Study Says 4.1M Domestic Robots In Use By 2007

jangobongo writes "The U.N.'s annual World Robotics Survey for 2004 predicts that there will be a seven-fold surge in household robots by the end of 2007. Robots that mow your lawn, vacuum, wash windows, clean swimming pools, as well as entertainment robots such as Aibo are all vying to take a place in our homes and ease our workload. The study says that Japan is the leader in consumer robotics, with Europe and North America quickly catching up."

Re:four million robotses...

[kid-noodle]

Ahem. Three Laws only apply to the design of positronic brains.

Just to be really fucking pedantic.

Re:What is a robot?

[ultrafunkula]

From the article: "Robot" refers to any machine that operates automatically to perform tasks in a human-like way, often replacing the human workers who did the job previously. I guess a dishwasher wouldn't be covered by this because of the way it performs it's job.

Very prescient

[esconsult1]

I was reading Marshall Brain's essays on the subject yesterday when I caught a gander at the news story.

Check out the series of essays on:

• Manna [marshallbrain.com] software that "runs" service oriented businesses, therefore driving down wages
• Robotic Nation [marshallbrain.com] about how robots are slowly taking over "routine" type jobs.

I'm sure this was covered in Slashdot sometime before, but Marshall's essays are eerie when juxtaposed with this article.

Re:Robots for autistic childeren

[benhocking]

Your concept has validity, but some of your comments are inaccurate. Most autistic children have social skills well above that of a pet, especially if they are in an Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) program that addresses these skills. In fact, of the more than 20 autistic children I know (all of whom are in an ABA program), ALL of them have social skills above that of a pet. (I'm going to stop using that comparison now, because it's beginning to bother me.)

I think where this idea has the most merit, however, is in an ABA program itself. Instructors using ABA do their best to use consistent prompts (or sometimes consistently inconsistent, if they're trying to teach generalization skills) and show no affect when the child acts up. These techniques would be much easier to handle with a robot. However, this robot would need significant AI (to understand if the child has provided a correct response, or if the child is engaging in a behavior that should be extinguished, etc.), but AI that might soon be within our current reach.

And the Study Says... industry

[solodex2151]

Note that according to the study, the vast leading majority of robots are ones used in industry most often for manufacturing (the study mentions the auto industry, but semiconductor fabs are starting to become all robotic as well). The study goes on to say that even though household robots will become more common, the overwhelming majority will still be industrial.

Re:Yup

[danila]

Actually robovacs develop very quickly. It is true that the first versions were basically suck-and-bump, but newer models often have rudimentary navigation based on infrared sensors (they do build a mental map of the room) and most newer robots (including Aibos) can locate the charger (the most important feature for their autonomy). The newest Roomba can "see" dirt underneath and understand in which areas it needs to suck most, so to speak.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[jdhutchins]

n/0 is not infinity, it is undefined. In math, you cannot divide by zero. You can take limits as the denominator approaches zero, but that is a completely different story. The limit of a function as it approaches a number is irrelivant of the value of the function at that number.

Re:Let me be the first to say...

[Stealth Potato]

Therefore if you had sin(x)/x as x -> 0 * billion it would equal a billion.

Um, no it wouldn't. Zero times one billion is still zero. Furthermore, sin(0)/0 does not equal 1, it is undefined. The limit of sin(x)/x as x goes to zero is 1, but that doesn't change the fact that you can't divide by zero. Now, if you take the value of that limit and multiply by 1 billion, the result will be 1 billion, because 1 times 1 billion equals 1 billion. Like this: (lim(sin(x)/x,x,0)*10^9 = 10^9, because the first part (the limit) is equal to one. What you are indicating is the multiplication of the zero, the limiting value for x. Zero times a billion is zero, so you're taking the limit as x approaches zero, which is, surprise surprise, 1.