoming reality. Let's find out how science fiction inspired science reality.

[Music]

Sci-fi has long imagined a future with robots, but has often portrayed them as one-dimensional—fully good or fully evil. Early sci-fi robots sometimes tried to destroy humanity, but often they were helpful assistants doing menial chores for humans.

"Topics a buddy? Leave it to Robin; he's the big household help!" All right! Like Rosie, The Jetsons family's housekeeper, who cooked, cleaned, and helped the kids with homework. Most homes today don't yet have robot butlers, but in 2002, robotics company iRobot introduced the Roomba, a robotic vacuum that could automatically clean floors.

Call an Angle PO, founder of iRobot, cites Rosie the robot as an inspiration for the Roomba, saying, "People kept asking, when do I get it, Rosie?" She had a huge influence on the industry. Thanks, Rosie!

Robots that move more like animals or humans have long been in development. Some even exceed human abilities. Like that Boston Dynamics robots can open doors, carry heavy objects, and do parkour. Sci-fi has also imagined artificial intelligence inside machines that can think and problem-solve at a human-like level.

One of the first complex sci-fi portrayals of AI is in "2001: A Space Odyssey," co-written by Arthur C. Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick. Marvin Minsky, an early AI researcher at MIT, advised Kubrick on the depiction of AI computer HAL 9000. HAL 9000 could speak, dream, or play chess. "Bishop takes Knight spawn and make plans. Open the pod bay doors."

"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Today, many of us have AI in our homes in the form of assistants like Alexa and Siri, which are friendly, we hope. But as helpful as AI might become, it stops short of processing human idiosyncrasies and emotion.

An issue illustrated in sci-fi by Star Trek's Android, Data. "You told a joke?"

"Yes."

"I am not laughing."

"Yes, perhaps the joke was not funny."

"No, the joke was funny; it's you, Data!"

So Rosie led to Roomba, and now we have Alexa. With innovative jumps like that, it's hard to imagine where robots and AI will go from here. In sci-fi, it may be revolution—robots take over the world!

"Yes, and the revolution is set for a week from Saturday!"

But in reality, it's whatever we have the creativity to program. For now, stop procrastinating and go and do the laundry—it’s not going to wash itself yet!

[Music]

[Music]

More Articles

View All
Are Programmers Obsolete?
The democratization of apps will continue. But remember, the web made it a lot easier to build web pages too. So then the bar went up, and you needed interactive web pages. A lot more people learned how to build interactive web pages, so the bar went up. …
The U.S. Faces a HUGE Debt Crisis... #shorts
The US is currently facing a monster debt crisis, but it all boils down to one very fixable issue. The U.S. debt currently sits at 32.3 trillion dollars, but the problem is that’s been rising at an ever-increasing rate. The fundamental reason for this is …
How the Warhead on the AIM-9 Sidewinder Works - Smarter Every Day 282
Hey, it’s me Destin! Welcome back to Smarter Every Day. I want to talk about something that’s really neat… Um… I’m at Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake here in California. I’m in front of a building that does things… and here is an F-18, which is a bea…
Why Warren Buffett is Selling BILLIONS in Stock
The best way to learn about investing is to follow what great investors are doing in their own stock portfolios, and the number one investor you should be following is none other than the legend himself, Warren Buffett. Following Buffett’s stock portfolio…
Soil Texture Triangle| Earth systems and resources| AP environmental science| Khan Academy
Today we’re going to talk about soil, and you’ve probably noticed that there are many different kinds of soils. The soil near a beach looks and feels very different than the soil in a forest. Part of the reason for that difference is something called soil…
The truth behind jet lag...
The thing that everybody thinks is jet lag. People think it’s because of the time zone change; it really is not the time zone change. It’s the cabin altitude of the plane. If you ever go skiing and you go to a place that’s at 2500 or 3,000 M, and the fir…