Study Says 4.1M Domestic Robots In Use By 2007 218
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."
Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
Another type of robots (Score:5, Insightful)
(I'm only partially kidding.)
Yeah, right (Score:4, Insightful)
I predict painfully slow progress in robotics, and a vast increase in tech support when they first become prevailent.
Re:Yup (Score:5, Insightful)
In terms of maturity, the technology behind household robots is a lot closer to producing affordable units than that behind flying cars.
What is a robot? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yup (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Let me be the first to say... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Hmmm... multiply, carry the one... There it is... in 2007, there will be a grand total of SEVEN household robots.
Nothing times a billion is still nothing. I would hardly call it a surge.
Re:What is a robot? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What is a robot? (Score:5, Insightful)
An appliance can have a large degree of intelligence, but is generally an object that does not move about after installation.
Ie: a dishwasher that plays chess on a screen is an "appliance". A dishwasher that plays chess by actually moving the pieces about on the board (via articulated arms, etc) is a "robot".
Re:Simple, the tiniest bit of intelligence. (Score:2, Insightful)
I think people look at devices that move around of their own accord and they know, "oh, that's a robot." Since appliances just sit there, people will not call them robots no matter how intelligent they are.
Re:Any different when a human screws up? (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you really think that would be any different if it were robots doing the surgery instead of humans?
Re:Yup (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:Yup (Score:3, Insightful)
jobs? (Score:3, Insightful)
In a capitalist society like ours a person is only worth their salt if they provide some valuable labor to society. What will happen to all those people once their jobs are automated. With they be worth any salt?
I personally think that every person is worth more money than we could ever print. They are worth so much because they have within their possession a neural network with decades of programming that allow them to be creative and innovative in ways machines are not yet capable. Besides all that they are human, like me, so they automaticly get a +1 value of anything that is not. However, capitalists don't view the world this way.
I am affraid that these coming robots will displace jobs and the net result will be more poverty which leads to more crime and mental illness.
Wouldn't it be a lot simpler to phase out the existence of money than to attempt to make enough work for everyone to keep busy?
Perhaps if things get bad enough we will become more open minded to these ideas.
Similarly if you want people to be happy don't force them to live in poverty. Want to prevent crime, prevent homeless and jobless environments. Want to stop terrorism, don't shoot their relatives, provide them a better way of live by sharing and giving.
We would be a lot more productive if we didn't spend all our time counting coins, IMHO. What if we invested that time, instead, in building robots and automating labor?