Don't Hold Your Breath Waiting For That Robot Butler!

Remember when you were little and the concept of a mechanical man not only seemed like a possibility, it was a probability! Science fiction stories, feature film, television series, and especially Saturday morning cartoons had these remarkable depictions of humanoid robots performing tasks that varied in importance from life-saving heroic acts, to time-saving labor done efficiently and effectively. It’s 2015, so we must be really close to making that a reality, right? Not hardly.

Photo credit: Foter / CC BY-SA

The fact is that humanoid robots are still quite literally in their infancy. It has taken the better part of twenty years and millions of dollars to develop Asimo, the first robot capable of independent movement like a human being. Robots similar to Asimo have been programed to perform simple tasks, such as throwing a ball or picking up objects, but these robots lack the ability to go outside of their programming in the event that conditions become different.

Don’t despair just yet, my technology loving friend! Modern research has gone into teaching robots how to “learn” from the multitude of variations that it might encounter while performing any particular activity. This learning curve will shorten with time, but environmental conditions, such as variations in lighting, can throw a monkey wrench into the gear works, as it were.

The Japanese government believes so intently on the inevitability of full-functioning humanoid robots that it has begun funding towards the research and development of these yet to be seen technological marvels. With and aging workforce, Japan sees robots as a necessity for performing manual labor tasks and even perhaps to help care for aging citizens. With top level support like this, the future bodes well for robotic research, it just might not happen as soon as we’d hoped.

In the meantime, you can still daydream about having your own real-life R2-D2, or robot butler, or even a…*cough* *cough*… mechanical “significant other”, but for now it will be just that, the stuff of dreams.